DIPLOMATIC CORRESPONDENCE AND FOREIGN RELATIONS. 



237 



with hi-> instructions, withdraws the offer of 

 ..ill offices of the President of the United 

 . heretofore communicated to the gov- 

 . niiiieut of his Highness the Regent; and, 

 hotli nations will reserve thoir full lib- 

 erty of action, if the occasion shall hereafter 

 when the United States may contribute 

 l.y thoir friendly corporation to the settlement 

 <>f the questions at issue in Cuba, the under- 

 M.MH-d is instructed to state that the President 

 will be happy to assist in promoting a result 

 so conducive to the interests of Spain and of 

 America." 



The Spanish Government, in its reply to 

 General Sickles, stated that the withdrawal 

 of the tender of good offices included the note 

 of the 30th of September communicating them. 

 As this statement was not warranted by the 

 facts, and was incorrect in every particular, 

 General Sickles insisted that it should be omit- 

 ted. This the Spanish Government unwilling- 

 ly assented to, and the note remained in ac- 

 cordance with the intention of the United 

 States. 



Indemnity Claims of United States Citizen* 

 against Spain. Five different groups of proc- 

 lamations have been promulgated by the su- 

 perior political authority in Cuba, interfering 

 in their effects with the rights and property 

 of American citizens in the island. They re- 

 late to the mode of warfare to be adopted by 

 the Spanish troops, the alienation of property, 

 to embargoes, to trials by courts-martial, and 

 to the maritime jurisdiction of Spain. The 

 United States Government protested against 

 the severe and unnecessary measures, and pre- 

 dicted that their operation would be fraught 

 with injury to American interests. The ap- 

 prehensions of the Government were soon 

 verified. On the 9th of June there were thir- 

 teen United States citizens whose property had 

 been embargoed, fifteen citizens who had been 

 imprisoned incomunicado, and fifteen who had 

 been arrested and imprisoned by the Spanish 

 authorities in Cuba, without sufficient cause, 

 and without opportunity of trial or defence. 

 The Secretary of State, deeming the time a 

 favorable one for bringing these several in- 

 stances of the improper exercise of authority 

 to the notice of the Spanish Government, and 

 of announcing his determination to demand 

 indemnification therefor, under the direction 

 of the President, addressed a note upon the 

 subject to Mr. Roberts, the Spanish minister. 

 Mr. Fish to Mr. Lopes Robert*. 



DKPARTMENT OF STATK, | 

 WASHINGTON, June 9, 1870. j 



The undersigned is directed by the President to 

 invite the earnest attention of Don Mauricio Lopez 

 Roberts, envoy extraordinary nnd minister plenipo- 

 tentiary of Spain, to the irregular and arbitrary man- 

 ner in which the persons and properties of citizens 

 of the United States are taken and held by the Span- 

 ish authorities in the Island of Cuba. 



"When Count Valmaseda in April of last year issued 

 a proclamation declaring that every man from the age 

 of fifteen years upward, found away from his habita- 

 tion and not proving a sufficient motive therefor 



would be shot; that every habitation unoccupied 

 would be burned ; and that every house not dying a 

 white flag should be reduced to oshoa, it became tin- 

 duty of the undersigned to convey to Mr. Lopez Ko- 

 be rtn the protest of the President against such a mode 

 of warfare, and his request that the authorities in 

 Cuba would take steps that no person having tho 

 ritfht to claim the protection of the Government of the 

 United States should be sacrificed or injured in the 

 conduct of hostilities on that basis. 



When, again, about the same time, it came to tho 

 knowledge of this Government that tho Captain-Gen- 

 eral of Cuba had, on the 1st day of April, 1869, is- 

 sued a proclamation which virtually forbade tho 

 alienation of property in the island, except with the 

 revision and assent of certain officials named in tho 

 decree, and which declared null and void all sales 

 made without such revision and assent, the President 

 again directed the undersigned to say that ho viewed 

 with regret such sweeping interference with tho 

 rights ot individuals to alienate or dispose of their 

 property, and that he hoped that steps would be 

 speedily taken to modify that decree so that it should 

 not be applicable to the property of citizens of tho 

 United States, and so that disputes and complaints, 

 that could not fail to arise if its execution should be 

 attempted as to such property, might bo prevented. 



When, seventeen days later, a decree was issued 

 creating an administrative council for the custody and 

 management of embargoed property ; and when three 

 days afterward the Captain-General issued a circular 

 extending the previous embargo to tho property of 

 all persons, either within or without the island, who 

 might take part in the insurrection, whether with 

 arms in their hands or aiding it with arms, munitions, 

 money, or articles of subsistence^ this Government 

 confidently expected that the Cabinet of Madrid and 

 the authorities of Spain in the Island of Cuba would 

 regard tho then recent expressions of its wishes, and 

 would not willingly permit the rights of citizens of 

 the United States to be interfered with or their prop- 

 erties to be sequestrated without the forms of law to 

 which they were entitled. 



When the President directed the undersigned to 

 invite attention to the possibility that the laws and 

 decrees which had been promulgated in Cuba might 

 lead to an infraction of the treaties between Spain 

 and the United States, he was not unmindful of the 

 disorganized condition of society in parts of that isl- 

 and, nor of tho difficulties which attended tho en- 

 forcement of the authority of Spain. On the con- 

 trary : he was induced to make such representation by 

 a desire to avoid increasing those difficulties, and to 

 prevent further complications so far as tho act of this 

 Government could do so. 



Tho seventh article of the Treaty of 1795 between 

 the United States and Spain provides 



That the subjects or citizens of each of the contracting 

 parties, their vessels or effects, shall not be liable to any 

 embargo or detention on the part of the other for any 

 military expedition or other public or private purpose 

 whatever ; and In all cases of seizure, detention, or arrest 

 for debts contracted, or offences committed, by any citi- 

 zen or subject of the one party within the jurisdiction of 

 the other, the same shall Se made and prosecuted by or- 

 der and authority of law only, and according to the regu- 

 lar course of proceedings usual in such cases, The citi- 

 zens and subjects of both parties shall be allowed to em- 

 Eloy such advocates, solicitors, notaries", agents, and 

 ictors as they may judge proper, in all their affaire, and 

 in all trials at law in which they may be concerned, be- 

 fore the tribunals of the other party ; and ench agents 

 shall have free access to be present at the proceedings in 

 such causes, and at the takings of all examinations and 

 evidence, which may be exhibited ID the said trials. 



It is with groat regret that the Government of the 

 United States feels itself forced to say that it is in- 

 formed that the provisions of this article of tho Treaty 

 of 1795 have not been kept in mind by the authori- 

 ties in Cuba during tho present struggle, ^t appears 

 to the President that the sweeping decrees of April, 

 1869, have been put in operation against the proper 



