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Relations with Spain.

With these modifications, suggested by prudence, impartiality, and the most perfect rectitude, and excluding, as is just, the indemnity for the spoliations committed on the commerce of this Republic by French privateers and consuls on the coasts and in the ports of Spain, and by the tribunals of cassation in France, the convention of 1802 to be ratified and carried into execution.

3. His Catholic Majesty to unite with the United States in using their best endeavors to obtain from France the correspondent indemnity for the spoliations just mentioned, in case that question has not already been settled between the French and American Governments.

and explain each one of them with the neces-
sary clearness, accuracy, and precision.
If, however, you should find any difficulty or
obstacle to the acceptance of the proposals I have
now the honor to make to you, and are of opin-
ion that by any other mode we may attain the
desired object, without deviating from the fun-
damental principles and basis of justice and re-
ciprocal convenience, I will, with great pleasure,
be ready to adopt it, provided it be compatible
with the powers given me by the King, my
master. In this view you can propose such
changes or modifications as you may see fit, as
are calculated to remove all difficulties on both
sides, and reconcile the rights, interests, and
wishes of both Powers.

In the meantime, I hope that the course pursued by the President (en la marcha de su conducta) will correspond with the sentiments and uniform profession of amity and perfect harmony existing between His Majesty and the United States; and I am, therefore, constrained to reclaim and protest, formally, as I now do, against all measures whatsoever injurious to the rights of the Crown of Spain, and to renew, as I hereby do, the protest already made against the occupation of Amelia Island, and against the orders to occupy Galveston, inasmuch as the United States having no right whatever either to the said island or to Galveston, they neither had, nor could have, a just motive or cause to sanction similar acts of violence in the midst of peace.

4. The Government of the United States to engage to take effectual measures to prevent all hostile armaments in their ports and territory against the commerce and possessions of Spain, either by Americans or any other Power, or by adventurers of any other nations, or by the rebels of Spanish America; and, for their due execution, the President to issue positive orders to all persons employed by the Government, charging them, on their responsibility, to guard against any infraction or violation of them whatsoever, extending the same measures to the preventing of any vessels employed in cruising against the Spanish commerce, or otherwise hostilely engaged against the Government and subjects of His Catholic Majesty, from arming in, or entering armed, the harbors and waters of the United States. Every vessel of this description found within the jurisdiction of the United States to be I await your answer to this note in order that seized without remission, and subjected to the we may accelerate the moment of agreeing on rigor of the law by the American officers and just and fit measures for carrying the definitive authorities; and the vessels and property so cap- settlement of all pending differences into effect. tured, belonging to the subjects of the Crown of In the meantime, I renew to you, sir, the assuSpain, to be laid under attachment, and defini-rances of my constant respect. tively delivered up to His Majesty's Minister, or the nearest Spanish Consul, to be held by them at the disposal of the lawful owners. This proposal contains nothing beyond the obligations already imposed by the laws of the United States, the law of nations, and the existing treaty. But as it is evident to you, and to the whole world, that abuses and infractions of these laws and solemn compacts have been, and continue to be, frequently practised, it is absolutely necessary that suitable measures be adopted, fully and effectually to prevent the repetition of similar abuses and infractions.

God preserve you many years.

LUIS DE ONIS.

The same to the same.

WASHINGTON, Feb. 10, 1818. SIR: The multiplicity of business which I believe has, and still does engage your attention, from the necessity of preparing and laying before the Congress the papers and information called for on different subjects, must assuredly have prevented you from replying as yet to my note of the 24th of last month; it is, therefore, By these four proposals the rights and inter- unnecessary for me to trouble you, by trespassests of both Powers are reconciled upon princi-ing on your attention, to urge the importance of ples of manifest justice and reciprocal utility; they settle and terminate all pending differences, in my judgment, satisfactorily to both nations; and I must presume that the President will view them in the same light, and substantially admit them. In case there be any other question of secondary or minor importance to be in like manner included in the general and definitive adjustment, it will be easy, and follow of course, after we have agreed on the most essential articles or points; we will then also determine the true import of the several propositions laid down,

your answer, as I feel assured you are as fully aware of it as I am. But the earnest wish I have to accelerate the negotiation that has been opened, and thereby to come to a final settlement of the differences pending between His Catholic Majesty's Government and yours, impels me to take this step. I therefore request you, sir, to be pleased to inform me, as soon as you possibly can, whether the proposals offered in my aforesaid note come up to or approach the wishes of this Republic, and if, with the view of satisfy|ing them, you can devise another just mode cal

Relations with Spain.

culated to reconcile the rights of both nations upon some principle of reciprocal utility and convenience, I hope you will communicate it to me, in full confidence that I shall not hesitate a moment to accede to any modification or expedient founded on a basis of acknowledged justice and mutual utility, because it is to such a basis that all the instructions and powers I have received from my Sovereign refer.

