I also transmitted to-day the following telegram to the Department, giving the substance of a communication received yesterday evening from the captain-general, (copy and translation of which I inclose :) HAVANA, November 14. The superior political governor, replying to my communication asking for confirmation or denial respecting the execution of captain and crew of Virginius, refers to his communication of 7th instant, and says, substantially, that the facts are transmitted to the government of Spain, near which the United States has a representative, from whom you will receive, without doubt, all the information asked for in my communication. HALL. The communication above referred to is in reply to mine of 13th instant, a copy of which accompanied my No. 303 of 12th instant, and I beg to call the Department's attention thereto, as going to confirm much that I stated in said dispatch No. 303. I am, &c., [Inclosure.-Translation.] HENRY C. HALL, Vice-Consul-General. [SEAL.] SUPERIOR POLITICAL GOVERNMENT, SECRETARY'S OFFICE, BUREAU OF POLITICAL AFFAIRS. I have received your dispatch dated to-day, informing me that you had telegraphic instructions from the Secretary of State of the United States, asking confirmation of the news referring to the steamer Virginius and to its crew. You are already informed of the contents of the dispatch which, referring to this subject, I addressed you on the 17th instant. Rest, therefore, completely assured that everything relating to this subject, and whatever may result from the proceedings instituted before the tribunals of justice, I duly transmit to the government of this nation, near which that of the United States has its duly accredited representative, and through whose authorized medium it will undoubtedly receive all data whatever referring to your last attentive communication, considering the cordial and friendly relations which exist between both countries. HAVANA, November 12, 1873. JOAQUIN JOVELLAR. The CONSUL-GENERAL OF THE UNITED STATES in this city, &c., &c. NOTE. The foregoing communication, although dated the 12th November, 1873, was not received until the evening of the 13th November, 1873. HENRY C. HALL. No. 395.] No. 726. Mr. Hall to Mr. Davis. UNITED STATES CONSULATE GENERAL, Havana, November 14, 1873. (Received Nov. 21.) SIR Referring to my No. 302, of 12th instant, and the copies of the correspondence therein contained, passed between the vice-consul of the United States at Santiago de Cuba and the commandant-general of that district, relative to the case of the Virginius, I now transmit the continuation of the same correspondence, and respectfully call the Department's attention thereto as clearly showing that Mr. Schmitt, the viceconsul, fulfilled his duty in the premises as far as was in his power. I am, &c., HENRY C. HALL, Vice-Consul-General. [Inclosure 1 in No. 305.] Mr. Schmitt to General Burriel. UNITED STATES CONSULATE, SIR: I have had the honor to receive your excellency's communication of yesterday's date, the contents of which fill me with surprise and profound regret that my previons dispatches to your excellency and motives which caused them should have been so misconstrued by your excellency as to lead even to personal imputations upon my character. In this country, as in every other, even the greatest of criminals have lawyers assigned to their defense, without, in the event of their condemnation, the reputation of such lawyers suffering therefrom; and I, who represent a foreign country here, have an absolute duty, when I hear that any of the citizens of that country are in any trouble, to succor the same where practicable, defend them if their case admits of defense, and in the last extremity afford them all alleviation or consolation as lies in my power, and a right to do so without identifying myself with the citizens in question and their actions or opinions, or exposing myself to the suspicions and insinuations of your excellency. Your excellency's communication barring me from all interference on behalf of my fellow-citizens, I must beg your excellency will, at all events, allow me to proffer a few remarks in my own defense. I should have been the last person to disturb the important duties of your excellency, and the religious meditations which your excellency's subordinates were indulg ing in, had it not been that I considered the case a pressing one, and imagined that where there was sufficient time to censure and detain my telegram, there might have been also time for a few lines of explanation, with the additional motive of my second dispatch, that I observed that the circumstances which your excellency enumerates were no hinderance to the dispatch of other business connected with the steamer. Due to a misconception, though not a maltranslation, my meaning with regard to colors has not been correctly conveyed to your excellency. I used the word in its acceptation of flag, and not with reference to the different distinctive shades which form the national emblems of countries. I shall, therefore, abstain from saying anything further on this point, than that it seems to me, considering that the Virginius was flying the United States flag at the time of her capture, that she claimed to be a United States merchant-steamer, and her papers as such were surrendered by her captain to the boarding officer from the steamer Tornado, it would have been a delicate attention on the part of your excellency to have informed me thereof, and that the use of such flag and papers was an abuse on the goodness of the country which I represent, in order that I might have brought the same to the notice of my Government, and have been spared the necessity of telegraphing to Jamaica, and the disagreeableness to which said telegram has given rise. As regards the protest I directed to your excellency, my duty to cover my responsibility in case of a reclamation was so manifest-and a protest is not subsequently authorized by such reclamation-so entirely