Papers Relating to the Foreign Relations of the United States, Transmitted to Congress, With the Annual Message of the President, December 4, 1876
No. 291.
Mr. Cushing to Mr. Fish.
Madrid, April 12, 1876. (Received May 3.)
Sir: I have the satisfaction of now transmitting to you herewith copy and translation of a note just received from the minister of state, by which you will learn that the King’s government, doubtless moved thereto by the recent pressing communications of mine on the subject, official and unofficial, * * * * * * * has at length taken decisive steps to relieve itself of the embarrassments produced by the delays, whether of willfulness or of negligence only, of the council of war in the matter of the arraignment of Burriel and his associates for the outrages committed at Santiago de Cuba.
Legal forms in most countries are the great impediment to the administration of justice. In Spain it is just announced only now that, after the expiration of more than five years, the prosecution of the assassins of Prim is about to pass from its preliminary stage of preparation (sumario) into that of action, (plenario;) and we in the United States have had a similar case of juridical procrastination in the matter of Tweed.
I do not intend, if it be possible to prevent it, to suffer further delays in the present matter; and therefore propose to continue to follow up the question urgently, and in sign thereof have addressed a note to the minister of state, a copy of which is annexed.
I have, &c.,
Mr. Calderon y Collantes to Mr. Cushing.
The Palace, April 11, 1876. (Received April 11, 8 p.m.)
Excellency: I have the honor to pass to the hands of your excellency the accompanying copy of the communication which, under this date, I address to my colleague, the minister of war, asking him to be pleased to dictate the opportune orders, to the end that there be initiated in this capital the proceeding in conformity with the clause of the protocol of Washington to which the said communication refers.
I avail myself, &c.,
Excellency: The grave question to which the capture of the Virginius in the waters of the island of Cuba gave rise terminated with a protocol, signed in Washington on the 29th day of November, 1873, between Rear-Admiral Don José Polo de Bernabé, as the representative and envoy extraordinary and minister plenipotentiary of Spain near that Government, and Hamilton Fish, as the Secretary of State. One of the clauses of that protocol is literally as follows:
“It being understood that Spain will proceed, according to the second proposition made to General Sickles, and communicated in his telegram read to Admiral Polo on the 27th instant, 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.”
Subsequently, in the note addressed on the 3d day of December, 1874, by our minister of state to the minister plenipotentiary of the United States at this court, a statement was made, which is also literally as follows:
“The government desires and is disposed to comply in every point with all the stipulations contained in the protocol of the 29th of November, 1873, (which is the one I have just cited;) and considering the contents of the second proposition made by (sic) your excellency’s predecessor in your legation as one of the elements of the complete and final settlement of the question which occupies us, it will proceed to give the proper orders to the end that, by the competent tribunal, shall be instituted an inquiry with respect to the conduct of the authorities of Santiago de Cuba who intervened in the conduct of the trial and sentence of the American citizens who were executed in that city, exacting of them the responsibility which they may have incurred for infractions of law or of international treaties.”
The present is not the fitting occasion for examining the protocol referred to; it suffices to know that it constitutes an obligation on the part of the Spanish government, ratified, although it was not necessary to do so in order to comprehend that it must be religiously fulfilled with promptitude and in good faith, although, for causes foreign, doubtless, to the will of the government of His Majesty, it has not yet come to be executed after the long period of time which has elapsed. This is demanded by the consideration and respect which we owe to all friendly nations and governments, and by the honor of Spain, involved in the loyal fulfillment of her pledges.
With this object, there was requested, through the worthy predecessor of your excellency, a report (informe) from the supreme council of war, and the latter, in its turn, called for it from the fiscal tribunal of the same branch of service in the island of Cuba; which report has not yet been rendered.
This delay cannot justify the backwardness of the fulfillment of the compact made with the government of the United States; and therefore, by order of His Majesty the King, (whom may God guard!) I have the honor to address myself to your excellency, in order that you be pleased to dictate the opportune orders to the end that there be immediately initiated in this capital the proceedings in conformity with the above-inserted clause of the protocol of Washington.
This being done, the fiscal of the tribunal, or else the person who may be named according to the prescriptions of our military law, can call for the data and documents of reports which he may judge necessary in order to insure the justice of the finding which may result; and even if it should appear that it is another tribunal which ought to have cognizance in the matter, there can and should be remitted to the latter, according to the legal prescriptions and incontrovertible jurisprudence in this respect, the papers and proof which may have been obtained.
The gravity and urgency of this matter lead me to hope, in view of the enlightenment and rectitude of your excellency, that you will not delay the adoption of the [Page 532] measures I have just indicated, communicating the same to me, in order that I may make them known to the minister plenipotentiary of the United States at this court.
God grant your excellency many years.
The Señor Minister of War.
Mr. Cushing to Mr. Calderon y Collantes.
Madrid, April 12, 1876.
