2 States might have a right to compensation, the claims arising from the acts of the French might prove to be less than those arising from the excesses of Spanish subjects. In a subsequent dispatch Mr. Pinckney, referring to the reluctance of the Spanish Government to arbitrate the spoliations by the French, said: "They (the Spaniards) complain of it as one of the hardest cases that can possibly occur; that their situation was well known; just emerging from a war with France, in which they were pressed to the last extremities; obliged to suffer the French Government and consuls to do as they pleased in their ports, for fear of renewing the war by refusing and irritating them; to be thus mortified by these violations of their territorial sovereignty by a power they could not resist, and to be obliged, after all, to pay for those prizes, not one shilling of which even went into the pockets of the King or his subjects, appeared to them to be, as they have often said, one of the hardest cases that could occur. Mr. Cevallos or the government here do not confess this to be the motive; their pride would not suffer them to avow it. They say the laws of nations or the treaty do not oblige them; but the true reason, I believe, I have stated above." Mr. Pinckney's convention was laid before the Senate Postponement of Action of the United States on the 11th of January 1803, but by the Senate. when the session closed in March no final action on it had been taken. It was found that while a majority was willing to acquiesce in its ratification, the two-thirds required by the Constitution could not be obtained; and the consideration of the convention was postponed till the next session in order that another effort might be made to secure the inclusion of the claims growing out of the acts of the French.3 When Mr. Pinckney again brought forward these Further Negotiations. claims, the Spanish Government, while still denying that they were well founded in international law, also set up in answer to them the convention between the United States and France of September 30, 1800. By the second article of this convention the claims of France against the United States growing out of the treaties of 1778, and the claims of the United States against France growing out of the spoliation of American vessels and cargoes by persons acting under French commisisons, were mutually postponed, and in the exchange of the ratifications they were mutually renounced. It was maintained by the the Spanish Government that if any obligation had rested on Spain in respect of spoliations by the French, she was absolved from it by the renunciation of the claims against France. The obligation of Spain in respect of such spoliations could not, said Señor Cevallos, have been more than the secondary or conditional obligation of suretyship, which is released by the discharge of the principal debtor. This being so, it was indubitable that the United States in renouncing their claims against France, the principal debtor, had released Spain from any liability for the acts of the The increase here indicated in the proportion of the Spanish captures and condemnations was mainly due to the adjustment of the relations between the United States and France by the convention of September 30, 1800, and the operation of the Spanish decrees of blockade. 2 August 30, 1802, Am. State Papers, For. Rel. II. 483. 3 Am. State Papers, For. Rel. II. 596. French. In support of this position Señor Cevallos adduced an opinion given by certain eminent American lawyers adverse to the liability of a government for acts of hostility committed within its jurisdiction by the agents of a friendly power against foreigners, such government being unable to prevent the acts in question. In answer to this argument Mr. Pinckney maintained (1) that, in respect of the acts of the French for which it was sought to hold Spain liable, Spain and not France was the principal debtor; (2) that the renunciaton under the convention between the United States and France of 1800 extended only to spoliations for which France and not Spain was primarily liable; and (3) that, in supposing that the gov ernment within whose jurisdiction the hostile acts were committed was unable to prevent them, the question submitted to the American lawyers assumed that Spain was unable to prevent the acts complained of, an assumption which was yet to be proved.1 Final Action of the When Congress reassembled the President communicated these discussions to the Senate, in order that it might judge whether they offered such a prospect of obtaining the arbitration of the French seizures and condemnations as would justify a longer suspension of the claims for which Spain conceded her obligation to make indemnity. Under the circumstances the Senate took up the convention and ratified it, and it was returned to Pinckney with instructions to exchange the ratifications.3 Exchange of Ratifications Suspended. But in the mean time the cession of Louisiana by France to the United States had completely altered the relations between the latter country and Spain. Apart from the fact that the cession was highly repugnant to Spanish feelings, a controversy immediately arose as to the eastern limits of the territory. On the strength of Livingston's statement that the cession included West Florida, the United States claimed to the river Perdido, while Spain denied their right to any territory eastward of the Iberville. In consequence of this dispute Spain declined to exchange the ratifications of the convention of 1802, and Monroe was sent to Madrid on a special mission to endeavor to settle, jointly with Pinckney, the question both of limits and of indemnities. Spain was, however, practically forbidden by France to grant any redress for acts of spoliation by French subjects, and she was sustained in her position respecting the eastern boundaries of Louisiana by Talleyrand's explicit declaration that the territory lying to the eastward of the Mississippi and the Iberville and south of the thirty-second degree of north latitude belonged to Florida, and was not included in the cession I Am. State Papers, For. Rel. II, 596-606. 