El Conde de Casa-valencia to Caleb Cushing, October 17, 1875

The Conde de Casa-Valencia to Mr. Cushing.

Your Excellency:

Sir: I have received the note of your excellency, of date 4th instant, wherein you are pleased to state to me that you have instructions from the Government of the United States to call the attention of that of His Majesty the King to the delay which has occurred, on the part of Spain, in the execution of one of the clauses agreed upon in the protocol signed in Washington by the minister plenipotentiary of Spain and the Secretary of State of the American Republic, on the 29th of November, 1873, in consequence of the question of the Virginius.

With this motive, your excellency is pleased to recall to mind the notes which, on different occasions, from the time you took charge of your legation until now, you had addressed to my predecessors in this ministry, and to which replied successively Messrs. Ulloa and Castro, confirming the engagement contracted and the constant purpose of the Spanish government to carry into effect so soon as the state of the general expediente in the matter of the Virginius should permit it to proceed without embarras ment to the special investigation referred to by what is stipulated in the aforesaid protocol.

This case having arrived, and the legal formalities prescribed by existing enactments having been now fulfilled, nothing opposes the execution by the Spanish government of its agreement with that of the United States, and with this object I have addressed myself to my colleagues, the ministers of war and marine, to the end that, resolving which ought to be the competent tribunal within the proper jurisdiction of each one of those branches of the administration, there be submitted thereto the examination and investigation of the conduct of the authorities of Cuba who intervened in the process of the Virginius, conformably with the stipulations in the protocol of Washington.

General Burriel being one of the military authorities of Santiago de Cuba, at the time when the capture of the Virginius took place, he will, in such conception, be comprehended in the proceedings which are ordered to be instituted; and it behooves me, in this relation, to repeat to your excellency the assurances which were given to you by my predecessor, Mr. Castro, that the actual rank of General Burriel in the army will have no influence on the result of the investigation which is now about to take place, as well as that his official promotion in no wise prejudges his conduct in the events of Cuba.

This is not the occasion to examine or to judge those occurrences, but I can do no less than state to your excellency that there is not exactitude in comparing them with those which took place at Olot, Cuenca, and Estella, which your excellency recalls in your note.

In acquainting your excellency with the resolution adopted by the government of His Majesty, to the end of executing that which was stipulated in the protocol of the 29th of November, I flatter myself that the Government of Washington will behold therein the sincerity wherewith Spain is accustomed to fulfill her engagements, and that it will be persuaded, moreover, that the delays which this matter has suffered hitherto have exclusively arisen from the state of the general expediente of the Virginius, and from the duty which was incumbent upon the government to await the scrupulous observance of all the formalities which are exacted in the progressive proceedings of this class of affairs.

I avail myself of this opportunity to reiterate to your excellency the assurances of my most distinguished consideration.