Manuel Silvela to Mr. Cushiny, March 8, 1877

Mr. Manuel Silvela to Mr. Cushiny.

Excellency:

Sir: In due time I received your excellency’s note of the 6th of February last past, in reference to the payment, on the part of Spain, of the awards made in favor of citizens of the United States by the mixed commission established in consequence of the convention settled between Spain and the Union on the 12th of February, 1871.

My absence from this court, by reason of having had to accompany His Majesty during a part of his voyage, has been the principal cause of my not having sooner answered your excellency’s aforesaid note; but I now hasten to do so, ratifying to you officially that which has already, in a confidential manner, been manifested to you by the president of the council of ministers, in accord with your excellency, that the Government of His Majesty, recognizing the justice of the reclamation presented by your excellency, is ready to satisfy, in two installments, the sum total of the reclamations examined and allowed up to the present time by the mixed commission, paying forthwith the one-half of their import and the other half in six months after having effected the first payment.

This proposition being accepted by the Government of the Union, which has seen, doubtless, that that of His Majesty has done all which lay within its grasp under the present circumstances for the speedy and final settlement of the reclamations of American subjects, and this matter satisfactorily terminated, it only remains to me to call your attention to those of the Spanish subjects who suffered prejudices in the United States during the war of secession—reclamations which were certainly not rejected by the government of Washington, but their settlement merely deferred until the termination of the war. This has fortunately come to pass; and to-day they could be submitted to the mixed commission established in virtue of the convention of 1871, or to another analogous one created for the purpose, as I have had the honor to suggest to your excellency orally before now.

But upon this matter I reserve to myself the addressing to your excellency of a separate note, or communicating instructions to the minister of Spain in Washington, in the assurance that those reclamations will be heeded in justice by the Government of the Union in like manner as those of the Americans have been heeded by Spain.

I take this opportunity of reiterating to your excellency the assurances of my most distinguished consideration.