Mr. Hay to Mr. Storer.
Washington, December 8, 1899.
Sir: In further answer to your dispatch No. 123, of November 17, in regard to the payment of the coupons to holders of certificates of the public debt of Spain pursuant to the treaty of 1834, I have to advise you of the place and mode of payments heretofore, concerning which the Spanish ministers of state and of the treasury have asked information from you.
Since an arrangement was reached in 1847 by which the amount due—$30,000 annually—was reduced to $28,500 in consideration of payment in Washington, the custom has been for the Spanish legation in this city to transmit to the Secretary of State drafts for that sum payable in New York City. This arrangement became necessary owing to the exhaustion of the coupons attached to the original inscriptions, arid thenceforward the money paid in blocks as stated was deposited with the bankers, Riggs & Co., of Washington, and in recent years the Treasury Department, for payment to the holders of the original certificates.
The draft annually transmitted to the Secretary of State toward the end of August is believed to have represented fnnds furnished by the Spanish treasury at Habana, the payment of the interest having, it would seem, at that time been a charge upon the insular revenues; but I am unable to say by whom the annual drafts for $28,500 were drawn or upon what account. All that is known here is that they represented bankable funds in New York City.
The telegram sent to you on the 18th ultimo, by which you are instructed to express to the minister of state the President’s appreciation of the considerate decision of the council of ministers and to state that it would be agreeable to this Government to have the place and manner of payment as heretofore, was intended to express the Department’s desire that the annual payments should be made in the time and manner I have stated—namely, by the delivery to the Secretary of State of a draft upon New York City for $28,500. * * *
I am, etc.,