Sir: I have received with lively satisfaction your excellency’s note of the 11th instant, informing me of the decisive step adopted in the affair of Santiago de Cuba, and have lost no time in communicating the same to my Government, which will not fail to see in this act proof of the good faith and sense of justice of His Majesty’s government.
Your excellency’s communication to the ministry of war sets forth in language unanswerable the considerations of national honor which induce the present action. I cannot permit myself to doubt that not those weighty considerations only, but the sentiment of public duty as well, for which his excellency the minister of war is so highly distinguished, will impel him to give immediate effect to this explicit instance of the King’s government in the premises. Will your excellency permit roe to add some pertinent suggestions?
The government of His Majesty has thus far been eminently one of national reparation, of political reconstitution, of social re-organization for much-afflicted Spain. It has victoriously subdued armed rebellion in Valencia, Cataluña, Navarra, and the Basque provinces. It has maintained domestic order in the residue of Spain. It has resolutely encountered that greatest of all other dangers for Spain in modern times, the convocation of the Cortes and the discussion of a new written constitution. It sincerely aims to accomplish the great and difficult object of reconciling freedom with order, tolerance with religion. It desires that, without ceasing to cultivate manifestations of high intelligence, eloquence, literature, science, the fine arts, Spaniards should learn also to cultivate material interests in common with the other great peoples of Europe. It labors to counteract the hereditary predisposition of Spaniards to revolts, to insurrections, to civil war, and to persuade them to believe that
Peace hath her victories no less renowned than war.
In fine, His Majesty’s government would fain lead Spain onward and upward to her merited seat in the grand concert of the civilized nations of the world, through the “golden gate” of dignity, honor, and self-respect; to do which it needs that she shall at all hazards acquire stability of domestic government; that she shall cease to squander her resources in sterile civil wars; in fine, that she shall possess herself in order that her voice may again be as potential, if not as it was in the heroic days of the Catholic kings and of Charles I, yet at least as much so as in the hardly less glorious ones of Charles III.
Are not such the lofty and patriotic aspirations of His Majesty and of his government? I know they are. And hence it is that, to-day, Spain receives from all the foreign powers of Europe and America, monarchical and republican alike, testimonies of reawakening confidence, such as she has not heretofore enjoyed since the commencement of her public disasters in the flagitious invasion of her by foreign armies in the execution of the semi-insane projects of ambition of the Emperor Napoleon.
Will Spain succeed in this mighty effort to at length repossess herself, and so to convert the hopes of other nations respecting her into assured faith? I sincerely trust that she will; and this last act of His Majesty’s government encourages me in this respect. For permit me to say, not the United States only, but other powers also, have been waiting for more than two years in solicitous expectation of some government in Spain, having will and strength to execute international conventions involving the possible censure of an officer of the Spanish army.
The United States, Great Britain, Germany, do not hesitate to try, to cashier, and if need be to execute an officer of the army or navy guilty of dereliction of duty, especially if the act be injurious to foreign powers.
We, of the United States, republic as we are, have done this repeatedly, and in signal cases, at the instance of Spain. And shall regenerated Spain fail in this respect? No, says my Government; no, say other governments, not if she has in truth entered on the path of regeneration.
I touch, and but touch, on a point of the domestic policy of Spain, because it is or the essence of the pending question between the two governments.
It may be that the considerations adduced in this note are outside of the cold and stiff commonplaces of ordinary diplomatic discussion. Be it so. But those considerations do but present the true arguments on which the pending question turns. And [Page 533] must the discussion between two friendly governments be so restricted by vain diplomatic forms as to be forced to pretermit all arguments of reality and truth? No; a thousand times no; provided the two governments sincerely desire, as we do, to maintain good understanding.
In other fields of discussion we make use of the arguments which the conditions of the question require and which we deem the best fitted to express our own conviction and to produce similar conviction in the minds of others. Why, in the most important of all discussions, diplomatic argument between sovereign states, involving, of course, possible issues of peace and war, should we be deprived of the full use of reason?
Thus to sacrifice substance to supposed exigencies of mere form would be, according to one of the current proverbs of my country, to represent the drama of “The Prince of Denmark” with the part of Hamlet omitted; or, localizing the illustration, to give “La vida es sueño,” leaving out the prince.
I venture, therefore, with reservation at the same time of all possible intention of respect for His Majesty’s government and for your excellency, to put forward what, in my opinion, is the impressive aspect of the present subject, and which it would be insincere in me not to express in plain words, in a conjuncture where distinct perception of the truth is of equal moment to both governments.
Meantime I assume that the ministry of war will promptly respond to the incitation addressed to it by your excellency, and that thus an apparently limited, but really grave, question will cease to encumber the relations of our respective governments.
I augur still more good from this manly act, namely, that His Majesty’s government will now, relieved as it is of its enormous burden of civil war in the Peninsula, incline itself to adopt wise measures for the termination of the deplorable contest in Cuba, which, while pre-eminently calamitous for Spain, is likewise, although in a less degree, a calamity for the United States.
I avail myself, &c.,