inoffensive, that I cannot for a moment suppose your excellency can take exception to my action in this matter. With regard to my interview with your excellency, when I asked permission to see O'Ryan, and when your excellency's treatment of me in your excellency's own residence was not what I should have expected from the amiability and hospitality of your excellency, as your excellency's remarks contain a personal imputation on my character, accusing me of an intention to take your excellency by surprise and obtain an undue advantage by dishonorable means, I can only deny most emphatically even having harbored such intentions or attempted to put them into execution. Finally, I note your excellency's intention to apply for the revocation of my exequatur, and while ignorant of any cause given by me therefor, I can only assure your excellency that, my conscience being perfectly clear in the question, and having acted honorably and as I considered for the best, the result of your excellency's application is to me a matter of profound indifference. I have, &c., [Inclosure 2 in No. 305.-Translation.] E. G. SCHMITT. General Burriel to Mr. Schmitt. POLITICAL GOVERNMENT OF THE EASTERN DEPARTMENT OF THE ISLAND OF CUBA, I have received your communication of the 5th instant, in reply to that from this gov ernment of the previous day, relative to those you had already addressed me regarding the capture of the pirate vessel Virginius. I am sorry at having caused you the profound regret you mention in consequence of my reply, or the interpretation which you say was given to your communications, for which no fault can be imputed to me, as I did but my duty, just as you purposed to do yours, in the matter. The interpretation given to your dispatches could be no other, as, officially and in writing and investing the act with a solemnity which could not be allowed to it, you addressed yourself to this government, making inquiries to which you could have verbally been answered, had you pleased to call on me in person, because the matter was very plain, and in my opinion did not deserve the honor of a dispatch, unless you did so purposely, endeavoring to give it more importance than it really had. After your first communication, making the inquiry to which I refer, you addressed me two others on the same day, exacting explanations regarding affairs the gravity of which could not but impose upon me the most prudent reserve; and as you were desirous of obtaining with unnecessary haste a reply which could not then be given, you became alarmed, entirely without reason, and protested against my conduct, against the action of the courts who had charge of the matter to which you refer, and this without possibly knowing or being informed what was such action. As I am always disposed to receive at my office any person claiming the aid of the authorities, especially the consul and vice-consuls resident in this city, you will understand that the means of which you undeavor to avail yourself were not the most suitable to induce belief in the sincerity of your acts; for if you had called upon me and verbally set forth your doubts and apprehensions, I would have been pleased to attend to your wishes within the limits of prudence and convenience which my office and the present circumstances impose upon me. Far from having put any impediment to the defense of your citizens residing in this city and in all this department, in nowise have I prevented you from doing so, limiting myself in my communications to express the surprise which your persistent officiousness caused me, asking to interfere in affairs to which no one had called your assistance, and which did not treat of citizens of the United States who might be under the protection of your vice-consulate, but of chiefs, rebels to the Spanish government, of armed men who came to swell the ranks of the insurgent parties of this island, and of the crew of a steamer seized on the high seas as a pirate, and subject by this act alone to the immediate action of the courts of justice, in accordance to the laws regarding piracy ruling in this island, and of which you are undoubtedly informed. If the marine court which tried the pirate crew had had the slightest doubt as to the status of the vessel, and had it not considered itself absolutely and exclusively competent to try it, the same court would have addressed you through my official medium, or some one of the prisoners would have done so if all of them had not been confessedly convicted of the crime of piracy. All these explanations you could have obtained, as I have before stated, if, with the desire to be out of doubt, you had called upon me; but the way in which you addressed me, and the expressions you used, could not but otherwise make me believe in a desire on the part of your vice-consulate to give the question a character of gravity it did not possess. No one, therefore, has objected to your making the defense of your citizens; no one has excluded you from any interference in favor of your citizens; no one has interpreted your words in a sense different to their meaning, as that of "the American colors" was taken to mean the North American flag, as you afterward stated; and, finally, no one has considered himself with any moral authorization whatever to believe that the steamer Virginius was a merchant-vessel, which lawfully used the United States flag, as her character of a pirate was public and notorious all over the world; consequently, your communication, to which I now reply, however flattering the explanation you give to your acts, has no foundation respecting the interpretation you are pleased to give to my phrases and to the conduct I have observed in this motive. As to the reception I gave you at my residence when you called to see me, after addressing me three communications, you will excuse my saying that the reception I made you was as polite, respectful, and affable as usual, and so much so, you cannot forget, that I granted you