Augustus Adee to Hamilton Fish, October 7, 1876
No. 252. Mr. Adee to Mr. Fish.
No. 332.]
Sir: Referring to my dispatches numbered 248, 308, 313, and 319 on the subject of the lately-awarded Cuban loan of $15,000,000, and in completion of the record of the matter, I have the honor to transmit herewith copy of the royal order, dated 30th ultimo, awarding the loan to the original bidders, Messrs. Lopez, Calvo, Marques de Vinent, and Cabezas. This order is accompanied by a very full minute or “acta” of the proceedings of the formal adjudication. I regret that the length of these documents precludes my translating them at present without prejudice to other business; but I do not know that it is very needful after all to do so, as my previous dispatches will have made the matter sufficiently clear to you without inflicting upon you the task of reading the present document. The only points to which it seems worth while to direct your attention are the reasons for rejecting the bid of Mr. Campo, which are stated to have been, first, his exigence of a national guarantee of the Cortes instead of leaving the loan merely local, as the government desired; and, secondly, the circumstance that the joint-stock company to take it up still remained to be organized in the form of what is called here an “anonymous society,” whose bonds or shares, in open market, might fall for the greater part into the hands of foreigners, thus giving them the control of the customs of Cuba to the prejudice of native Spanish interests. There was, besides, a difference against Mr. Campo, and in favor of Mr. Lopez and his associates, of at least a million of dollars in the amount to be furnished to the government before the end of the present month, for the purpose of defraying the immediate expenses of shipping the new re-enforcement of 24,000 men to Cuba during the same time; and as that is the main object for which the loan is contracted, this motive alone would have been enough to insure the award being made to the signers of the provisional contract of August 5.
I have, &c.,