2 In this relation the President suggested that as the settlement of the boundaries of Louisiana would require a new negotiation with Spain, the claims not embraced in the Pinckney convention might be included in those discussions. An instruction to Pinckney of February 6, 1804, declares that the suggestion that France was appealed to for redress in respect of those claims was unfounded. (Am. State Papers, For. Rel. VI. 185.) 3 Am. State Papers, For. Rel. II. 615. * Id. 613. to the United States. The United States and Spain also differed as to the western limits of Louisiana, the former claiming to the Rio Bravo, and a complaint had arisen as to Article XXII. of the treaty between the United States and Spain of 1795. By that article the King of Spain granted to the citizens of the United States, for the space of three years, a right to deposit their merchandise and effects at New Orleans and export them thence without payment of duty, and if at the expiration of that period the permission was found not to have been prejudicial to the interests of Spain he promised to continue it, or else to assign another place on the Mississippi for an equivalent establishment. The privilege of deposit at New Orleans was permitted to continue till October 16, 1802, when the Spanish intendente of Louisiana declared it to be suspended. In the following April it was restored by order of the King of Spain, but the United States had presented certain claims for losses alleged to have been occasioned by its suspension. 3 After a long discussion in which Monroe and Pinckney Suspension of Diplo- urged the claims of the United States in respect of matic Relations. spoliations, the suspension of the deposit at New Orleans, and the limits of Louisiana, and proposed a treaty for the cession by Spain of the Floridas and part of Texas, and for the establishment of a commission for the adjustment of the spoliation and New Orleans claims, they presented on May 12, 1805, the ultimate conditions on which they were authorized to adjust the several points in dispute. If Spain would cede the Floridas, carry into effect the convention of 1802, and accept the Colorado as the boundary of Texas, the United States would establish a district of thirty leagues on the American side of the Colorado, to remain neutral and unsettled; would assume the claims for spoliations committed by the French within the jurisdiction of Spain; and would relinquish all claim to compensation for the suspension of the right of deposit at New Orleans. On the 15th of May Cevallos rejected this proposition, on the ground that the things that were represented as concessions on the part of the United States were in reality nothing but admissions that the pretensions of the latter government were unfounded. On the 18th of May Monroe asked for his passports, which were immediately granted. A few months later Pinckney retired. He was succeeded by George W. Erving, with the rank of chargé d'affaires. In 1808 diplomatic relations between the two countries were broken off. 1807. After the renewal of the war in Europe, on the terDecree of February 19, mination of the Peace of Amiens, Spain, falling more and more into the power of Napoleon, was forced to aid in the execution of his continental system. On the 19th of February 1807 the prince generalissimo of the marine issued at Aranjuez, in the name of the King, a decree in imitation of that of Berlin. It declared that Spain was forced by Great Britain to take part in the war by outrages against humanity and policy; that all English property found at 1Am. State Papers, For. Rel. II. 635. 2 Am. State Papers, For. Rel. II. 469. 3 Adams's History of the United States, II. 3. 4 Am. State Papers, For. Rel. II. 667. 5627-VOL. 5—7 sea would be confiscated, even though it was on board a neutral vessel and consigned to Spanish subjects; that all merchandise met with at sea, though on board neutral vessels, would be confiscated, whenever it was destined for the ports of England or the British Isles; and finally that His Majesty, conforming himself to the ideas of his ally, the Emperor of the French, proclaimed the Berlin decree to be in force in Spain.1 1808. On January 3, 1808, another royal decree was issued, Decree of January 3, by which, after referring to the Milan decree, it was declared: 1. That every vessel which had been visited by an English ship, or had touched at a British port, or paid any duty to the British Government, should be considered as denationalized and be treated as English property. 2. That such vessels were to be considered as good prize. 