The United States having manifested a wish to obtain the Floridas, His Catholic Majesty has condescended to accede thereto, as a proof of his friendship and high consideration for the United States, and has authorized me to stipulate the cession of those two provinces for an equivalent of territory westward of the Mississippi. Having proved on the part of His Majesty's Government, by the most complete evidence of which moral facts are susceptible, and by a conviction in nowise inferior to that of mathematical truths, that the proper boundaries of Louisiana, eastward of the Mississippi, are defined by the course of that river, and thence by the Iberville and the Lakes Maurepas and Pontchartrain; and that to the westward they never did nor could extend beyond the rivers Carcasa and Mermento, or Mermentao, running between Natchitoches and Adaes, across Red river, and thence northward to a line not yet fixed, and to be settled by commissioners to be appointed by both Governments, it is clear that the proposals offered in my note for the final settlement of the question of boundaries cannot fail to appear advantageous to your Government, and satisfactory to the just wishes of the United States. But if, for their greater satisfaction, you can point out an expedient by which the said proposals may be still further modified, without detracting from the acknowledged principles of common justice and reciprocal convenience, I am ready to attend to and stipulate it immediately, if it come within the sphere of my powers and instructions; and in case it should not, by presenting, perchance, combinations which could not be foreseen by His Catholic Majesty, I will immediately despatch a courier to Madrid, to inform my Government of the demands of yours, and request more ample powers adapted to them.

The question of indemnities can be attended with no difficulty. The Spanish Government has always been willing to give due satisfaction for the losses and injuries sustained by citizens of this Republic, and committed by Spaniards, contrary to the law of nations and the existing treaty; but it cannot relinquish its claim to comprehend, in like manner, in the adjustment of those losses and injuries, such as have been committed by citizens and authorities of this Republic on the Crown and subjects of Spain, in violation of the same right and treaty. Your Government, sensible of the justice of this demand, cannot fail to accede to it; thus by ratifying the convention agreed on in 1802, as I have already proposed to you, the question of indemnities will be easily settled and determined.

The King, my master, being desirous of giving the United States and the whole world incontest

able proofs of the rectitude and sincerity of his dispositions, and of his love of justice and good faith, is ready to submit all the questions embraced by the pending differences to the arbitration of one or more of the Powers of Europe in whom the United States may have the greatest confidence, they and His Majesty respectively engaging to abide irrevocably by the decision of such arbitration. In cases where justice alone is sought for, this reference must be particularly desirable, and has been frequently resorted to, as well by individuals as by the most respectable nations, on controverted questions.

The British Government, on being informed of the difficulties attending the negotiation pending between Spain and the United States, made an offer of its mediation for the purpose of reconciling them, and the President has not been pleased to accept it, as I have been lately informed by the Minister of England to these States. From this refusal I am to infer that the President is willing, on his part, to remove all the obstacles which oppose the prompt and happy termination of the negotiation pending; and, under this impression, which is due to the uprightness, rectitude, and good faith of the American Government, I flatter myself that it will not be necessary to have recourse to the mediation or arbitration of friendly or neutral Powers to settle and terminate on principles of justice the existing differerences between the United States and Spain; and if unfortunately this should not be the case, I also flatter myself that your Government will approve of one of those modes, as being dictated by a sincere love of peace and justice due to such occasions.

I therefore hope, sir, that you will reply as soon as possible to the proposals made in my last note, and communicate to me whatever you may think most conducive to the happy termination of the pending negotiation, and still further to strengthen the bonds of friendship and good understanding between the two nations.

In the mean while, I have the honor to renew to you the assurances of my respect, and I pray God to preserve you many years.

Luis de onIS.

The Secretary of State to Don Luis de Onis, Envoy Extraordinary and Minister Plenipotentiary from Spain.

MARCH 12, 1818.

