Mr. Perry to the Duke of Valencia. [Translation.-From the original written in Spanish.] MADRID, May 6, 1865. SIR: Deeply sensible to the prompt and feeling manifestation of sympathy which your excellency was pleased to make to me, personally, in name of her Majesty the Queen, and of her government, on learning the horrible crimes committed on the persons of the President and Secretary of State of the United States, I had the honor to correspond also personally, informing you that I had made haste to transmit them to my government, and that I begged your excellency to convey to her Majesty the Queen the expressions which my heart anticipated for those sentiments of gratitude and consolation with which they will surely be received by the President and government of the United States. Yesterday I received the welcome note of your excellency, in which you communicate to me the declarations made by the senate and congress of deputies, both legislative bodies associating themselves unanimously to the profound grief of the United States for the abominable crime committed on the person of their lamented President, Abraham Lincoln. I can assure your excellency that these noble and spontaneous manifestations, so worthy the generous Spanish nation, will be fully appreciated by the government of the republic and by the whole people. I take a sad but true satisfaction in sending them to-day to my government, and while I wait the appropriate replies from Washington, would request your excellency to be so good as to communicate to the senate and to the congress of deputies the expression of my profound acknowledgment. I avail myself of the occasion to renew to your excellency the assurance of my most distinguished consideration and respect. His Excellency the PRESIDENT of the Cabinet of Ministers. HORATIO J. PERRY. Debate in the Spanish senate, May 3, 1865.-Translated from the original as it stands in the official journal of the senate. The COUNT OF VISTAHERMOSA said: Senators: The circumstance that this body has not been in session till to-day, since the unwelcome news reached Madrid of the infamous assassination committed on the person of the worthy President of the United States, Mr. Lincoln, has prevented me from addressing the senate as I do at this moment, in the persuasion that it will know how to associate its sentiments of grief and indignation to those produced in the whole civilized world by the crime which has snatched from life a person so illustrious and so distinguished for his eminent services. When all peoples in both hemispheres rise with one voice to condemn the cowardly assassins who have blackened the brilliant pages of that wonderful war, just when the country already saw peace on the horizon, and when, undoubtedly, that peace is owing to the efforts, the constancy, and the skill with which the lamented Mr. Lincoln has directed those events, it seems just that the senate should manifest expressly and spontaneously its profound sorrow and regret at an event as terrible as it has been unexpected; an event which has left on the minds of senators, as upon those of all the civilized world, a deep furrow of execration. If I shall not have interpreted the sentiments of the senate in a manner worthy of its elevated character, let it supply my shortcomings, and address to the government of that republic a manifestation such as our president considers fit, informing the Queen's government of this manifestation, and making it extensive to the illustrious widow who has seen snatched away so prematurely the companion of her life, so that the world may know that if the Spanish senate cares for the rights and immunities of people, it watches no less carefully over the rights of the kings and heads of government who rule the destinies of other nations. I therefore call upon the government of her Majesty to give the proper explanation of what has been done in this important question. The PRESIDENT OF THE CABINET OF MINISTERS, (the Duke of Valencia,) said: The government of her Majesty seconds with much pleasure the motion made by the senator, Count of Vistahermosa. As soon as the government learned officially the horrible crime committed in the United States, we went to her Majesty's presence to inform her of it, so that she might give me such orders as she thought fit. Her Majesty ordered me to go and visit the representative of the United States at Madrid, and to express to him the grief and the indignation which her Majesty had felt at a crime so horrible, as well as all the interest which her Majesty felt for the leaders of the republic and for the people of the United States. In fulfilment of the royal precept, I went to the house of the representative of the United States and made to him in the name of her Majesty and of the government that manifestation, which he gratefully acknowledged, and I requested him to transmit the same to his govern ment, so that the latter, with which Spain maintains and seeks to maintain such good relations, and he also labors to maintain them for the good of both nations, should be made aware of the sentiments which animate the Queen and her government. At the same time an official communication, signed by the minister of state, was sent to Señor Tassara, her Majesty's minister plenipotentiary in Washington, making known to him the same manifestation. This is what her Majesty's government can say in reply to the senator. The COUNT OF VISTAHERMOSA said: Though I was already aware from what had been said in the congress of deputies that this had been the course of her Majesty's ministers, I thought it right to make this motion so that the whole senate, in whose sentiments I trust I am not mistaken, might