ENGLISH ULTIMATUM--SPANISH DEFIANCE.
In the middle of October the “Gazette de Leide” printed a letter from
Madrid, dated September 24, saying:
We are assured that the negotiation with England is in a good way
and is about to terminate in a friendly manner.[409]
This was written a few days after the Spanish Court had decided to
abandon the family compact and form an intimate alliance with England
as studied in the last chapter. The next issue of the same paper
printed a letter from London, dated October 12, which had a very
different tone:
The warlike appearances have greatly increased in the last eight
days. The next dispatches from Fitzherbert, replying to the last
English demand, will probably decide for peace or war. On our side
all preparations for a rupture have already been made.[410]
This was written a fortnight after news had reached London of
Spain’s proposed change. Instead of receiving the friendly advances
of the Spanish Court in the spirit in which Floridablanca hoped,
and apparently expected, the Court of St. James accepted them as an
announcement that the French alliance had failed, and an acknowledgment
that Spain was at the mercy of England. This is really what they
meant. Instead of following Spain’s example and giving up some of
her pretensions, England took advantage of Spanish helplessness and
gave Spain ten days to decide whether she would accept war in the
face of almost insurmountable difficulties, or peace with humiliating
concessions. Much discontent had arisen in England at the length
to which the negotiation was being drawn out. It was considered
inconsistent with the decisive tone at the beginning. The object to
be gained was thought to be hardly worth such an expensive armament
continued for so many months. The ministry was being severely
criticised, and felt the necessity of forcing a decision.[411]
Although feeling keenly the criticism of the armament, yet the
Government was unwilling to disarm until Spain should have yielded.
On September 10, in consequence of the repeated requests from Spain
for a mutual disarmament, Leeds directed Fitzherbert to represent to
Floridablanca that, with every wish for an amicable adjustment, it did
not appear to the British Government expedient to disarm until such
adjustment should be secured.[412] For the same reason the ministry was
unwilling to accept any temporary arrangement, such as Floridablanca
had suggested, which would postpone the final settlement to a later
date. Consequently, on October 2 two drafts of a treaty were sent to
Fitzherbert. They contained substantially the same terms except that
one provided for the definite demarkation of the limits of Spanish
exclusive sovereignty, and the other did not. These embodied Great
Britain’s ultimatum. Fitzherbert was to give the Spanish Court ten days
in which to decide on an answer. If at the end of that time an answer
had not been received the ambassador was to quit Madrid.
After sending the ultimatum the British Court redoubled its energies
in preparing for war. One is almost led to believe, from the vigor
displayed, that war was desired and that the ultimatum was prepared
with the deliberate intention of forcing a breach. In a letter of
October 22 Leeds asked Auckland, the British ambassador at The Hague,
to communicate to the Government of the Republic the probability
of a rupture. He expected in a few days to send copies of all the
correspondence relating to the discussion that Auckland might lay
them before the Dutch Government. Although it might happen, he said,
that England would be obliged to commence the hostilities, yet he had
no doubt that every circumstance would convince mankind that “Great
Britain was not the aggressor in the war which may, in a few days,
disturb the general tranquillity.” After speaking of the cordiality of
the Dutch Government, he continued:
It will also, I trust, be understood in Holland how material it
is to enable us to act with vigor in the outset. I therefore hope
that there will be no difficulty in furnishing some naval succors
before the expiration of the two months stipulated. It would be to
be wished, if possible, that a detachment be sent immediately on the
news of hostilities, and that it should amount to 8 ships of the
line and 8 frigates. If, however, so much can not be obtained, even
a less number will be a material object.[413]
A notion of the popular view of the impending war may be gleaned from a
letter written by Storer to Auckland on the same day that the secretary
for foreign affairs wrote the one just studied. Storer said that all
of the officers were in high spirits at the prospect of a voyage to
Mexico. He thought that the Nootka affair was merely a pretext for a
war that had been previously determined upon. He said:
Pitt is tired of peace. He bullied France so effectually three years
ago[414] that he is determined to try the same thing with Spain.
He thought that the negotiators themselves did not know what would
happen.[415] If the British ministers were not actually trying to force
a war, it is, at least, evident that they were willing to accept it
should it come; and that they were not willing to make any considerable
concessions to preserve peace.
