On account of some new incidents bearing on the case, I withhold, for a
few days, response to Mr. Ulloa’s note respecting General Burriel.
[Inclosure.]
Mr. Cushing to
Mr. Ulloa.
Legation of the United States of America,
Madrid, July 21, 1874.
Sir: I have the honor to acknowledge
reception of your excellency’s note of the 7th instant, in reference
to the reparation claimed by the United States in behalf of the crew
and passengers of the steamer Virginius; and, after according to the
matter such due reflection as its importance requires and as respect
for your excellency dictates, I beg leave herewith to present the
view of the general question entertained by my Government.
* * * * * * *
These and other pertinent suggestions might be made, I repeat, if the
question were an open one, which, however, it is not, it having been
explicitly determined by the protocol of November.
Unlawful, therefore, as was the capture of the Virginius, prejudicial
as this capture was to the maritime rights of all nations of either
hemisphere, injurious as it would have been, in the long run, to the
interests of Spain herself to have any such pretended right of
capture interpolated into the law of nations; nevertheless, and all
these premises being admitted, and whilst the mere capture itself
would have constituted serious cause of complaint, still, if the
Spanish authorities in Cuba had subsequently pursued the course
indicated by international law and by the universal practice of
nations; that is to say, if they had taken the vessel into port for
examination, and for possible trial before a court of admiralty,
simply detaining uninjured her crew and passengers meanwhile, in
such circumstances the injury done to the United States, although
seriously justifying demand of redress, would not have assumed the
portentous proportions which it actually did in consequence of the
wholesale massacre of her officers, crew, and passengers,
perpetrated at Santiago, which shocked the public sense of Europe as
well as of America.
It is of these incidents which it is my duty now regretfully to
speak, and to characterize them as they deserve, in the name of
international law, of humanity, and civilization, by aid of the
lights furnished by Spain herself as well as by other
governments.
For it was the great fact of the inhuman slaughter in cold blood at
Santiago de Cuba of fifty-three human beings, a large number of them
citizens of the United States, defenseless persons, shot without
lawful trial according either to the law of nations or to treaty,
shot without any valid pretension of authority in the laws of Spain
herself, and to the horror of the whole civilized world—this it was
which produced such intense emotion in the United States, and which
placed the two nations in imminent peril of war, so happily averted
by the superior wisdom and patriotic discretion of the governments
of Spain and the United States.
Your excellency will pardon me for repeating that this act has no
conceivable justification, either in the law of nations or in the
municipal law of Spain, or in any conventional law, it being, on the
contrary, in plain violation of treaty with the United States.
It was a dreadful, a savage act.
Your excellency, I feel sure, cannot condemn this language as too
strong for the actual circumstances. For is it not the very language
constantly applied at this day, fin public documents and debates, to
other acts of the same class, and especially to the shooting of
defenseless prisoners? Is it not the mere echo of the cry of
indignation and of horror which comes up from all Europe, in view of
the military execution of twenty-three prisoners at Estella by
Dorregary—the lamentable voice, as it were, of the outraged
conscience of Christendom—and which still rings in our ears?
Nay, does not the fact of the unjust military execution of a single
German subject at Estella inspire all Germans with indignation, and
can the United States be silent in face of the equally unjust
military execution of many of her citizens at Santiago de Cuba?
Pardon me for thus alluding to incidents of civil war in this
country, which, however, have ceased to be domestic incidents, and
belong now to the general history of our times, and which,
strikingly in contrast as they are with the conduct of the armies of
the republic, may not improperly be alluded to here, in view of
their manifest pertinence, and at the same time in the spirit of
perfect deference for the government of Spain.
[Page 500]
Indeed, it affords me gratification to witness and to honor the
expressed determination on the part of the Spanish government, and
of its generals in the field, never to lose sight of the sacred
rights of humanity even in the presence of the worst excesses of
pitiless war and in the face of whatsoever provocation.
But that which is wrong at Estella cannot be right at Santiago de
Cuba.
I will not cease to believe, therefore, that the government of Spain,
manifesting as it does thus conspicuously its utter condemnation of
such heinous acts, and providing indemnity for the families of the
victims thereof, will in the same spirit of exalted self-respect be
prepared to do justice to the present reclamations of the United
States.
With which I have the honor to renew to your excellency the assurance
of my highest consideration.
