In the event the matter takes a favorable turn I fear that the demand for
interest will prove a serious obstacle in the way of a settlement.
Please give me explicit instructions upon that point. Shall I insist
upon the payment of interest without qualification? If so, at what rate?
The legal rate in Spain is 6 per cent. If there is a disposition shown
to make a payment on account, what is the smallest sum I may demand in
that way, and what terms shall I propose for the payment of the balance?
I ask these questions in advance because it will be all important to
arrange everything speedily, in the event that the matter can be
arranged at all without previous action upon the part of the Cortes.
[Inclosure in No. 377.]
Mr. Taylor to the
Duke of Tetuan.
Legation of the United States,
Madrid, June 18, 1895.
Excellency: I have the honor to inclose
herewith a copy of a joint resolution lately passed after the most
careful consideration by the Senate and House of Representatives of
the United States, instructing the President, by whom such
resolution was approved, “to take such measures as he may deem
necessary to consummate the agreement between the Governments of
Spain and the United States for the relief of Antonio Maximo Mora, a
naturalized citizen of the United States Under the authority of that
resolution I am now instructed by my Government to call upon that of
His Majesty to fulfill its voluntary promise for the payment of the
stipulated indemnity to Mora with interest from the time when the
principal should have been paid under the agreement of December,
1886. In the event His Majesty’s Government shall find it impossible
to pay the whole amount at once, I am directed to insist upon an
immediate payment on account, for the present relief of the
individual claimant who is now and has been for nearly a quarter of
a century deprived of his property, with a definite stipulation for
the early payment of the residue.
In order that the nature and urgency of the demand as now made by my
Government may be the more clearly understood, I desire to call your
excellency’s attention, with the greatest respect, to the following
considerations:
After ten years of active negotiation the Government of His Majesty,
on the 29th of November, 1886, made an unconditional offer to pay
the sum of $1,500,000 as a fair indemnity in this matter, provided
“that the Messrs. Mora and the Government of the United States, in
their name, shall renounce all further claim for the embargo of
their property and everything connected therewith.” By the immediate
and unconditional acceptance of that offer in the exact terms in
which it was made a liquidated debt was acknowledged by Spain to the
United States, upon which interest is justly due from the date in
December, 1886, upon which said agreement was concluded.
For nearly nine years the Government of the United States has sought
in vain at the hands of the Government of His Majesty the
performance of that agreement. The only reason ever urged during
that long period of time why the accepted offer to pay Mora a
stipulated sum should not be carried out has consisted of the
suggestion that such payment shall await the settlement of the
unliquidated and contested claims of other individuals, Spaniards
and Americans, in regard to which he has no possible interest or
responsibility.
While the Government of the United States has firmly and persistently
refused to consent that the liquidated debt solemnly assumed to Mora
by the Government of His Majesty shall await the settlement of
unliquidated claims set up by other persons, I had the honor, in a
spirit of fairness and conciliation, to present to your predecessor
by the President’s direction on the both day of March, 1891, the
draft of a convention in which my Government offered to provide by
arbitration for the prompt disposal of all outstanding claims
between the two countries, except the Mora claim. The making of that
convention was proposed on the express condition that payment of the
Mora debt should not wait its conclusion, or depend upon its result.
While my Government
[Page 1166]
is
not disposed to complain of any fulness of examination which the
Government of His Majesty may wish to give to such convention before
its adoption, it can not agree that such examination shall be made
the occasion of further delay in the payment of the Mora indemnity.
As fifteen months have now elapsed without the approval,
modification, or rejection of the terms of such proposed convention
by His Majesty’s Government, I am instructed to proceed in this
matter irrespective of action on the proposed claims’ convention.”
The demand which I have now the honor to present is therefore made
without reference to that matter in any form whatever.
The fact that the admitted wrongs which this citizen of the United
States has suffered have endured for nearly a quarter of a century,
the fact that nearly nine years have been permitted to pass by since
the offer of compromise proposed by the Government of His Majesty as
a final settlement of this controversy was accepted in expectation
of an immediate payment, prove beyond all question that the spirit
of patience and conciliation of my Government toward that of His
Majesty has in this case rather outweighed the consideration due to
one who, burdened with years and broken in health and in fortune, is
fast sinking to the grave. And yet in spite of these painful facts
my Government is still patient. As I have already stated, it does
not even now demand the payment of the whole sum due to Mora at one
time. But it does solemnly demand that the time and manner of
payment be now fixed, once and for all, without reference to any
consideration whatever, and that a substantial sum be immediately
paid on account of such settlement. Such is the demand of the
President, acting under the authority and by the direction of the
Congress of the United States, which I am now directed to press upon
your attention and to cable the result.
I avail, etc.,
