Mr. Dupuy de Lôme to Mr. Olney.

[Translation.]

Mr. Secretary: As I had the honor to inform your excellency some time ago, I lost no time in communicating to the minister of state [Page 545] of His Majesty the King of Spain the text of the note that your excellency was pleased to address to me, under date of the 4th of April last, in regard to the events that are taking place in the island of Cuba.

In his answer, dated May 22 last, the Duke of Tetuan tells me that the importance of the communication here referred to has led the Government of His Majesty to examine it with the greatest care and to postpone an answer until such time as its own views on the complicated and delicate Cuban question should be officially made public.

The minister of state adds that since the extensive and liberal purposes of Spain toward Cuba have been laid before the Cortes by the august lips of His Majesty in the speech from the throne, the previous voluntary decisions of the Spanish Government in the matter may serve, as they are now serving, as the basis of a reply to your excellency’s note.

The Government, of His Majesty appreciates to its full value the noble frankness with which that of the United States has informed it of the very definite opinion it has formed in regard to the legal impossibility of granting the recognition of belligerency to the Cuban insurgents.

Indeed, those who are now fighting in Cuba against the integrity of the Spanish fatherland possess no qualifications entitling them to the respect, or even to the consideration, of the other countries. They do not, as your excellency expresses it, possess any civil government, established and organized, with a known seat and administration of defined territory, and they have not succeeded in permanently occupying any town, much less any city, large or small.

Your excellency declares, in the note to which I am now replying, with great legal acumen and spontaneously, that it is impossible for the Cuban insurgents to perform the functions of a regular government within its own frontiers, and much less to exercise the rights and fulfill the obligations that are incumbent on all the members of the family of nations. Moreover, their systematic campaign of destruction against all the industries on the island, and the means by which they are worked, would, of itself, be sufficient to keep them without the pale of the universally recognized rules of international law.

His Majesty’s Government has read with no less gratification the explicit and spontaneous declarations to the effect that the Government of the United States seeks no advantage in connection with the Cuban question, its only wish being that the ineluctable and lawful sovereignty of Spain be maintained and even strengthened, through the submission of the rebels, which, as your excellency states in your note, is of paramount necessity to the Spanish Government for the maintenance of its authority and its honor.

While expressing the high gratification with which His Majesty’s Government took note of the emphatic statements which your excellency was pleased to make in your note of the 4th of April with regard to the sovereignty of Spain and the determination of the United States not to do anything derogatory to it, and acknowledging with pleasure all the weight they carry, the Duke of Tetuan says that nothing else was to be expected of the lofty sense of right cherished by the Government of the United States.

It is unnecessary, as your excellency remarks, and in view of so correct and so friendly an attitude, to discuss the hypothesis of intervention, as it would be utterly inconsistent with the above views.

The Government of His Majesty, the King of Spain, fully concurs in the opinion that your excellency was pleased to express in regard to [Page 546] the future of the island in the event, which can not and shall not be, of the insurrection terminating in its triumph.

There can be no greater accuracy of judgment than that displayed by your excellency, and, as you said with great reason, such a termination of the conflict would be looked upon with the most serious misgivings even by the most enthusiastic advocates of popular government; because, as remarked by your excellency, with the heterogeneous combination of races that exist there the disappearance of Spain would be the disappearance of the only bond of union which can keep them in balance, and an unavoidable struggle among the men of different color, contrary to the spirit of Christian civilization, would supervene.

The accuracy of your excellency’s statement is all the more striking, as owing to the conditions of population in the island no part of the natives can be conceded superiority over the others if the assistance of the Spaniards from Europe is not taken into account.

The Island of Cuba has been exclusively Spanish since its discovery; the great normal development of its resources, whatever it is, whatever its value, and whatever it represents in the community of mankind, it owes in its entirety to the mother country; and even at this day, among the various groups of people that inhabit it, whatever be the standpoint from which the question be examined, the natives of the peninsula are there absolutely necessary for the peace and advancement of the island.

All these reasons fully and clearly demonstrate that it is not possible to think that the Island of Cuba can be benefited except through the agency of Spain, acting under her own impulse, and actuated, as she has long been, by the principles of liberty and justice.

The Spanish Government is aware of the fact that far from having justice done it on all sides on these points, there are many persons, obviously deceived by incessant slanders, who honestly believe that a ferocious despotism prevails in our Antilles, instead of one of the most liberal political systems in the world, being enjoyed there now as well as before the outbreak of the insurrection.

One need only run over the laws governing the Antilles, laws which ought to be sufficiently known in the United States at this day, to perceive how absolutely groundless such impressions are.

A collection of the Cuban newspapers published in recent years would suffice to show that few civilized countries then enjoyed to an equal degree freedom of thought and of the press—the foundation of all liberties.

The Government of His Majesty and the people of Spain wish and even long for the speedy pacification of Cuba. In order to secure it, they are ready to exert their best efforts and at the same time to adopt such reforms as may be useful or necessary and compatible, of course, with their inalienable sovereignty, as soon as the submission of the insurgents be an accomplished fact.

The minister of state, while directing me to bring to the knowledge of your excellency the foregoing views, instructs me to remark how pleased he was to observe that his opinion on this point also agrees with yours.

