Papers Relating to the Foreign Relations of the United States, Transmitted to Congress, With the Annual Message of the President, December 4, 1883
No. 509.
Mr. Foster
to Mr. Frelinghuysen.
Madrid, November 15, 1883. (Received December 3.)
Sir: I transmit herewith a copy and translation of a note dated the 8th instant, and received on the evening of the 13th, from the minister [Page 797] of state, in partial reply to my several notes of July 2 and 3 last, relative to the claims of American citizens on account of the embargo of their estates in Cuba. The minister says that my notes have been transmitted to the minister of ultramar for explanations of each one of the cases, and that I can understand that the sums claimed and the verification of the allegations of the claimants will necessarily delay the answer which is due to my notes, but he assures me that the cases will be treated with justice and equity.
* * * * * * *
It will be noticed that he refers to the cases as “new claims “presented by me, and as the character of the examination indicated in his note seems to be upon that hypothesis, I have deemed it proper to correct any such misapprehension, and I have accordingly sent to him a note of which I inclose a copy.
In a visit which I made to the ministry of state to-day I called the minister’s attention to the note which I had sent him and urged the importance of the early consideration of the cases. He promised to read my note with care and to give the matter as early examination as was possible.
I am, &c.,
Mr. Gomez to Mr. Foster.
Palace, November 8, 1883.
Excellency: I have informed myself of the notes which your excellency was pleased to address to my predecessor, the Marquis de la Vega de Armijo, at the time minister of state, under dates of the 2d and 3d of July last, claiming in the name of the Government of the Union the return to various American citizens of the property which they possessed in Cuba, embargoed in consequence of certain judicial and gubernative dispositions adopted on account of the insurrection which took place in that island in 1869, and whose return was ordered by the Spanish Government by the decrees of the 12th of July, 1873, and 20th October, 1877.
Your excellency will understand that the importance of the amount claimed in those notes, as well as the necessity to verify its exactness and to ascertain if the claimants, treated in the present case in the same manner as His Majesty’s subjects, have made use of all the measures which Spanish legislation concedes to them for the defense of their interests, and if they have been in fact injured by the authorities in Cuba, against which the interested parties prefer certain charges which the Government can only repel. Meanwhile that they are not justified, all these circumstances tend necessarily to delay the answer due to the notes of your excellency referred to, which have been transmitted by this ministry to that of ultramar, in order that it may be pleased to make the necessary explanations of each one of the cases cited in them.
The Government of His Majesty, which has already paid $1,093,858 on account of the decisions of the commission of arbitration, and which will soon pay $494,860 on account of the late awards of the said commission agreed upon before adjourning, all this in the space of twelve or fourteen years, will examine with equal spirit of rectitude and of justice the new claims presented by your excellency, and will not fail at the same time to treat them with that justness and equity which their importance and proportions may exact after careful examination.
This is all I am able at the moment to state to your excellency, to whom I renew, &c.,
Mr. Foster to Mr. Gomez.
Madrid, November 14, 1883.
Excellency: I have the honor to acknowledge the receipt of your excellency’s note of the 8th instant, relating to the claim of various American citizens arising out of the embargo of their estates in Cuba, and which claims were the subject of my notes of the 2d and 3d of July last.
It is very gratifying to recognize the friendly spirit in which your excellency’s note is couched and to receive the assurance that these claims will be re-examined with rectitude and justice, and that they will be treated with that justness and equity which their importance and proportions may require. From the high spirit of equity and intelligence which has always marked the long and distinguished public service of your excellency, and from the friendly relations which have existed and ever ought to exist between the Governments of Spain and the United States, a no less favorable answer could have been expected; and I congratulate myself that in the discharge of the urgent instructions which I have received from the President of the United States on this subject, I can count upon the conscientious co-operation of your excellency in seeking a fair and early settlement of the questions involved.
But in acknowledging the receipt of the note of the 8th instant I deem it important to call attention without delay to what seems to be some serious misapprehension in said note respecting these claims. They are referred to by your excellency as “new claims” presented by me, and it is to be supposed that, under this impression, it has been thought necessary to refer them to the ministry of ultramar for the investigation specified in the note of the 8th instant. But so far from these being “new claims,” presented by me for the first time, the records of your excellency’s department will show that they have been the subject of frequent and voluminous correspondence between the two Governments for fourteen years past, that the facts and principles involved have been fully and carefully examined and decided in favor of the claimants, and that almost all of them have by name and in detail been considered and favorably adjudged in cabinet councils and made the subject of royal decrees. In my note of July 3 citation is made of the correspondence with your excellency’s department, of the examination had, and of the royal decrees in favor of the claimants. Omitting a reiteration of these notes, I desire to direct attention to some historical facts not therein alluded to, of great importance in connection with these claims, which will convince your excellency that they were not only long since presented to the Spanish Government, but were by it fully examined and definitely decided in favor of the claimants.