SIR: The admission, in your letter of the 24th of January, that all the facts, grounds, and arguments, alleged in your previous notes of 29th of December and of the 5th and 8th of January, in support of the pretensions of your Government upon the several points of difference which have so long subsisted between the United States and Spain, are essentially the same as had already been advanced and discussed at the period of the extraordinary mission to Spain in 1805, while it justifies the reluctance, on the part of the American Government, manifested in my letter of the 16th of January, to the renewal of an exhausted

Relations with Spain.

discussion, cannot but excite some surprise, as comporting so little with the professions of the earnest desire of your Government to bring those differences to a speedy and happy termination which have been so strongly and so repeatedly expressed as well in your notes as in the recent communications from Don Francisco Pizarro to the Minister of the United States at Madrid. The observation, that truth is of all times, and that reason and justice are founded upon immutable principles, has never been contested by the United States; but neither truth, reason, nor justice consists in stubbornness of assertion, nor in the multiplied repetition of error. I referred you to the letters from the extraordinary mission of 1805 to Don Pedro Cevallos, for an ample and satisfactory refutation of the supposed facts, grounds, and arguments now reproduced by you. You reply by telling me that "there does not appear to be a single incident to give the smallest support to the pretensions of my Government; that all the vague positions on which it has been attempted to found them have been refuted and dissipated by the Spanish Government, by a demonstration so luminous and convincing as to leave no alternative to reason to resist it." And you, more than once, intimate that the American Government does not itself believe in the validity of the statements and arguments used by its Ministers in support of the claims of the United States, as asserted by them. To language and sentiments such as these the Government of the United States cannot reply; nor can it, without an effort, continue at all a discussion sullied by such unworthy and groundless imputations.

argument, which you are pleased to include under the general censure of vague and groundless positions? It is no other than a supposition of a treaty of 1764, by virtue of which, you say, France ceded the western remnant of Louisiana to Spain a year after having ceded the eastern part of it, from the Mississippi to the Perdido, to England. With the aid of this treaty you are enabled, first, to discover an interval of time between the two cessions, and during which France possessed Louisiana, bounded eastward by the Mississippi; and, secondly, to include this treaty between Spain and France among those described in the article of the Treaty of St. Ildefonso, as "the treaties subsequently entered into between Spain and other States."

There is reason to believe that no such treaty of 1764 ever existed. That the cessions of Louisiana, westward of the Mississippi, to Spain, and eastward of that river to the Perdido, to England, were made by France both on the 3d of November, 1762, is certain; and that the acceptance by the King of Spain of the cession made to him took place on the 13th of the same November, 1762; the proof of which is in the very order from the King of France to L'Abbadie, for the delivery of the province to the officers of the King of Spain. The province had never belonged to France a single day, without extending to the Perdido. Nor can it be necessary to remind you that the very treaty of cession, by which France surrendered her possession of Louisiana to Spain, cannot be comprehended in the description of treaties subsequently entered into between Spain and other States.

As this simple reference to a notorious and unquestionable fact annihilates all that course of reasoning upon which your understanding rejects all doubt, so a recurrence to another fact, equally notorious, replies as decisively to your appeal to the treaty of 6th February, 1778, between the United States and France. You say that in the year 1800 France could not have acquired any territory east of the Mississippi, without a monstrous violation of that treaty; forgetting that that treaty, and all its obligations upon France, had, before the year 1800, ceased to exist.

I am directed by the President to confine the observations upon your late notes to those parts of them which have relation to the essential subjects of controversy between the two nations. To give a single instance of that course of argument which you represent as equivalent to mathematical demonstration in favor of Spain, it will be sufficient to refer to your assertions in relation to the question of the eastern boundaries of Louisiana, as retroceded to France by the Treaty of St. Ildefonso in 1800, and ceded by France to the United States in 1803. The claim The fact that the cessions of the two parts of of the United States, under that cession, to the Louisiana to Spain and England were made on territory east of the Mississippi, as far as the river the same day, may serve no less as a reply to all Perdido, rests, as you well know, upon the words the verbal criticisms so gravely urged by Mr. in the two treaties describing the colony or pro- Cevallos, and now repeated by you, on the force vince of Louisiana ceded by them, as having the of the terms retrocede and retrocession, used in same extent, not only that it had at the time of the Treaty of St. Ildefonso. The plain import of the retrocession in the hands of Spain, but also the words is neither more or less than giving back, that it had when France possessed it, and such as restoring. It does not, and cannot be made to imit should be after the treaties subsequently enter-ply that both the parties to the restoration must, of ed into between Spain and other States. You know also with what force it was urged by the Ministers of the United States at Aranjuez, in 1805, that those words (referring to the primitive possession of the province by France) could have had no other meaning than that of extending the retrocession to the Perdido, because the province had always had that extent when in the possession of France. And what is your reply to this

necessity, be the same as both the parties to the grant. They only imply that the object and the party granting, and the party receiving it, as restored, are the same. To use an illustration from the concerns of individual life, suppose A, by two separate deeds, grants half an acre of land to B, and the other half to C. B, by subsequent purchase, obtains the half acre granted to C, and then regrants the whole acre back to A. By whatever