have an opportunity to join in this profound sorrow for the unmerited misfortune which has fallen upon the people of the United States, and I request the Chair for this purpose to consult the opinion of the house. The PRESIDENT OF THE SENATE (the Marquis of Duero) then said, from the chair: I am certain that the senate authorizes me at this moment, and with the senate all Spaniards of the provinces beyond seas and of the peninsula, to declare that the impression produced by the horrible crime committed against the President of the republic of the United States has been unanimous, and that we join ourselves to the manifestations which the civilized world is now making on account of this sad event, desiring solemnly to make known the sincere wishes of Spain for the prosperity and peace of the American republic. The question will now be put, whether the senate approves this declaration. The secretary of the senate, Sevilla, having put the question, it was resolved affirmatively by a unanimous vote. Debate in the Spanish congress of deputies, May 1, 1865.-Translation from the original as it stands on the official journal of the congress. The Deputy Señor LASALA (opposition) said: Public attention has been occupied in these days by the events which have given rise to inevitable discussion in the senate and in this house, and by another, also a bloody event, occurring in a foreign land, to which I beg now to call the attention of the congress. When other governments and parliaments are making manifestations on account of this horrible event, it seems natural that in the Spanish parliament, in the parliament of the nation, which, by Cuba and Porto Rico, is neighbor to the United States, something should be said, and that the initiation should be taken by the liberal opposition to the government of her Majesty. That country which had been great in peace has not been less great in war. In that war, perhaps the most gigantic which history records, it seems, indeed, that in order so immense a pyramid of corpses should be grandly crowned, it was necessary that the body of the President of the United States should fall by the ball of an assassin. The government of her Majesty-I wish to do it justice-I suppose will have manifested its sentiments, but I desire to know in what form; because if it should not have been in some solemn form expressing adequately these sentiments of the whole country, I shall feel obliged to make use of my right as a deputy and put this manifestation into some other form. The PRESIDENT OF THE CABINET OF MINISTERS (Duke of Valencia) said: Her Majesty's government some days since, by extraordinary and unofficial channels, learned the crime which had been committed in the United States, but did not wish to take any official step while the information it had received should not be confirmed; but as soon as it was known officially the government made haste to lay this intelligence before her Majesty Ön taking the orders of the Queen, I received the charge from her Majesty to go and visit the chargé d'affaires of the United States in Madrid, and to express to him the profound sorrow, the immense affliction, which the Queen and the government had experienced by the horrible crimes committed on the person of the President of that republic, on that of the minister for foreign affairs, and on that of the son of the latter. At the same time an official communication was sent to him by the Department of State in similar terms, and a copy of the same was also sent to her Majesty's minister in Washington, so that he should communicate the same sentiments to the new President of the republic. We have not laid these papers before the house because it was not customary to do so. We wished that the initiations should be taken by the deputies themselves, and it is immaterial whether this comes from the benches of the opposition or from this side, because in this case there can be but one general and unanimous sentiment in the whole house, as there is in the whole nation, for the whole nation cannot do otherwise than lament a horrible crime, an assassination perpetrated in this way on the person of the chief of a friendly nation, united to Spain in the best relations, and which, throughout the whole time of the war, has been giving and is now giving us the most positive proofs of the good sentiments which animate it in respect to all questions and all the interests of Spain. The government, therefore, associates itself to the motion made by the deputy, and would wish that the whole house and all Spain should manifest these same sentiments, not only because this is just, but also on account of the reciprocity of sentiments which ought to exist between that nation and Spain. The Deputy Señor CLAVOS (ministerial) said: The president of the cabinet of ministers has very properly undertaken to express, not only in the name of the government of the Queen but in that of the majority of this house, the perfect identity of sentiment which animates all of us with respect to the proposition made by the honorable deputy who has just spoken. In this point, as the president of the cabinet has well said, there can be no diversity of opinion whatsoever among any of the deputies who sit in this chamber. The abominable crime of which the illustrious personage who presided over the American union has been the victim, is a thing which must wound painfully the fibres of all who have any sentiments of morality, and profoundly all those who have any political instinct. It is evident that this poison which corrodes the entrails of European societies has infiltered itself beyond the Atlantic, and that it reaches all peoples. Consequently, if in the