The ultimatum, with instructions for his private guidance, reached
Fitzherbert October 12. He was told that Floridablanca’s proposal for a
temporary agreement was not admissible since it would leave the matter
open to a subsequent discussion. It was important that it should be
settled at once. If Floridablanca’s proposal had not been accompanied
by assurances that indicated a sincere desire for accommodation with
England, it would have been doubtful, he was told, whether anything
could have been hoped from a further continuance of the negotiation.
The prospect for a speedy settlement and the chance for dissolving
the family compact compensated largely for the inconvenience of
further delay, but that delay could be only for a few days. The
Count’s committing himself on points of so much delicacy indicated
that the Spanish Court had determined to go a considerable length.
His language respecting France was consistent with his character.
The temporary arrangement proposed by him admitted the British claims
in general terms, but the indefiniteness of its terms would leave
ground for disputes. Fitzherbert was to remind the Count that he
had, in principle, admitted the justice of the British claims. The
present articles, he was told, did no more than to secure definitely
those rights. Their rejection would be considered as a proof either
that Spain was not sincerely desirous of an accommodation or that
she was unwilling to grant distinctly the security which the Spanish
minister had argued to be in fact contained in the articles which he
had suggested. The question as to security of navigation, commerce,
and fisheries in that part of the world depended on whether Spain
did or did not insist on her exclusive claim to the continent in
question and the seas adjacent. This could be decided as well at one
time as another. The question of restitution should depend on whether
Spain rested her case on her pretended exclusive sovereignty or prior
discovery, or whether she could prove that she had actual occupation
of Nootka prior to the time when lands were purchased and buildings
erected there by British subjects.[416] The only matter that could
afford an excuse for delay was the determination of limits. Such an
article would seem to be desirable to both sides, but His Britannic
Majesty would not object seriously to the omission of such demarkation.
The great expense of maintaining the armament ready for service and the
just expectations of the public could not admit of further delay in
coming to a decision on the question of peace or war. Fitzherbert was
to communicate this fact to Floridablanca in the least offensive but
the most explicit manner possible. Ten days was considered a sufficient
time for the Spanish answer.
On the question of disarming in the event of an amicable settlement,
Leeds suggested that mutual confidence would be a stronger security
than any formal stipulations. England did not wish to reduce to a
peace establishment at once, on account of the French armament and
because of the fact that Russia seemed unwilling to adopt a moderate
policy toward Turkey. It was incumbent on the allies to prevent the
dismemberment of Turkey.[417]
On October 13, the next day after receiving the above instructions
and the projets of a convention accompanying them, Fitzherbert had a
conference with the Spanish minister, at which the latter’s language
led the former to doubt the possibility of an amicable settlement. At
an interview on the following day the British minister presented parts
of the drafts of the ultimatum. The Count’s reception of these was so
unfavorable that Fitzherbert thought best to warn all of the British
consuls in Spain of the prospect of an immediate rupture. He wrote to
his home Government that it seemed impossible to obtain a convention
with a demarcation of limits. That no means of effecting a pacification
might be left untried, Fitzherbert delivered to Floridablanca on
October 15 a translation of the entire projet without the demarcation
of limits. The Count’s reply of the next day was still in terms
extremely wide of the English proposals, but it revived Fitzherbert’s
hopes of engaging the Spanish minister by degrees to accede to His
Britannic Majesty’s demands.[418]
In this reply of October 16 Floridablanca said that there were
considerable difficulties in the way of agreeing to the English projet.
He submitted some observations justifying some small but substantial
changes which he had suggested. He remarked that the British projet,
in demanding that the buildings and lands should be restored to the
British subjects, assumed that they had once possessed them. He
declared that this assumption was untrue; that the British subjects
had only been attempting to make an establishment, from which the
Spanish commander had prevented them. If they had ever bought land, as
pretended, they had failed to take possession of it.
Before examining Floridablanca’s observations further it may be well
to remark that this was the point of fact on which it was impossible
for the two Courts to agree. Each relied on the statements made by its
own subjects and these statements were conflicting. Meares told of his
purchase of land and his erection of a building thereon in 1788 in such
a manner as to lead the British Cabinet to believe that he had formed
a substantial English settlement, and that the establishment was still
there in the spring of 1789 when Martinez arrived. On the other hand,
Martinez’s account showed that when he arrived at Nootka there were no
evidences of any British establishment, but that the expedition under
Colnett, which arrived two months later, came to form an establishment.
