Office of the Historian

No. 616.
General Sickles to Mr. Fish.

United States Legation in Spain,
Madrid, November 16, 1873. (Received December 9.)
No. 839.]

Sir: I have the honor to forward a copy of a note addressed to the minister of state, and placed by Mr. Adee in the hands of an officer at the ministry this afternoon at five o’clock, in which I have executed so much of your instruction dated yesterday and received this morning as seemed to me might with advantage be made the subject of an official communication at this moment. I hold in reserve for the right occasion, should it be presented, the other important intimations contained in the instruction mentioned.

I am, &c,

D. E. SICKLES.
[Inclosure.]

General Sickles to Mr. José de Carvajal.

Legation of the United States of America,
Madrid, November 16, 1873.

The undersigned regrets to have occasion to inform his excellency the minister of state that more and mora executions of persons seized on hoard the Virginius, an American ship recently captured on the high seas by the Spanish cruiser Tornado, continue to take place at Santiago de Cuba by the action and with the sanction of the Spanish authorities. According to the intelligence received at Washington from the United States consul-general at Havana, a number of the passengers of the Virginius were shot on the 12th instant; it also appears, from the reports published in the Havana journals of the 14th, that fifty-seven other prisoners have been executed, and that only some eighteen out of the whole number of one hundred and sixty-five comprising the crew and passengers of that vessel may, perhaps, escape death. At the same time it is stated by the consul that no official information had been received.

The undersigned is directed to communicate this report to the minister of state. It would be extremely satisfactory if, for the information of his Government, the undersigned were authorized by Mr. Carvajal to rectify, by means of more authentic official data, the statements of the daily papers in Havana, published, it is believed, under the censorship of the authorities of that place.

And the undersigned, in obedience to the orders of his Government, must observe that if, unhappily, these reports are confirmed, such repeated violations of the assurances heretofore given to the undersigned increase the necessity of that full and speedy reparation on the part of the government of Spain which the United States ought of right to receive.

The undersigned would fail to discharge an impressive and solemn duty imposed upon him at this critical moment if he concealed the grave peril to which, in the judgment of the President, the friendly relations of the two countries may be exposed unless the undersigned is enabled without delay to convey to his Government a satisfactory reply to the reclamations he has addressed to his excellency the minister of state respecting the unjustifiable capture of the Virginius and the proceedings of the authorities in Cuba in killing, without trial, day after day, a score or more of persons illegally arrested on the high seas while under the American flag.

The undersigned, &c,

D, E. SICKLES.