past we are afflicted by the crimes committed in Europe against crowned heads, on this occasion the future ought to afflict us still more, seeing that we discover the disease to have extended to all humanity. We who glory in being partisans of the principle of authority, we ought to feel this worse than any. In fact we believe that the principle of authority is a species of reflex of the divine power, understanding this phrase in its right sense, in the sense in which it seems to me it cannot be denied by anybody, considering the public power in its august social manifestation, not precisely in kings, as is vulgarly believed, but in whomsoever represents it socially and legitimately, is sacred. This principle, then, is for us incarnate in the person of the president of a republic, as it is in that of our own august sovereign, or in that of any crowned head of Europe. We therefore join ourselves to this worthy, opportune, and most fitting manifestation; and I think in so saying I interpret faithfully the sentiments of the majority, (by many deputies, yes, yes,) and I may say we are perfectly agreed to what has been said by the deputy Lasala and by the president of the cabinet. To us it is most grateful, seeing that we are divided on other questions in which our opinions differ, to be perfectly united on this point, which is of great interest, for the question is the condemnation, present and future, of those sacrilegious attacks against a principle alike sacred to every member of this house. The PRESIDENT OF THE CABINET OF MINISTERS said: I omitted to state to the congress that the latest information of the government is that the Secretary of State for foreign affairs, who has been wounded most severely, as well as his son, it is hoped may both recover from the sad condition to which they were reduced, and that the assassin is arrested. The Deputy Señor LASALA: Both times the President of the cabinet has risen he has satisfied me completely. This is what I hoped for from the government of her Majesty on this occasion; and without entering now into any considerations upon the origin of power, it seems to me that in point of fact the house is now ready to make the manifestation which the president of the cabinet has indicated. I, personally, ought not to propose it. And although there are here many persons more competent, better authorized and more conspicuous than I am on these benches, and on the other side of the house, they would not have authority sufficient to make this manifestation. But there is in this chamber one person who can make it, (the orator is interrupted by the president of the Congress,) and at this moment he is interrupting me to say that he will make it. The PRESIDENT OF THE CONGRESS OF DEPUTIES (from his chair) said: Gentlemen deputies, I consider it my privilege as well as duty to interpret on this occasion the sentiments of you all, of the whole congress and of the nation, declaring that this house associates itself to the profound affliction which has fallen upon the United States in the horrible crime committed upon the person of the President of that republic, and which has just occupied the attention of this house. The question being then put whether the house adheres to the declaration made by its president, it was agreed to without a dissenting voice; and on motion of deputy Iove and Hevia, it was ordered to be entered on the record with the adhesion of the house by an unanimous vote. Mr. Perry to Mr. Seward. No. 196.] LEGATION OF THE UNITED STATES, Madrid, May 7, 1865. SIR: I have the honor to enclose an official copy of the law for the abandonment of San Domingo, which, after passing both chambers of the legislature was signed by the Queen on the 30th ultimo, and published in the senate on the 3d instant. I am informed that the necessary orders have been immediately sent out for the prompt evacuation of the island by the Spanish military and naval forces, and by the civil administration. The more recent debates on this question in both houses have elicited nothing new, and, though I have considered it my duty to follow them pretty closely, there has been no particular occasion to report to you. You are aware that I have seized every opportunity to undeceive the Spanish government as to the entravagant declamation of the orators opposed to this wise measure, tending to create the impression that the United States were constantly lying in wait to pounce upon the Spanish American colonies, and that the only way to keep Dominica out of our hands, and prevent its becoming an outpost of the United States, threatening Cuba on the one side and Porto Rico on the other, was to hold on to the coveted island, and fortify, garrison, and defend it to the last extremity as the keystone in the arch of Spanish colonial power in America. Without in any way making myself conspicuous, I have not failed to embrace every occasion to converse with deputies and senators in such a way as to show them the wholly imaginary basis of these apprehensions. My well known antecedents in opposition to the Jeff. Davis or Pierre Soulé policy of war for Cuban annexation in 1855, have again stood me in stead to produce conviction now. I said, those projects which were attributable to our slaveholding faction, and undertaken for the sake of slavery by that party which has since gone into rebellion against the government of the republic for the same cause, cannot be attributed to the goverment which is fighting these very men and which maintains me as its humble representative here. Nor is it conceivable that I should now be in the service of an administration harboring such projects, when in 1855 I made war upon the traitors who did