Papers Relating to the Foreign Relations of the United States, With the Annual Message of the President Transmitted to Congress December 5, 1898

Mr. Day to Mr. Cambon.

Department of State,
Washington, August 15, 1898.

No. 94.]

Excellency: I have the honor to make formal acknowledgment of the note you addressed to me, under date of the 12th instant, informing me of your receipt, through the medium of the department of foreign affairs at Paris, of a telegram, dated Madrid, August 11, in which the Duke of Almodovar del Rio, minister of state of Spain, by order of Her Majesty the Queen Regent, conferred upon you full powers to sign, without other formality and without delay, the protocol already drawn up by you and me, leaving the documentary confirmation of your said full powers to follow by mail; and adding that, the Government of the Republic having authorized you to accept the powers so conferred upon you by the Spanish Government, you were ready to sign the protocol at such time as I might designate.

The signing of the protocol on the afternoon of the 12th instant by you and me, in the presence of the President, followed by the immediate action of the President in issuing his proclamation suspending hostilities, in accordance with the appropriate stipulation of that protocol, testified in a most gratifying manner the full recognition by this Government of the powers conferred upon you, and, I am glad to believe, marked the first and most effective step toward the happy restoration of peace between the United States and Spain. It is especially gratifying to the President and to this Government that you, as the honored representative of the French Republic, allied to our American Commonwealth by the unbroken ties of more than a century of close friendship and to the Kingdom of Spain by propinquity and intimate association, should have been thus instrumental in contributing to this auspicious result.

Referring to the observation contained in your note relative to the internal order of Cuba during the suspension of hostilities, I may remark that the forces of the United States, in proportion as they occupy Cuban territory in the course of the evacuation thereof by Spain and its delivery to the arms of the United States under the terms of the protocol, will, it is believed, be adequate to preserve peace and order, and no doubt is entertained of their ability to restrain any possible injury to the inhabitants of the island in the country which shall by degrees come under their control.

Be pleased, Mr. Ambassador, to accept the renewed assurances of my highest consideration.

William R. Day.

[Translation.]

The French ambassador, referring to his communication of the 12th instant, has the honor to inform the Secretary of State of the United States that he has just received, through the department of foreign affairs at Paris, the full powers which had been conferred upon him, in the name of the King of Spain, by Her Majesty the Queen Regent, to enable him to sign the preliminary protocol of the negotiations for the reestablishment of peace between Spain and the United States.

Mr. J. Cambon requests the Hon. William R. Day to please to find inclosed the said document, and avails himself of the occasion to renew the assurances of his highest consideration.

Washington, August 30, 1898.

Hon.

Wm. R. Day

,
Secretary of State of the United States, etc., Washington.

[Translation.]

Don Alfonso XIII.

by the grace of god and the constitution, king of spain and in his name and during his minority,

DOÑA MARIA CRISTINA,

queen regent of the kingdom.

Whereas it has become necessary to negotiate and sign at Washington a protocol in which the preliminaries of peace between Spain and the United States of America shall be settled, and as it is necessary for me to empower for that purpose a person possessing the requisite qualifications: Therefore, I have decided to select, after procuring the consent of His Excellency the President of the French Republic, you, Don Julio Cambon, ambassador extraordinary and plenipotentiary of the French Republic in the United States of America, as I do, by these presents, select and appoint you to proceed, invested with the character of my plenipotentiary to negotiate and sign with the plenipotentiary whom His Excellency the President of the United States of America may designate for that purpose the aforesaid protocol. And I declare, from the present moment, all that you may agree upon, negotiate, and sign in the execution of this commission acceptable and valid, and I will observe it and execute it, and will cause it to be observed and executed as if it had been done by myself, for which I give you my whole full powers in the most ample form required by law. In witness whereof I have caused these presents to be issued, signed by my hand, duly sealed and countersigned by the undersigned, my minister of state.

Given in the palace at Madrid, August 11, 1898.

[l. s.]

Maria Cristina.

Juan Manuel Sanchez y Gutierrez de Castro,
Minister of State.