Papers Relating to the Foreign Relations of the United States, Transmitted to Congress, With the Annual Message of the President, December 4, 1876
No. 286.
Mr. Cushing to Mr. Fish.
Madrid, October 6, 1875. (Received October 29.)
Sir: I annex hereto copy of a note on the matter of Burriel, presented to the minister of state, after seeing him by appointment, as described in my No. 579 of this date.
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I have, &c.,
Mr. Cushing to the minister of state.
Madrid, October 4, 1875.
Sir: I am under the disagreeable necessity of once more asking the attention of His Majesty’s government to the matter of D. Juan Burriel and the other authorities of Cuba compromised in the affair of the Virginius.
To begin, let me remind your excellency that, according to the protocol signed at Washington on the 29th of November, 1873, by the Secretary of State of the United States and the Spanish minister D. José Polo de Bernabé, it was expressly and unequivocally stipulated that Spain will “proceed * * * * to investigate the conduct of those of her authorities who have infringed Spanish laws or treaty obligations, and will arraign them before competent courts and inflict punishment on those who may have offended.”
On assuming charge of this legation, in May, 1874, I found that the Spanish government had not yet taken any steps in execution of the above-cited stipulation.
Accordingly, on the 19th of June, 1874, I addressed a note to his excellency D. Augusto Ulloa, the then minister of state, calling his attention especially to a publication on the subject by D. Juan Burriel, to which Mr. Ulloa replied.
Subsequently, on the 24th of September, 1874, I addressed to Mr. Ulloa a second note, discussing the main question, and representing the enormity of the crimes against the obligations of treaty and the laws of Spain, and of humanity itself, which had been perpetrated at Santiago de Cuba, and respectfully appealed to the Spanish governmen to execute its relative convention with the United States.
In this note I suggested, further, that on several signal occasions, for the satisfaction of Spain, the United States had tried and condemned officers of more importance than D. Juan Burriel, and guilty of less offenses; nay, that those officers, unlike D. Juan Burriel, had manfully come forwaid and spontaneously demanded trial, in order to relieve their Government of all embarrassment in the premises.
To this note no specific answer was ever made by Mr. Ulloa, thus impliedly admitting the right and the force of the representations of the United States.
I then addressed to him a third note on the subject, that of November 30, 1874.
Meanwhile, however, another question was pending between the United States and Spain, that of the indemnities claimed by the former on account of the acts of D. Juan Burriel; and at length, on the 3d of December, 1874, while discussing the questions of law involved in the claims of indemnities, Mr. Ulloa, in conclusion, and without discussing at all the precise question of the merits or demerits of D. Juan Burriel, yet engaged that the stipulated investigation of his acts, and the contingent arraignment of him therefor, should proceed, and that the proper orders to that effect would be addressed to the competent tribunal.
On the faith of this engagement, I then took up in the most cordial spirit, and concluded, the negotiation of indemnities with his excellency D. Alejandro Castro, assuming throughout the subsistence and dependency of the stipulated investigation and arraignment of D. Juan Burriel.
No reason of doubt on this point occurred to me until informed by the public newspapers that D. Juan Burriel had been promoted, and even promoted out of course, and with expressions which might well have been construed as express condonenient of the specific offenses committed by him at Santiago de Cuba.
I then addressed to Mr. Castro my note of the 18th of August ultimo, soliciting explanations [Page 522] on this new and unexpected incident, as being a thing apparently in conflict with previous stipulations and engagements for the trial of Burriel.
Mr. Castro promptly replied, with assurances not only that the promotion of D. Juan Burriel involved no purpose of disregard of engagements to the United States, nor any thought of desisting from his trial, but, on the contrary, that the investigation was proceeding, and would proceed, without being affected in any way by that promotion.
It seemed to me that in giving this assurance the government of His Majesty performed an act of high respect for its own dignity, worthy of the traditional hidalguia of Spain.
For inasmuch as no specific reply had been made (or has to this day been made) to so much of my notes of June 27 and September 24, 1874, as emphatically impugned the acts of D. Juan Burriel at Santiago de Cuba, on the ground of being illegal, equally by municipal law and by treaty, and inasmuch as the notes expressly put those acts on the same footing as similar acts of atrocity perpetrated by the Carlists at Olot, at Cuenca, and at Estella, I assumed (and was I not justified in assuming?) that such also was the tacit appreciation of them on the part of the Spanish government.
It seemed to me impossible, therefore, to suppose that such acts would not in due time receive condign punishment.
Accordingly, in the interest of harmony and peace, I accepted these assurances of Mr. Castro, while not failing to convey to him impressions of the extreme gravity of the situation, and of its violent strain on the amicable relations of the two governments.
But on a retrospect of this whole transaction, my Government is of opinion that it has good cause of complaint and remonstrance in the premises, not solely because of the promotion of D. Juan Burriel, but of that promotion in connection with the absence of any ostensible, apparent, or definite action in execution of the protocol of November 29, 1873; in respect of which my instructions are to insist, respectfully, but earnestly, as for a step which my Government might rightfully expect from the high and honorable character of His Majesty’s counselors as a spontaneous act even had the stipulation to that effect made by a previous government not been expressly re-affirmed by that of His Majesty.
Finally, I solicit your excellency’s attention to the subject, in the sincere hope of receiving such explanations as may serve to allay my own solicitude and to tranquillize the dangerous uneasiness existing in the United States.
I avail myself of this occasion to renew to your excellency the assurance of my most distinguished consideration.
His Excellency the Minister of State.