the permission you asked for, to witness the execution, before a notary, of the will of Mr. O'Ryan, in the belief on my part that you had, if not the absolute certainty, at least the moral conviction, that he was a citizen of the United States, and that you had been called for by him, understanding you were the consul of his nation. But as you said this in my presence, after being told at the jail, whither you had repaired before seeing me, by the fiscal of the case, the best-informed person in the matter, and been assured that Mr. O'Ryan was not an American citizen, but an Englishman, according to his own declarations, which circumstance you concealed from me, through inadvertence or otherwise, it was then that I felt obliged, by my position, by the dignity of my office, and by the importance of the concession I had made, in virtue of assertions which had already been answered officially by proper persons, to express the surprise your conduct caused me, which might be all the loyal you wish, but which appeared suspicious, as wanting in sincerity and frankness; and you could rest assured that if you had asked me in a private and friendly manner to see Mr. O'Ryan or any other of the prisoners, permission would have been granted in the act, as was done to various persons; but, exacting officially, and in demand of a right which did not exist, it was impossible such could be granted. This is all I have to say in reply, reserving to his excellency the superior political governor the decision respecting the revocation of your exequatur, which I have asked for, much more when this is so indifferent to you, as you state; as to the contrary I should have a real feeling of regret, as, aside from the question which occasions these replies, I have ever endeavored to keep up with you, as with the rest of the consular corps, the most respectful and cordial relations. COMMANDANCY OF MARINE OF THE PROVINCE OF CUBA. Being informed of your communication of yesterday evening, in which you are pleased to inform me that you protest against all the proceedings with reference to the steamer Virginius and with the persons detained or imprisoned on her, I have only to state to you that, considering that you are well informed of the most lawful motives which induced the man-of-war Tornado to seize the Virginius, finding her near and in direction to the lee-coast of this port, with a large expedition on board of men and contraband of war to aid the insurrection existing in the eastern part of the island, against the national integrity, wanting, besides, all the documents necessary for a merchantvessel, that I much regret that you should seek to make reclamation for the impunity of this offense, condemned by all nations, and also further by the laws and decrees published by the superior authorities of this island. I have only to inform you that the vessel and the persons found on board are in fact held to the action of the court of justice, and that it is impossible for me to attend to any kind of reclamation which may impede or oppose the action of these. God preserve you many years. CUBA, November 6, 1873. RAMON BRANDAVIS. The VICE-CONSUL of the United States of America in this city, &c. No. 727. Mr. Hall to Mr. Fish. [Telegram.] HAVANA, November 12, 1873. (Received Nov. 12.) Morning papers publish statements, apparently from official source, that the captain of the Virginius, thirty-six of the crew, and sixteen others, were shot on the 7th and 8th instant. Consul at Kingston reports that vessel was under United States flag, papers regular and cleared for Aspinwall. No. 728. Mr. Fish to Mr. Hall. [Telegram.] HALL. DEPARTMENT OF STATE, Washington, November 12, 1873. Ask of authorities for confirmation or denial of reported massacre and outrage upon captain and crew of Virginius. Report at earliest possi ble moment. FISH. No. 729. Mr. Fish to Mr. Hall. [Telegram.] DEPARTMENT OF STATE, Washington, November 12, 1873. You will demand of authorities the most ample rights secured by treaty or law of nations for all American citizens on the Virginius. Instruct consul at Santiago to see that they have counsel and advocates, and that he report as to all judicial or other proceedings. FISH. No. 730. Mr. Hall to Mr. Fish. [Telegram.] HAVANA, November 15, 1873. (Received Nov. 15-11 a. m.) The executions reported 12th instant fully confirmed by British consul at Santiago and consul-general here. Sixteen of crew were British subjects, and were executed notwithstanding the intervention of the gov ernor of Jamaica and the British commodore. Papers yesterday published accounts of the execution of fifty-seven other prisoners, and that only some eighteen will escape death. Nothing official received. No. 7301. HALL. No. 2.] Mr. Hall to Mr. Davis. UNITED STATES CONSULATE GENERAL, Havana, November 15, 1873. (Received Nov. 21.) SIR: Referring to dispatch No. 305 of 14th instant, and series from this consulate relating to the case of the steamer Virginius, I now accompany a copy of a communication addressed by the commandantgeneral of the eastern department to the British vice-consul at Santiago de Cuba, in reply to his request in behalf of the British commodore at Kingston and the governor of Jamaica, to suspend the execution of the British subjects found on board that steamer. I regret that I am unable to send the Department a translation of this important document. The British consul-general at this place has communicated to his gov ernment substantially the following: Chase begun and capture effected on the high seas. Sixteen British subjects of the crew of the Virginius were shot 7th instant at Santiago de Cuba, in spite of the governor of Jamaica and the commodore's protest to the governor, through the vice-consul. Her Majesty's ship Niobe arrived there the next day. Seven British subjects remain, six of whom are under age. In consequence of the foregoing information, furnished me by that officer, I telegraphed the Department this morning as follows: |