As is well known they had their origin in 1869 in the unlawful embargo by the military authorities during the revolution in Cuba. After six years of effort on the part of the Government at Washington and of this legation to bring the cases to a satisfactory settlement, the President of the United States determined that some decided steps should be taken to secure American citizens a prompt restoration of their estates in Cuba and of their property and proceeds appropriated by military force. In accordance with this determination the then Secretary of State, Mr. Fish, addressed an instruction to the minister of the United States in Madrid, dated November 5, 1876, in which he reviewed at length the grievances of his Government against Spain growing out of the Cuban insurrection, prominent among which were the embargoed claims now pending and referred to in your excellency’s note. Mr. Fish, after citing the royal decree of July 12, 1873, and the orders of the Spanish Government, in which a return of the embargoed estates had been directed, and after stating that the question had then been pending for more than six years, used the following language: “The promises made and repeated, the assurances given from time to time that something should be done, the admission of the justice of the demands of this country, at least to the extent of expressing regret for the wrongs, and promising redress, followed, as they have been, by absolutely no performance and no practical steps whatever towards performance, need no extended comment.” Continuing a recital of the injuries which American citizens had suffered from the Cuban insurrection, he says: “It becomes a serious question how long such a condition of things can or should be allowed to exist, and compels us to inquire whether the point has not been reached when longer endurance ceases to be possible.* * * It is absolutely necessary to the maintenance of our relations with Spain, eveu on their present footing, that our just demands for the return to citizens of the United States of their estates in Cuba unincumbered* * * should be complied with.” He then directs the minister to communicate to the Spanish Government the resolution of the President to bring the subject of the Cuban revolution in its relation to the [Page 799] United States to some definite attitude, “in the firm conviction that the period has at last arrived when no other course remains for this Government.”
A copy of this highly important instruction was also sent to the American ministers in London, Paris, Berlin, St. Petersburg and Vienna, for notification to the respective Governments of the intervention which the President had decided to assume in the Cuban affairs.
While the instruction of November 5 was on its way, and before its receipt, the Spanish minister of state sent to this legation a note dated on the 15th of the same month, which, in response to the repeated and urgent efforts of the minister, Mr. Cushing, seemed to consider, in substance, all that the Government of the United States had contended for in regard to these claims. In order to bring this note with all possible dispatch to the notice of the Secretary of State at Washington, Mr. Cushing sent a full abstract by telegraph and a copy of the same by a special messenger, and advised delay in the contemplated action of the President.
On the 30th of November, 1875, Mr. Cushing had an interview with the minister of state, Señor Calderon y Collantes, in which he handed to him a copy of Mr. Fish’s instruction of November 5, above cited, and explained to him the modification or suspension of the President’s action in Cuban affairs, which had been occasioned upon his (Mr. Cushing’s) recommendation, by the favorable promises made in Señor Calderon y Collantes’s note of November 15, 1875, and upon the understanding that the grievances of the United; States would be promptly redressed; and on the 4th of December following, Mr. Cushing telegraphed to Washington that he had again seen the Spanish minister of state; that Mr. Calderon y Collantes had carefully read Mr. Fish’s note of November 5, and said he “admits our grievances; is opposed in principle to sequestration of property of foreigners; condemns the delays; will take up and promptly settle each case.”
Upon these repeated and positive assurances of a speedy examination and satisfactory settlement of the embargoed estate claims and grievances growing out of the Cuban revolution, the President desisted from the action indicated in Mr. Fish’s instruction of November 5. Thereupon the minister of the United States entered, with Señor Calderon y Collantes, upon an examination of such of the claims as had not already been passed upon. By reference to Mr. Cushing’s memorandum of January 31, 1876, his note of February 6, and Señor Calderon y Collantes’s note of February 9, 1876, it will be seen that two of the most important cases referred to in my note of July 3 last were then examined and finally settled (as it was then supposed) by the royal decree of February 9, 1876. Without extending the limits of this note by further citations (which are set forth in full in my notes of July 3 last), reference to the records of your excellency’s department will show that all these cases have been examined and determined in favor of the claimants years ago, but that the commands of His Majesty the King have been disobeyed and obstructed by the authorities of Cuba.
I flatter myself that the foregoing narration will satisfy your excellency that so far from these cases being “new claims” presented by me, they have been of long standing, that their justness has been affirmed in the most positive manner and under the most solemn circumstances by the highest authority in Spain. It would seem, therefore, that if any delay is now necessary for further examination, it should only be to ascertain why the authorities of Cuba persist in disobeying the King’s decrees, and what further injury has thereby been occasioned to claimants. I am sure that my Government will not consider it a satisfactory answer to my notes of July 2 and 3 last to be informed at the end of four months that the cases have been referred to the ministry of ultramar for examination, if that examination is to relate to the merits of the claims and open up decisions long since settled, and for the execution of which the faith of the Spanish Government has been repeatedly pledged.
If, therefore, a misapprehension has occurred in the ministry of state in supposing the cases in question to be “new claims,” and for this reason a reference of them has been made to the ministry of ultramar, I beg that your excellency will cause that mistake to be corrected. During the fourteen years that these claims have been pending, they have been repeatedly referred to the ministry of ultramar for information and examination, and there doubtless exists in the ministry of state voluminous data respecting them. As stated in my notes of July 2 and 3, the President of the United States has specially charged me to press an early settlement of this long-standing business upon the Spanish Government, and I deem it my duty to again ask that the consideration of the subject may be brought as rapidly as possible to a final and satisfactory conclusion.
With this new opportunity it is pleasant, &c.,