Mr. Sickles to Mr. Fish
Sir: On the receipt of your instruction of the 18th instant, through the legation at London, I communicated the purport of it unofficially to a member of the cabinet, suggesting its significance, and at the same time I addressed a note to the minister of state, asking an interview. Mr. Martos promptly replied, desiring me to come to the palace to-day at 3 in the afternoon. I then recapitulated to the minister the successive steps in the negotiation for a claims convention begun in June last, touching incidentally upon the frequent modifications of the attitude of his predecessor, Mr. Sagasta, in the course of the correspondence, as well as in our personal conferences. After calling the attention of Mr. [Page 761] Martos to the patience with which the President had permitted me to follow the discussion so tardily conducted by the Spanish government, and his forbearance in asking for a decisive answer to our propositions while the cabinet of Madrid found itself preoccupied by important home questions, I stated that, in view of the completed organization of this government, and of the approaching termination of the last session of the present Congress, I was instructed to report at once to the President whether there was any probability of an early and favorable issue to the negotiation, and I added that, while I ought not to conceal from his excellency the impression that would be made by a negative answer, I must frankly state that I could not, without a further communication from him, send any other than a most discouraging reply to the inquiry addressed to me by my Government.
The minister immediately sent for the assistant secretary, Mr. de Blas, and asked him for a statement of the points at issue, remarking that, although he had given some attention to the subject, he had not yet gone though the voluminous correspondence and papers relating to it. Mr. de Blas proceeded to give a resumé of the discussion, which I had occasion to complete by directing Mr. Martos’s attention to Mr. Sagasta’s proposed limitations of the jurisdiction of the commission, as stated in his note of December 19, these being, as I remarked, the principal obstacles in the way of an agreement.
The minister then stated that he would take up the subject to-morrow, and after a conference with his colleagues, would be prepared on the following day, when he expected to meet me at dinner at my house, to acquaint me, at least informally, of the reply I might rely upon receiving this week to my note of the 8th instant.
Upon the suggestion of Mr. de Blas, the minister desired me to inform you by telegraph of the assurance he had given me. The conversation then drifted toward a discussion of the doctrine propounded by Mr. Sagasta, that no case which had been decided by a Spanish tribunal could be submitted to international arbitration—a proposition that neither Mr. Martos nor Mr. de Blas appeared disposed to maintain.
I am, &c.,