Neither was wholly right nor wholly wrong.[419]
Floridablanca said that it was very difficult and almost impossible for
Spain to consent that British subjects should land in unoccupied places
to trade with the natives and form establishments. Places without a
substantial Spanish occupation, he said, might be found almost anywhere
along the coast of America. This clause, he said, ought to be omitted
from the projet. Fitzherbert had proposed that British vessels should
not approach within 10 leagues of places occupied by Spain. The Count
insisted that the distance was too short. Instead of the expression,
“occupied by Spain,” he would substitute the expression, “belonging to
Spain.” With his observations the Spanish minister submitted a counter
projet which embodied them. In his letter accompanying these documents,
Floridablanca said that he had proposed a special junta to consider
the English propositions. However, if Fitzherbert would agree to the
Spanish counter projet, he would venture to propose it to the King
and see if the matter could not be settled before the meeting of the
junta.[420]
The Spanish minister had decided that Spain would have to yield to
the English demands. He was directing his efforts toward an attempt
to induce the British ambassador to modify those demands so that they
would give as little offense as possible to Spanish pride. But other
Spanish officials were not so ready to yield as the prime minister was.
Fitzherbert did not accept the count’s terms. He insisted on the
British projet as it stood. The special junta was summoned. It
was composed of eight of the principal ministers, not including
Floridablanca. The order naming the members was dated October 19.
The next day a note requested them to hasten, for the ambassador was
very urgent. Sessions were held on the 21st, 22d, 24th, and 25th. The
English projet was examined article by article.
The findings of the junta furnish an excellent notion of the feeling
of Spaniards respecting the dispute. It was declared that Martinez’s
conduct at Nootka had not been contrary to international law nor an
insult to the English flag. What he had done was to prevent the forming
of an establishment in a place belonging to the Spanish dominions, in
which, by virtue of treaties made before all Europe and guaranteed
by England herself, no foreign disembarkation was permitted without
a just motive, and much less the forming of military or commercial
establishments. Even granting that the proceedings of Martinez had
been culpable, and, by a distortion of ideas, that the resistance to
a usurpation could be considered an insult, Spain had already given
England such satisfaction as was compatible with her dignity. The
increasing of the British pretensions while the Spanish were being
moderated showed that the Nootka affair was only a mask to cover
England’s hostile designs of taking advantage of the revolution in
France to attack the divided House of Bourbon.
Referring to a clause in the British projet providing for the return
of any vessels that might have been seized since April, 1789, the
conclusions of the junta declared that this showed England’s design of
sending new expeditions. They would not limit themselves to fisheries
nor to trading with the natives. They intended to form fortified
establishments and construct vessels there to carry on trade with
all of New Spain. Their first aggressions would lead to others. The
weak and extended Spanish dominions afforded opportunities for their
activity. There were many places that Spain had not been able and
probably never would be able to people. The English pretension was
the more irritating since it extended also to all the coasts of South
America. If Spain should grant their demands she might expect in the
end to surrender to them all of the commerce of Peru and New Spain.
The English offer of not allowing their subjects to approach within 10
leagues of any place occupied by Spain was useless, the junta declared,
since they demanded the privilege of disembarking in all unoccupied
places. By this means they could approach insensibly to those that were
occupied. If the Spanish governors should attempt to prevent them, it
would lead to disputes and to new negotiations which would afford new
opportunities for aggressions. They would finally take all of these
countries from Spain.
The English assumption of rights in South America was branded as an
infamous artifice. Although Spain had for three centuries been in
exclusive and peaceful possession of all South America, the English
were now pretending that they had equal rights to unoccupied places.
Appealing directly to the King, they said:
Strange, astonishing, unheard-of it is, Señor, that England should
dare to pretend that Your Majesty should authorize and adopt a
stipulation which prohibits mutually the forming of establishments
there as long as the subjects of other powers shall not attempt to
do so; adding that the respective subjects shall have the right of
disembarking in those places and building huts and other temporary
structures for objects connected with their fisheries. … The English
pretend that all South America is open to all nations, and that its
territories shall belong to the first that desires to occupy them.
