FOREIGN RELATIONS.


                               No. 687.

                         Mr. Fish to Mr. Adee.
 No. 425.]                      DEPARTMENT OF STATE,
                                     Washington, December 31, 1873.
   SIR: On the 26th ultimo General Sickles's No. 893 arrived at this De-
 partment during my absence for the holidays. In it he' states that it
 was informally agreed, on the night of the 27th of November last, that
 on a declaration made by him of the American nationality of the Vir-
 ginius, the vessel and surviving passengers and crew would be delivered
 up, the flag saluted, and the other measures of reparation accorded in
 conformity with our demands of the 15th instant. It is greatly to be
 regretted that General Sickles did not state with whom this informal
 agreement was made.'
 The note of Mr. Carvajal, minister of foreign affairs, which accom-
 panies General Sickles's dispatch, does not convey the idea that he had
 been a party to that agreement, but does intimate that he would have
 discussed some of the points raised in Gen eral Sickles's note but for
 the arrangement which was made here.
   General Sickles further says,-that at noon on the 28th of November
Mr. Carvajal sent him a copy of a telegram from Admiral Polo, contain-
ing what purported to be a fresh proposal from me respecting the Vir-
ginius, which General Sickles appears to have supposed was in conflict
with the informal arrangement of the previous evening.
  Without more accurate information concerning the person with whom
the informal arrangement was made I cannoot permit myself to think
that the Spanish government receded from any undertaking which it
had once assumed.
  So far, however, as General Sickles's statement may be supposed to
affect this Government, it is proper- to say that the changes from the
original demands of the United States which were agreed to in the
protocol of the 29th of November were adopted on the suggestion of
the Spanish government, under the belief that they did not affect the
principles upon which our demands were founded, and were calculated
to promote a peaceful settlement of the unfortunate differences which
had arisen between the two powers.
  Spain having admitted (as could not be-seriously questioned) that a
regularly-documented vessel of the United States is subject on the high
seas in time of peace only to the police jurisdiction of the power from
which it receives its papers, it seemed to the President that the United
States should not refuse to concede to her the right to adduce proof to
show that the Virginius was not rightfully carrying our flag. When the
question of national honor was adjusted, it slso seemed that there was a
peculiar propriety in our consenting to an arbitration on a question of
pecuniary damages.
  This happy adjustment of the differences between two sister republics,
on a basis honorable to bothb, fortunately makes the matters referred to
by General Sickles of little importance., I have thought it right, how-
ever, to correct the misapprehensions under which his dispatch seems
to have been written.
      I am, sir, &c.,
                                              HAMILTON FISH.


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