Mr. Armstrong to Mr.
Olney.
[Telegram.]
Madrid
,
September 9,
1895
.
Tender of settlement of Spanish Government acknowledged.
Agreement.
[Handed to Mr. Adee by Mr. Dupuy de Lôme.]
By the agreement of August 10, 1895, the sum to be paid was 1,500,000
Spanish gold pesos.
The agreed value of these at the time of signing the agreement,
subsequently confirmed by correspondence between Mr. Olney and Mr.
Dupuy, was 4.83 American gold dollars for every 5 Spanish gold
pesos.
The offer was made to pay the actual coins—Spanish gold pesos— which
were to that end provided in Havana, but that being declined as
unnecessary, it was agreed that the payment should be made by draft
on London drawn on the Spanish financial agent there by the [Page 1175] minister here, and
payable in pounds sterling at current rate of exchange. This last
proposition was made to Mr. Olney by Mr. Dupuy by letter and
accepted as entirely satisfactory by telegram from Mr. Olney.
Attention being called to the fact that the 15th of September fell
on Sunday, Mr. Dupuy has assured Mr. Olney that the payment would be
made on Saturday next, the 14th instant.
On that day a draft will be signed for such an amount in pounds
sterling as Messrs. Riggs & Co. shall certify to be the
equivalent of $1,449,000 American gold, the product of 1,500,000
Spanish gold pesos, at the agreed rate of 4.83 American gold dollars
for every 5 Spanish gold pesos, and will present the same in full
settlement of the Mora claim, so called, in exchange for a proper
receipt and acquittance of which the form is now submitted.
[Inclosure.]
I, Richard Olney, Secretary of State of the United States,
acknowledge to have received this day from the Government of Spain,
by the hand of E. Dupuy de Lôme, minister from Spain to the United
States, the sum of one million five hundred thousand dollars in
Spanish gold pesos, paid in a draft on London, for ——, the
equivalent at agreed rate of exchange of said one million five
hundred thousand Spanish gold pesos, in full discharge and
satisfaction not only of the principal sum agreed to be paid in
liquidation of the Mora claim, so called, but of any and every
amount that might be claimed to be due as interest on said principal
sum, the said payment being a complete fulfillment by the Government
of Spain of the memorandum signed in Boston August 10, 1895, and
being accepted as a full compliance with the offer made by the
Government of Spain on November 29, 1886, of the sum of one million
five hundred thousand dollars in settlement of the claim presented
by the legation of the United States to the Government of Spain in
behalf of the American citizen Antonio Maximo Mora for the embargo
of his property in Cuba, said sum including all indemnity that can
be claimed for said property, principal, as well as the interest,
damages, and injury.
And the said payment of one million five hundred thousand Spanish
gold pesos on this day, in accordance with the memorandum signed in
Boston on the tenth day of August, 1895, is now hereby accepted as a
full, final, and complete discharge of all demands against the
Government of Spain by the Government of the United States growing
out of the claim of Antonio Maximo Mora.
In witness whereof I have hereunto set
my hand and affixed the seal of the Department of State this —— day of
September, A. D. 1895.
—— ——
.
