Sorni to To the Superior Civil, March 24, 1873

Your Excellency: The inquiry made by your excellency in your official dispatch No. 878, of September 30 last, concerning the status of slaves not registered (empadronados) within the prescribed term, and all the remaining antecedents of this important matter as well, having received due attention, and in consideration of the fact that neither the stringent provisions of the nineteenth article of the law of July 4, 1870, nor the interpretation favorable to the freedom of the slaves which should be given to that article in deciding all doubtful cases arising in its execution, nor the precedents established with respect to the registry and formation of a census of the slaves under the royal decree of September 29, 1868, concerning the suppression and punishment of the slave-trade, allow of the acceptance of the reasons alleged in your inquiry already mentioned, and in your confidential letters of October 30 and November 14, soliciting that the slaves in question should be included in the census, the government of the republic, adopting the principles and intent of the second paragraph of the thirtieth article of the regulations of August 5, 1872, and in conformity with the opinion pronounced by the full council of state, has resolved to decide the questions presented in your excellency’s dispatch in such a sense as to declare free the persons referred to, and in case a demand for indemnification be made by the proprietors, such demand shall be made in due documentary form, in order that it may be decided what parties are entitled to remuneration, in which case application will he made to the Cortes for the necessary credit.

Your excellency will give to this ministry a full account of the measures you may decree in the execution of the present instruction, in order that the government may possess ample and accurate knowledge of all that relates to the grave question of slavery, and to this end I also recommend to your excellency the speedy and strict fulfillment of the confidential order of August 5, 1872, concerning the remission to Madrid of full and detailed statistical data.

God guard you excellency many years.