Correspondence between the Department of State and the Spanish legation at Washington.
Mr. Lopez Roberts to Mr. Fish
The undersigned, envoy extraordinary and minister plenipotentiary of Spain, has the honor herewith to send to the honorable Secretary of [Page 779] State a copy of the communication which the consul of Spain at New York, in the fulfilment of his duty, addressed on the 8th instant to the district attorney of the southern district of New York, in relation to the steamer Hornet; and he likewise sends a copy of that which the said consul has received in reply from Mr. Noah Davis.
Since then, or rather on that same day, the steamer Hornet put to sea from the port of New York without the judicial authorities of the Federal Government having taken such measures to prevent her departure as should have been dictated to them by the circumstances and criminal antecedents of the aforesaid vessel. Not only has this happened, but it further clearly appears, from the annexed letter of the district attorney, that this functionary entertains the very singular opinion that, for a crime which is being committed in the territory of the United States, it is not of these (the United States) that the government of Spain ought to ask justice and the maintenance of the laws of the country, but that it ought to address the British authorities.
This intelligent and skillful lawyer, in forming such a resolution, doubtless did not previously consult the Federal Government; had he done so, he would without doubt have been reminded of the exact similarity which exists between this case of the steamer Hornet and those of certain vessels which, in the year 1862, left the ports of Great Britain. It is further evident to the undersigned that the Hon. Noah Davis did not consider the language used by Mr. Hamilton Fish in his dispatch of September 25, 1869, to the minister of the United States at London, when he alluded as follows to the claims which had their origin in the infractions of the law of neutrality tolerated by the English authorities during the Southern rebellion:
“We hold that the international duty of the Queen’s government in this respect was above and independent of the municipal laws of England. It was a sovereign duty attaching to Great Britain as a sovereign power. The municipal law was but a means of repressing or punishing individual wrong-doers; the law of nations was the true and proper rule of duty for the government.”
And further:
“But the Government of the United States has never been able to see the force of this alleged difficulty. The common law of England is the common law of the United States. In both countries, and certainly in England, revenue seizures are made daily, and ships are prevented from going to sea on much less cause of suspicion than attached to the suspected ships of the confederates.”
The terms of this remarkable dispatch of Mr. Hamilton Fish are of immense importance by reason of their significance in a matter like the present, and the undersigned cannot comprehend how this can have remained unnoticed by the district attorney in writing a letter which reproduces a similar case, and of the same kind and nature as one of those which the Government of the United States has pending for settlement with Great Britain, and which may, in the end, lead Spain to think herself fully justified in bringing a claim, in the same sense, against the United States.
It is not the purpose of the undersigned now to enter upon a discussion of the points to which so grave and delicate a question may give rise; his object is only to show in this note some of the most important facts, which should not be lost sight of in the matter in question.
The steamer Hornet is still the property of the same individual, Macias, who purchased it from the Federal Government in 1869. The formalities ordered by law to be made for the transfer of property in [Page 780] vessels were gone through in the New York custom-house by one George W. Brown, of said city. This George W. Brown has figured, since the year 1869, as the organizer of all the filibustering expeditions undertaken by the steamer Hornet. This same Brown is the one who, in 1869, furnished the arms, munitions, and coal necessary for this vessel when she was off the coast of Long Island preparing to commence her acts of piracy against the commerce of a friendly nation.
The undersigned feels bound to call the attention of the honorable Secretary of State to some of the main incidents which form a part of the subsequent history of this vessel, and which are public and notorious.
Mr. Hamilton Fish has certainly not forgotten the detention of the Hornet in the port of Wilmington. The officers and men of this pirate were indicted, and a suit which was commenced for so legitimate a cause, in which public justice was interested, was not continued. If the Federal Government had given the necessary orders for it to be continued in the courts of justice, it is not to be doubted that, at the present moment, the steamer Hornet would not be about to commence new and criminal adventures.
It is also the duty of the undersigned to remind the honorable Secretary of State of the incident which relates to the return of the Hornet on the 7th of June last to her owner Macias. Should not this restitution be considered in itself alone, and in a certain sense, as an incomprehensible act of neglect which has just been made more evident by the recent departure of the Hornet?
On the 6th of October, 1870, the steamer Hornet is again detained in the port of New York, on petition of the consul of Spain; but nine days afterward the order for her detention is revoked, on account of affidavits made by a certain White, and by Macias and Brown—that is, by the parties interested; the course of justice being thus altered, and the courts of the country being prevented from taking cognizance of and deciding with regard to the guilt of said vessel.
Finally, the Hornet gets ready to sail from New York, and the consul of Spain informs the district attorney that, according to the information which he possesses, the said vessel is going to convey an armed expedition to the island of Cuba, and the district attorney pays no regard to these statements nor to the documents presented to him, and pretending to be ignorant of the history of this pirate vessel, forgetting the names of her owner and of the agent who represents him, he replies to the consul of Spain that, from the careful examination which he pretends to have made of the cargo of the vessel, he has found, on the part of the persons dispatching her, no hostile intention. But the undersigned takes the liberty of calling the attention of Mr. Hamilton Fish to the noteworthy fact that the district attorney in no wise seeks to conceal from the consul the knowledge which he has of the future movements of the steamer Hornet. He admits that the vessel is, indeed, going to an intermediate port before arriving at that of her final destination. So that the whole argumentation of Mr. Noah Davis consists in throwing the responsibility upon the authorities of this intermediate port; a responsibility which must eventually rest upon the power which has permitted this pirate freely to leave one of its ports.
The undersigned regrets to find himself compelled to call the attention of Mr. Hamilton Fish to the gravity of the facts which he has just set forth, and he avails himself of this occasion to reiterate to him the assurances of his highest consideration.
- Lopez Roberts.↩