3. That the British Isles were in a state of blockade, and that every vessel coming from a British port, or from a country occupied by British troops, should be deemed good prize.1 On the 15th of the following June Joseph Bonaparte was crowned at Bayonne as King of Spain. Revolt of Spanish Colonies in America. When the war in Europe was brought to a close and diplomatic relations between the United States and Spain were restored a new source of complaints against the latter country had come into existence in the revolt of the Spanish colonies in America. This revolt, originally undertaken as a loyalist protest against the alien government in Spain, had continued with varying fortunes till its character as a movement for independence became too strongly fixed to be altered. General Morillo's Decrees. Spain, in her efforts to subdue the colonies, at times adopted measures to which other powers were unable to assent. Chief among these were decrees by which she sought to interdict commerce with Spanish-American ports not in her control-decrees which, though in form proclamations of blockade, were justified as municipal regulations for the enforcement of the laws of the Indies forbidding foreign powers to trade with the colonies of Spain. In the case of the revolt in St. Domingo, France had asserted a similar pretension, and the United States had not only acquiesced in but had helped to enforce it; not, however, because the pretension was well founded, but because the revolt was regarded with disfavor. In the case of the Spanish-American revolt, the pretension was dealt with as a question of law and was denied. It was brought to the attention of the United States in 1815, when the Chevalier Don Luis de Onis, then Spanish minister at Washington, on the 5th of September announced that the captain-general of Caracas, Lieut. Gen. Don Pablo Morillo, the commander of the expedition against Carthagena, was about to decree a blockade of the ports of the viceroyalty of Santa Fé, including Carthagena, and that every neutral vessel found on those coasts would be considered good prize. On March 2, 1816, he further stated that, Carthagena having been compelled to surrender, General Morillo had on December 19 decided to continue the blockade from Santa Marta to the River Atrato, and had given orders that if any vessel should be met with south of the mouths of the Magdalena or north of the parallel of Cape Tiburon on the Mosquito shore, and between 1 Am. State Papers, For. Rel. III. 293. the meridians of those points, she would be declared good prize, whatever her destination; but that the ports of Santa Marta and Porto Bello would be open to the commerce of neutrals. Against this measure Monroe, on March 20, 1816, protested on the ground that, while it declared a coast of several hundred miles to be in a state of blockade, adequate means for enforcing it did not exist. De Onis replied that there were only three ports of entry on the coast in question, and that a squadron had sailed from Cadiz to enforce the blockade; but he also argued that the measure amounted merely to an enforcement of the laws relating to the Indies, by which foreign vessels found near, or evidently shaping their course toward, the Spanish colonies were, unless specially licensed to trade with them, liable to confiscation. On July 20, 1816, instructions were sent to Mr. Erving, then minister of the United States at Madrid, in regard to vessels which had been seized at Carthagena and to citizens of the United States who had been imprisoned there. The citizens had been released, but the vessels had not been. It seems that the vessels were seized under the decree of December 15, 1815. In June 1816 a Mr. Hughes was sent by the United States to Carthagena for the purpose of reclaiming the property that had been seized. He was compelled to return unsatisfied. There had been at least three vessels brought into Carthagena, one into Santa Marta, one into Santa Margarita, and one into Puerto Cabello. Proposals of John Meanwhile a negotiation, conducted sometimes at Washington and sometimes at Madrid, was entered upon for the settlement of all differences between the two governments. Little progress, however, was made till 1818. On January 16 in that year John Quincy Adams, then Secretary of State, proposed to the Chevalier de Onis the following terms, which do not materially differ from those offered by the United States in 1805: "1. Spain to cede all her claims to territory eastward of the Mississippi. "2. The Colorado from its mouth to its source, and from thence to the northern limits of Louisiana, to be the western boundary; or, to leave that boundary unsettled for future arrangement. "3. The claims of indemnities for spoliations, whether Spanish or French, within Spanish jurisdiction, and for the suppression of the deposite at New Orleans, to be arbitrated and settled by commissioners, in the manner agreed upon in the unratified convention of 1802. "4. The lands in East Florida, and in West Florida, to the Perdido, to be made answerable for the amount of the indemnities which were awarded by the commissioners under this arbitration; with an option to the United States to take the lands and pay the debts, or to sell the lands for the payment of the debts, distributing the amount received equably, according to the amount of their liquidated claims, among the claimants. No grants of land subsequent to the 11th of August 1802 to be valid. 5. Spain to be exonerated from the payment of the debts, or any part of them." De Onis's Counter January 24, 1818, De Onis, replying to this communication, offered on behalf of Spain: 1. To cede the Floridas, the United States agreeing to establish as the boundary between Louisiana and the Spanish possessions one of the branches of the Mississippi, either that of Lafourche or Am. State Papers, For. Rel. III. 156. |