Relations with Spain.

denomination the two half acres may have been called, in the interval between the first grant and the restoration, B might, with the most perfect propriety, be said to retrocede the whole; and if in the act of restoration the acre should be called by the same name, and expressly described as having the same extent as when it had been first owned by A, with what shadow of justice could B pretend that his regrant was only of the half acre he had first received from A, because the other half acre had, in the interval, been called by another name, and for some time owned by another person? That the term retrocession is in common use in this sense, take the following passage from the English translation of Alcedo's Dictionary:

"By a treaty in 1783, Great Britain retroceded to Spain all the territory which both Spain and France had ceded to Great Britain in 1763."

and your intimation of a treaty of 1764, to which you suppose the clause also to apply, is as incompatible with the pretensions of your own Government in 1805, as with those of the United States at this day.

To account for the peculiar phraseology used in this description, inserted in the third article of the Treaty of St. Ildefonso, we must advert to the peculiar situation of the territory to be conveyed, and to what must have been the intention of the parties. It was a colony or province to be restored; and therefore the object of France could have been no other than to obtain the restoration of the whole original colony, so far as it was in the power of Spain to restore it. But there was a part of the original colony which had been ceded by France to England, which had in process of time become a part of the United States, and which, not being in the hands of Spain, she could not restore: there was another part which had been ceded by France direct

There would then be nothing in the terms retrocede and retrocession which could limit the territories restored by Spain to the boundaries underly to Spain, which still remained in her hands, which she had first received part of them from France, even if the original cessions of the two parts had been made at different times, and even if those words, "with the same extent it had when in the hands of France," had not been inserted in the Treaty of St. Ildefonso. But when it is considered that the cessions by France of the two parts of Louisiana were made to Spain and to England on the same day; when we know that the cession of the part ceded to England had been made for the benefit of Spain, as it was an equivalent for the restoration by England of the island of Cuba to Spain; and when we seek for any possible meaning to the words referring to the extent of Louisiana when before owned by France, to our minds, sir, the conclusion is irresistible that the terms retrocede and retrocession can have, in this case, no other meaning than that for which we contend, and that they include the giving back to France the whole of Louisiana which had ever belonged to France, and which it was, at the time of the signature of the Treaty of St. Ildefonso, in the power of Spain to

restore.

By the words in the third article of the Treaty of St. Ildefonso, adopted in the treaty of cession of 1803 to the United States, Spain retrocedes to France the colony or province of Louisiana, with the same extent that it "now has in the hands of Spain, and that it had when France possessed it, and such as it ought to be after the treaties subsequently entered into between Spain and other States." At the negotiation of Aranjuez, in 1805, your alleged treaty of 1764 never occurred to the imagination of Mr. Cevallos as one of these subsequent treaties; for, after citing this clause of the article, he says, in his letter to Messrs. Pinckney and Monroe, of the 24th February, 1805, "the treaties here alluded to are not, nor can be, others than those of 1788, between Spain and England, and 1795, between Spain and the United States." The American Ministers, in their answer of the 8th March, 1805, explicitly agree in opinion with Mr. Cevallos on this point;

but subject to certain conditions stipulated by Spain in a treaty with the United States; and there was a third part, which France had ceded to England in 1762, but which had afterwards fallen into the hands of Spain, and which she was equally competent to restore, as if it had been ceded by France to herself. As the boundaries of this colony or province never had been precisely defined, and had been, from its first settlement, a subject of dispute between France and Spain, the parties had no means of recurring to any former definition of boundaries to carry their intention into effect; as they had no geographical lines or landmarks to which they now recur, they assumed their definition from circumstances incidental to the present and past time. If the intention had been to cede back the province only with the extent it actually had in the hands of Spain, the parties would have said so, and omitted the other clause, which, in that case, would have been not merely superfluous, but tending to perplex that which would have been clear without it. If it had been intended that Spain should restore to France only what she had received from France, nothing could have been more clear and easy than to have said so; but then, the reference to the extent of the colony when France possessed it would have been not merely absurd, but contradictory to that intention. The very use of both the terms province and colony shows that the parties were looking to the original state, as well as to the actual condition of the territory to be restored. Louisiana, the actual Spanish province, was one thing, and Louisiana, the original French colony, was another; the adoption of both the words is of itself a strong presumption that the intention was to restore not only the actual province, but so much of any other province as was then in the hands of Spain, and had formed part of the original French colony.

