justice; that His Majesty had fully considered the subject, and was ready to submit all the captures, detentions, or other acts committed by Spanish subjects to arbitration, but that he could not consent to do so with respect to the captures by French privateers." Not long afterward Mr. Pinckney learned from a member of the diplomatic corps at Madrid that the Swedes and Danes and various other nations had numerous claims on the Spanish Government, similar to those of the United States, and that they were awaiting the issue of the negotiations between the United States and Spain before pressing their demands. This circumstance strongly militated against the American claims, since of all the demands of foreign nations against Spain, which aggregated an enormous amount, those growing out of the violation of Spanish neutrality by the French privateers fitted out in Spanish ports formed by far the greater part.1 Conclusion of a For several weeks the progress of the negotiations between the United States and Spain was stayed by the discussion of the claims originating in captures and condemnations made under French commissions. But on the 11th of August 1802, no agreement in regard to those claims having been reached, Mr. Pinckney signed with Don Pedro Cevallos, the Spanish minister of state, a convention by which it was agreed that a board of five commissioners should be constituted, to sit at Madrid, for the purpose of adjusting all claims arising "from excesses committed during the late war, by individuals of either nation, contrary to the law of nations, or the treaty existing between the two countries." In order, however, to avoid any prejudice to the claims for acts of the French, there was inserted in the convention, at the instance of Mr. Pinckney, a stipulation to the effect that each government should be understood to reserve to itself, its citizens, or subjects, the right to bring forward, at such time as might be most convenient to them, "the claims originating from the excesses of foreign cruisers, agents, consuls, or tribunals," in the territory of the other government. tions. In explaining his reasons for signing this convention Pinckney's Explana- Mr. Pinckney, in a dispatch of August 15, 1802, stated that since the 7th of the preceding October the number of vessels seized or detained with their cargoes by the Spaniards was 101, to which were to be added 12 vessels taken jointly by the French and Spaniards, and 12 cargoes seized or embargoed by Spain. In a few of these cases the vessel or cargo had been acquitted, but in every case there arose a claim for damages. Moreover, besides the claims for captures, it was reported that there were many claims, aggregating a large amount, arising from the excesses of individuals, particularly in South America. All these claims Mr. Pinckney believed to be embraced by the convention, and he did not feel himself warranted in withdrawing them from immediate adjustment on account of the French spoliations, which there was little doubt that Spain would in the future agree to arbitrate. Out of the whole number of vessels captured by the French Mr. Pinckney stated that only 71 had been condemned, and it was not unlikely that, when the true amount was ascertained for which the citizens of the United 1 Am. State Papers, For, Rel. II. 481. 2 Id. 482. 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 2 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 1 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. * 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 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. 4 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. Suspension of Diplomatic Relations. 3 After a long discussion in which Monroe and Pinckney urged the claims of the United States in respect of 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 Am. 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. |