No one is more fully aware of the serious evils suffered by Spaniards and aliens in consequence of the insurrection than the Government of His Majesty. It realizes the immense injury inflicted on Spain by the putting forth, with the unanimous cooperation and approbation of her people, of such efforts as were never before made in America by any European country, it knows at the same time that the interests of foreign [Page 547] industry and trade suffer, as well as the Spanish interests, from the insurgent system of devastation; but if the insurrection should triumph, the interests of all would not merely suffer, but would entirely and forever disappear amid the madness of perpetual anarchy.

It has already been said that, in order to prevent evils of such magnitude, the cabinet of Madrid does not and will not confine itself exclusively to the employment of armed force.

The speech from the throne, read before the national representatives, formally promised motu proprio, not only that all that was previously granted, voted by the Cortes, and sanctioned by His Majesty on the 15th of March, 1895, would be carried into effect as soon as the opportunity offered, but also by fresh authorization of the Cortes, all the new extensions and amendments of the original reforms, to the end that both islands may in the administrative department possess a personnel of a local character, that the intervention of the mother country in their domestic concerns may be dispensed with, with the single reservation that nothing will be done to impair the rights of sovereignty or the powers of the Government to preserve the same.

This solemn promise, guaranteed by the august word of His Majesty, will be fulfilled by the Spanish Government with a true liberality of views.

The foregoing facts, being better known every day, will make it patent to the fair people of other nations that Spain, far from proposing that her subjects in the West Indies should return to a regime unfit for the times when she enjoys such liberal laws, would never have withheld these same laws from the islands, had it not been for the increasing separatist conspiracies which compelled her to look above all to self-defense.

The Government of His Majesty most heartily thanks that of the United States for the kind advice it bestows on Spain; but it wishes to state, and entertains the confidence that your excellency will readily see, that it has been forestalling it for a long time past. It follows, therefore, as a matter of course, that it will comply with it in a practical manner as soon as circumstances make it possible.

Your excellency will have seen, nevertheless, how the announcement of this concurrence of views has been received.

The insurgents, elated by the strength which they have acquired through the aid of a certain number of citizens of the United States, have contemptuously repelled, by the medium of the Cubans residing in this Republic, any idea that the Government of Washington can intervene in the contest, either with its advice or in any other manner, on the supposition that the declarations of disinterestedness on the part of the Government of the United States are false and that it wishes to get possession of the island one of these days. Hence it is evident that no success would attend such possible mediation, which they repel, even admitting that the mother country would condescend to treat with its rebellious subject as one power with another, thus surely jeopardizing its future authority, detracting from its national dignity, and impairing its independence for which it has at all times shown such great earnestness, as history teaches. In brief, there is no effectual way to pacify Cuba unless it begins with the actual submission of the armed rebels to the mother country.

Notwithstanding this, the Government of the United States could, by the use of proper means, contribute greatly to the pacification of the Island of Cuba.

The Government of His Majesty is already very grateful to that of [Page 548] the United States for its intention to prosecute the unlawful expeditions to Cuba of some of its citizens with more vigor than in the past, after making a judicial investigation as to the adequacy of its laws when honestly enforced.

Still, the high moral sense of the Government of Washington will undoubtedly suggest to it other more effectual means of preventing henceforth what is now the case, a struggle which is going on so near its frontiers, and which is proving so injurious to its industry and commerce, a fact justly deplored by your excellency, being prolonged so exclusively by the powerful assistance which the rebellion finds in the territory of this great Republic, against the wishes of all those who love order and law.

The constant violation of international law in its territory is especially manifest on the part of Cuban emigrants, who care nothing for the losses suffered in the meanwhile by the citizens of the United States and of Spain through the prolongation of the war.

The Spanish Government, on its part, has done much and will do more every day in order to achieve such a desirable end, by endeavoring to correct the mistakes of public opinion in the United States and by exposing the plots and calumnies of its rebellious subjects.

It may well happen that the declarations recently made in the most solemn form by the Government of His Majesty concerning its intentions for the future will also contribute in a large measure to gratify the wish that your excellency clearly expressed in your note, namely—that all the people of the United States, convinced that we are in the right, will completely cease to extend unlawful aid to the insurgents.

If, with that object in view, further particulars on the Cuban question should be desired, in addition to those it already has, by the Government of the United States, which shows itself so hopeful that the justice of Spam may be recognized by all, the Government of His Majesty will take the greatest pleasure in supplying that information with the utmost accuracy of detail.

When the Government of the United States shall once be convinced of our being in the right, and when that honest conviction shall in some manner be made public, but little more will be required in order that all those in Cuba who are not merely striving to accomplish the total ruin of the beautiful country in which they were born, being then hopeless of outside help and powerless by themselves, will lay down their arms.

Until that happy state of things has been attained Spain will, in the just defense not only of her rights but also of her duty and honor, continue the efforts for an early victory which she is now exerting regardless of the greatest sacrifices.

While having the honor of bringing, by order of the Government of His Majesty, the foregoing declarations to the knowledge of your excellency, I improve this opportunity, etc.

Enrique Dupuy de Lôme.