England, they declared, was now exacting more than she had dared to
ask in 1763, when she had so great an advantage. She had forgotten
her guaranty in the treaty of Utrecht that Spain’s American dominions
should be restored as they had been in the reign of King Charles II,
and should remain in that condition. If Spain should grant these
privileges to England, other nations would claim them under the
“most-favored-nation clause” of the same treaty.
The King was asked to consider how his father had resisted England when
there was much less at stake and when the Spanish army and navy were
in no better condition. In case of war England’s attention, they said,
would be directed not against the Peninsula, but against the colonies.
Havana Vera Cruz, Cartagena, Porto Rico, Santo Domingo, Trinidad,
Caracas, Montevideo, and Buenos Ayres were considered likely points of
attack. All of these were declared ready to defend themselves because
of their superior garrisons and of climatic and strategic advantages.
Floridablanca had inclosed with other papers for the junta a copy of
the observations on Spain’s relations to other powers, which he had
prepared early in September on receipt of the news of the decree of
the National Assembly.[421] Because of the frankness shown in other
matters the junta said that they were encouraged to volunteer their own
observations on this. Speaking of Prussia as England’s most powerful
ally, they said that her King was not in a position to dictate terms
to all of the northern powers, consequently he would have to consider
his own defense. In view of this and of the existing state of Turkish
affairs they concluded that England’s position was not an especially
strong one. As to possible support for Spain, they said that France
could not be blind to her interests and to her obligations under the
family compact. To avoid the evil effects on the Spanish fleet of
insubordination in the French navy the two could operate separately.
Spain could probably not get any aid from the United States. Neither
were they likely to join England. Portugal could not aid except by
remaining neutral. There was nothing to ask or expect from Sardinia,
Naples, Venice, or Turkey, and the African states ought to give little
concern. As to Russia they were more hopeful. They suggested that it
would not be impossible for Spain, by offering commercial advantages,
to enter an alliance with Russia, Sweden, and Denmark and secure their
help against England. They respectfully submitted to the King and his
prime minister the idea of a treaty with Russia defining territorial
limits on the western coast of America and guaranteeing each other
against English aggressions on that coast.
The junta then offered several observations on the harshness of the
English demands. England was offering nothing, they said, in return
for the sacrifices demanded of Spain. She had turned a deaf ear to
Spain’s repeated requests for a reciprocal disarmament, hence there
was good reason to fear that she was trying to force a breach. It was
plain that she intended to form new establishments in the Spanish
dominions. She proposed to deprive Spain of the power of repelling the
intrusions which she meditated by allowing no recourse except a report
of the matter to the home governments and a new convention in each
case. This would mean subjection and a continual state of war. She was
inviting other nations to help her despoil Spain. She was insisting
on the establishment of a principle which would allow usurpations in
every uninhabited place. The whole Spanish dominions would shortly be
destroyed. Her demands were as injurious as could be made after the
most disgraceful war. If this cession should be made through fear in
a time of profound peace, it would encourage still greater claims.
Authorized by such a document other nations would form common cause,
and the vast continent of the Indies would be exposed to a general
occupation. Even in an unfortunate war Spain would only have to come
to an understanding with her enemies, and there would be hope for
favorable alliances and better terms with less sacrifices.
Finally the junta gave their conclusions as to the answer that should
be made to England’s ultimatum. The concessions now demanded, they
said, would inevitably lead Spain into a war. She would then suffer
all that the King now wished to avoid, and England would certainly
accept no less afterwards. In case that this projet should be rejected
and war should ensue, what treaty, it was asked, could be concluded
more absolutely ruinous, even in the remote chance of complete
prostration, than the convention which was now proposed? Therefore the
junta could not in any manner accept the unjust terms contained in
the English ultimatum. They recognized that this would mean war. They
advised preparation at once to repel hostile attacks and an immediate
search for allies even before giving a final answer to the English
ambassador.[422]
On October 25, the day of the last session of the junta, its
conclusions were hurried off to Floridablanca to be laid before the
King. Their reception and influence on the negotiation will be studied
in the next chapter.[423]