harbor them, though it involved my separation from the service. But I had since protested against the annexation of San Domingo. True and this was in fact the only question on which it might be possible to breed serious difficulty between the United States and Spain-the former Spanish administration had made a great mistake in going into Dominica, and we had protested against it in such terms as we thought the case demanded. But if Spain would only keep within her own limits in America, she need have no apprehension at all that the United States would go out of theirs to trouble her power in her own islands. It must be tolerably evident that we could not be very ambitious to have upon our hands the question of any additional negro population now, whether slave or free. As to Dominica, it was a source not of strength but of weakness and embarrassment to any power who should possess it. Spaniards had certainly found it so, and I did not understand why they should consider the place so desirable for us. Probably, if we had had the misfortune to have an army stationed in Dominica, and our men were dying as fast as those of Spain, we should have withdrawn from that country long ago; and the point of honor whether those natives had beaten us or we had beaten those natives would not have troubled us greatly. In my conferences with Mr. Benavides on this subject I was greatly aided by your clear and most opportune instructions. Towards the last of March I received your instruction No. 70, of February 27, and immediately made a Spanish translation and placed it in Mr. Benavides's hands. You will find enclosed the translation of a paragraph of his speech, pronounced soon after, on the 29th of March, which is evidently based upon the ideas set forth by you. The vote for the bill was in the congress of deputies 157 for, to 68 against; and in the senate, on the 29th ultimo, 93 for, to 39 against the project of the government. Thus I beg to congratulate you upon the final termination of this vexed question. With sentiments of the highest respect, sir, Hon. WILLIAM H. SEWARD, Secretary of State, Washington. your obedient servant, HORATIO J. PERRY. [Translation.] Extract from the speech of Mr. Benavides, Minister of State, in the congress of deputies March 29, 1865,on the bill for abandonment of San Domingo. Much has been said here also about the United States. The United States are presented as a bugbear by certain classes of persons when they talk about the question of San Domingo and the question of the existence of our West Indies. Señor Ulloa has talked to us about a new Salamy. It is said here that the day approaches of great armed conflicts; it is said that in our days we shall witness a conflict between Europe and America; a conflict which will be colossal-of such proportions that it shall have no parallel in history; and all this is said with reference to the question of San Domingo, of its annexation and of the project of abandonment which now occupies us. I, gentlemen, perhaps may be a false prophet; you will have a perfect right to say so, and I cannot answer you; but I believe that those who talk in that manner are greatly mistaken; that those great conflicts are not to be feared; that the new Salamy is not coming; that none of those conflicts is coming; none of those battles in which the two parts of the world, America and Europe, will come into collision. I believe that nothing of that kind is about to happen; and it is clear. Deputies will ask me what data, what motives, have you to think in that agreeable way? for it is agreeable, undoubtedly, to think in this way. I, gentlemen, on this occasion cannot say much, but I have reasons to believe, I am intimately convinced that the day the war ends between the States of the north and south of America, the day those great battles terminate-would to God it were to-morrow for the good of humanity-the United States are not going to make war on Europe. They are going to do something greater, something which great people love better to do. They have a need greater than that of fighting, and it is not certainly the need of more territory. Gentlemen, they are going to work to strengthen the union of the United States that is their passion-that is and must always be their strength; that is always their idea, and that is always their necessity. That is what is going to happen. They will strengthen their union undoubtedly, and to that end they will dedicate all their political work, and I have a most intimate conviction of this. This agreeable way of thinking, gentlemen deputies may credit it or not; to me it belongs to speak thus because I have data which warrants me. I cannot explain myself further upon this point. Mr. Perry to Mr. Seward. No. 197.] LEGATION OF THE United States, SIR: Yesterday I had an interview with Mr. Benavides, in which I took occasion to speak upon the subject of your instruction No. 78, of March 21, this being the first opportunity on which a secretary of state for foreign affairs has been visible in Madrid since your instruction was received. Mr. Benavides immediately said that he thought Admiral Pareja was disposed to be a little hard upon Chili, though, in fact, that government had given serious motive for complaint. But Mr. Benavides said it was his policy and the wish of his government to avoid all possible complications with the republics on the Pacific coast, and he had sent out instructions to the Spanish representative in Chili not to insist on indemnity for the damages suffered by the Spanish fleet because of the refusal of Chili to allow their ships to coal in her harbors, though that damage was positive and the refusal of Chili an unwarrantable act. |