Memorandum.
At a conference which took place on the 20th of April, 1896, the Secretary of State, Hon. Richard Olney, called the attention of the minister of Chile to two existing claims against the Chilean Government, one of Patrick Shields and the other of Andrew McKinstry. The two claimants were British subjects and served as firemen on board the American merchant steamer Keweenaw. They claimed to have been maltreated while on shore by the police of Valparaiso, Chile, in 1891, when that steamer was tying at that port. The honorable Secretary of State expressed at that time the wish to submit these cases to the claims commission, which it was anticipated would be renewed, or to find a solution through a direct settlement.
These claims had already been presented before the Chilean-American commission, which was in session from October, 1893, to April, 1894, with a view to settling all claims from citizens of each country against the Government of the other. The commission, by a unanimous vote, dismissed these two claims on the ground that the claimants were British subjects, and because its jurisdiction was limited exclusively to claims of American and Chilean citizens.
The Government of Chile having been informed of the desire of the honorable Secretary of State, authorized at that time the minister of Chile to examine the merits of said claims and to agree on an equitable indemnity if the circumstances of the cases justified such a measure.
The honorable Secretary of State, after having examined those claims on his side, agreed with the minister of Chile that the alleged claim of Andrew McKinstry was unfounded.
As regards the case of Patrick Shields, it was agreed that it was one of those which could be arranged through the payment of any equitable amount. In order to fix that amount, the minister of Chile suggested to the Hon. Richard Olney that they take as a basis the payments made by the United States on similar occasions to foreign subjects. The question being placed on this ground, and resolved according to this principle of mutual equality, the sum, whatever it might happen to be, would not, in the opinion of the Chilean minister, be objected to by the Government of the Congress of his country. This basis having been accepted by the honorable Secretary of State, it was agreed that the antecedents of the question should be looked up, and that the sum which in equity would be paid to Shields should be fixed in conformity with these precedents.
[Page 67]It is necessary to mention a circumstance which will explain the proceedings of this case. Shields died in the year 1895, and with him disappeared the right to the personal protection which the Government of the United States could accord to him for having been in the service of an American ship when the cause of his complaint occurred. Shields was never naturalized in the United States; he remained an English subject, and his heirs are English.
The honorable Secretary of State intimated to the minister of Chile, that, under the circumstances of this case, the Government of the United States had no direct interest in the matter, and that it only wished, at an instance from the Government of Her British Majesty, to cooperate in finding a satisfactory solution for both the interested parties.
The honorable Secretary of State having consulted with Her British Majesty’s ambassador and the minister of Chile, it was finally agreed by all of them that an indemnity of $3,500 would be an equitable and satisfactory one.
This agreement was reached in the first days of last March, but there was not time to formalize it, as the Hon. Richard Olney left the Secretaryship.
These antecedents having been explained, the minister of Chile submits, with the acceptance of his excellency the ambassador of Her British Majesty, a draft of a protocol herewith inclosed in which appears a solution, mutually accepted, of said claim of Patrick Shields.