Assume the intention of the parties to have been that for which we contend, and under the existing circumstances they could scarcely have

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Relations with Spain.

store, but under such restrictions as the engagements contracted by Spain with other Powers required of her good faith to secure.

Let us pass to the consideration of the western boundaries of Louisiana.

With the note of Messrs. Monroe and Pinckney, to Don Pedro Cevallos, of the 28th January, 1805, a memoir upon these boundaries was presented to that Minister, proving that they extended eastward to the Perdido, and westward to the Rio Bravo, or Grande del Norte. They observed in that note that "the facts and principles which justify this conclusion are so satisfactory to their Government as to convince it that the United States have not a better right to the island of New Orleans, under the cession referred to, than they have to the whole district of territory thus described."

In their note of the 20th of April, 1805, to the same Minister, replying to his argument in support of the pretensions of your Government with regard to those limits, they lay down and establish by a chain of reasoning which neither Mr. Cevallos at the time nor your Government at any period since has ever attempted to break, three principles, sanctioned alike by immutable justice and the general practice of the European nations which have formed settlements and held possessions in this hemisphere; and by the application of which to the facts also stated in their note this question of the western boundary ought then to have been and eventually must be settled. These principles were

expressed it by any other words than those which are found in the article-assume that they had any other intention, and you can find no rational meaning for their words. The province was to be restored, with the extent it actually had in the hands of Spain; the colony was to be restored, with the extent it had when formerly possessed by France. Spain could not restore the parts of the original colony which were not in her actual possession, and which already formed parts of the Western States and Territories of this Union; but she could restore that part of the colony of which she had become possessed by a treaty of 1783 with Great Britain. Mr. Cevallos urged, with some earnestness, that the first clause having marked the extent of the colony or province, such "as it then had in the hands of Spain," it would be inconsistent and absurd to suppose that the words "and that it had when France possessed it" could be intended to mark a greater extent, because it would be saying, in one breath, that the cession was of the same extent, and of more than the same extent, that it had in the possession of Spain. But there is no absurdity or inconsistency in modifying, by one clause of a definition, an extent described in another clause of the same definition; no more than, in the description of a surface, the line in breadth is inconsistent with the line in length. According to this argument of Mr. Cevallos, the words "and that it had when France possessed it" had no meaning at all; they merely repeated what had been fully and completely expressed by the preceding clause; but if they had no meaning, what possible motive could the parties have for inserting them, when it must have been perfectly familiar to the memory of both that the extent of the province or colony, when in the hands of France, had included West Florida to the Perdido, which territory was also then in the actual possession of Spain? If it were possible to suppose that the Ministers of France and Spain, in the very article defining the extent of the country to be conveyed, could have been so careless as to admit an idle waste of words, the very composition of this article carries internal evidence with it that no such improvidence is imputable to those by whom it was drawn up. The reference to the extent of the colony in the primitive possession of France could not be to a time when the property of it had been no longer hers. It could not be to say over again what had been said in the immediately preceding clause. Every word of the description carries with it evidence of deep deliberation and significancy. The first clause marks the intention of the parties, by the incident of actual possession by Spain, all of which was to be restored; the second clause modifies by enlarging the extent, from the incident of original possession by France; and the third clause modifies, by restricting the grant to 2. That La Salle, a Frenchman, with a comthe conditions which Spain had stipulated con- mission and authority from Louis XIV., discovcerning the territory of other States. Altogether, ered the bay of St. Bernard, and formed a settlethe clear and explicit meaning of the whole arti- ment there on the western side of the river cle is, that Spain should restore to France as Colorado, in the year 1685, and that the possesmuch of old French Louisiana as she had to re-sion thus taken in the bay of St. Bernard, in

First. "That, when any European nation takes possession of any extent of seacoast, that possession is understood as extending to the interior country, to the sources of the rivers emptying within that coast, to all their branches and the country they cover, and to give it a right in exclusion of all other nations to the same."

Secondly. "That, whenever one European nation makes a discovery, and takes possession of any portion of this continent, and another afterwards does the same at some distance from it, where the boundary between them is not determined by the principle above mentioned, the middle distance becomes such of course."

Thirdly. "That, whenever any European nation has thus acquired a right to any portion of territory on this continent, that right can never be diminished or affected by any other Power, by virtue of purchases made, by grants or conquests of the natives within the limits thereof."

The facts stated in this last-mentioned note, and to which these principles were applied in support of the claim of the United States, under the cession of Louisiana by France to them, were

1. That the Mississippi, in its whole length to the ocean, was discovered by French subjects from Canada, in 1683.

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