Mr. Snowden to Mr. Foster.
Madrid, February 16, 1893. (Received March 2.)
Sir: I have the honor to acknowledge the receipt of your instructions 95—referring to my dispatch No. 65—having relation to a “convention for the adjustment of the Mora and such other claims as Spanish subjects may have against our Government,” and note the comments made on the same to the effect “that the Mora claim has been regarded by this (our) Government as already a liquidated and adjusted claim,” etc.
The inference to be drawn is that in inducing the Spanish Government to confer upon Señor Muruaga full powers to adjust by convention or otherwise the Mora and other claims, I did not properly interpret the wishes of the Department.
If this is the case, my error has arisen from a misinterpretation of the written and cabled instructions received by me on this subject.
In your instructions 53 of December 20, 1892, inclosing a joint resolution of’ Congress presented by Senator Dolph, you say, after referring to “the agreement made with Mr. Curry” for the adjustment of the Mora claim that—
I have also suggested to Señor Dupuy de Lôme the propriety of obtaining from his Government full authority to adjust—by convention or otherwise—the various claims pending between the two governments, and have said to him that should he fail to obtain at an early day some definite instructions and authority upon these subjects, there was great probability that the joint resolution would be passed or some action taken by Congress looking to the enforcement of the Mora claim, etc.
As the joint resolution had only reference to the settlement of the Mora claim—the suggestion that the Spanish minister at Washington [Page 418] be authorized “to adjust by convention or otherwise the various claims pending between the two governments”—on an intimation that unless this was done there was great probability that “some action would be taken by Congress looking to the enforcement of the Mora claim”—it seemed clear, therefore, that the Mora claim was among the various claims to be presented. If this was not the case why should the threatened action of Congress on the Mora claim be made dependent upon Dupuy de Lôme “obtaining from his Government full authority to adjust by convention or otherwise the claims pending between the two countries,” why was its consideration associated with the settlement of other claims upon which no agreement had been reached?
In addition to your instruction 53, I received the following cable, dated January 2:
On receipt of instructions 53—Mora—urge minister of state to empower Dupuy de Lôme by cable, if possible, to arrange full claims convention. Congress adjourns in sixty days.
On January 3 I cabled you the substance of an interview with the Marquis de la Vega de Armijo.
On January 5, two days afterwards, I received the following cable:
New Spanish minister should bring full instructions as to Mora and other old claims.
On January 24, nine days before the date of your instruction 95, I cabled the Department that “Muruaga will carry authority to arrange convention for settlement of Mora and other claims between the two governments” thus clearly setting forth the view I had taken of instructions sent me. If my action was not in harmony with the views of the Department, a cable sent me at that time would have enabled me to correct the erroneous impression I had conveyed to the minister of state, before the departure of Señor Muruaga for Washington.
In my interview with the Secretary of State, as fully set forth in my dispatch 58, to which I invite your considerate attention, you will observe that as I insisted that the plan of settlement (of the Mora case) presented by Señor Moret, with the concurrence of his colleagues in the ministry, was accepted by the United States as a finality, it followed that “neither the resignation of Señor Moret from the cabinet, or the refusal of the Cortes to appropriate the money agreed upon in settlement of the claim, released his (the Spanish) Government from the moral and legal obligation it had assumed.”
Whilst asserting this as the position of our Government, I felt fully authorized, indeed directed, under instructions to make the suggestion that Dupuy de Lôme, and subsequently that Muruaga, should have full instructions as to “Mora and other old claims.”
As I have been informed that the claims outstanding, other than the Mora claim, are largely those of Spanish subjects against the United States, I could not understand the desire manifested for a convention to consider such claims unless there was the purpose to couple with these in a final settlement the important Mora claim which has been pending many years, and which, in my judgment, is as far from a practical final settlement as it was before the proposition of Señor Moret was made and accepted by our Government. I was the more convinced as to the purpose of the Department as set forth in the written and cabled instructions sent me, from the fact that it is within my knowledge that our Government has heretofore refused to arrange a convention tor the consideration and adjustment of outstanding claims of Spanish subjects against the United States.
[Page 419]Having thus presented the data upon which my action was based, I beg in conclusion to say that I shall “at a convenient moment” explain to the minister of state the unintentional error I committed in misconstruing instructions.
I have, etc.,