Nashville patriot. [volume] (Nashville, Tenn.) 1858-1860, 1858-07-10

Malmesbury has contested the exactitudes or
| at least the GERTRUDE of the facts charged to
| the English cruisers as regards the American
| ships, but he has not denied those acts as re-
| CARDS Spain. II mustconfess.o said he THAT
some acts have been committed that are not
! justiiable either by International law or by
/ the treaties that exist between this country
i and the United States. am informed that
| on one occasion a body of men were landed
i frem-one of her Majesty's ships on the coast
| of Cuba; though that is, of course, Spanish
question. which can only be incidentally
mentioned when speaking with regard to
| America Statements have also been made
that considerable annoyance has been Occa-
| soned to American trading vessels lying at
| anchor at Havana from system of rowing
around those vessels. watching their cargoes
taken ont and taken in, exercising surveill-
| ance and espionage over them, and finally
| chasing them out to sea after they left the
port
Thus system of police and espionage, or
| ganiZed by British cruisers in The ports belong
ing to Spain, and violation of the Spanish
| territory to practice searches. are the facts
confessed; and there is in those facts bold
and fragrant violation of the sovereign rights
| of SPAIN against which Spain, cannot fail to
protest She will not alone be led to it by
| The care of her sovereign dignity, but she
will be compelled to il by the exterior conse-
| qucnces which the forsaking of her rights in
| this occasion might lead to for her own safety.
Some have been astonish"d to hear the
| Secretary of State at Washington. in his
| letter of May I8, render Spain conformity re-
sponsible for the outrages committed by the
| English cruisers. 1t is not, however accord
| ing to us, without grounds; and far from
seeing, as some others, in that letter of Gen.
| Cas-, threat against the independence of
Spain. we. on the contrary. look upon 1t as
a token of respect towards that independence.
In fact it is in the Spanish waters that the
outragcs complained of by the United States
have taken place; it is in the Spanish ports
that the system of espionage against which
the American navy protests has been prac-
tised by the British cruisers Her very soil
has been invaded: searches have been made
by the English in the dwellings of her plan
tiers. 1t is not, therefore, astonishing that the
American government compels her to see that
her territory, which has been violated to the
prejudice of American interests be respected.
1t is, in fact her duty that on her soil and in
the extent of her territorial seas no other
police than her own be exercised. II, in her
Indifference or her feebleness, she allows thus
her most involable rights to be usurped-if
she does not protect against all foreign
attacks the foreign vessels going into her
ports on the strength of the treaties-is it not
rights of their citizens, have to look first
befor. arraigning the foreigners themselves?
Far from being guilty of indccorum to-
wards the respect due to her sovereignty, is it
not, on the contrary, bowling with respect be-
fore it to compel her TO insure, in her national
jurisdiction, the safety and tranquility which
are due 10 all those who frequent her posses
siOns aud conform themselves to the interna-
tional law and to the treaties? Spain has to
See that her territory is respected or to suffer
that the United States insure to their ships
the security which she has not been able to
afford them in her harbors. Such is the pre-
tension of the Secretary of State of the I'm
iOn and we do not truly see how the justice
of it could be contested. This pretensiOn is
undoubto dly dangerous for Spain, on account
OF the aftcrthOughts OF the United States about |
Cuba. 1t is of the greatest Importance for
Spain that the ports and the territorial seas |
of that colony, so cOurteously lustcd after |
by her northern neighbors, should not become |
the theatre of an armed contest between the |
latter and England But if Spain has the |
greatest interest to prevent the United States |
from exercising public supervision of her |
coasts and her seas. it is a reason the more |
for her to forbid England to usurp that right, |
which belongs only to her natural sovereignty. |
Spain will thus reconcile her interest and her |
dignity.
Spain is bound to England by four treaties, |
which, under the shadow of the repression of
the slave trade. have subjected her merchant
service to the right of search by the British
cruisers: but the treaties of 1914, 1917, 1922
and 1885, which have given to England upon
her vessels that jurisdiction which all the
and the United States eX-
granted, have not, however,
given her any right of interference and Of
police on her waters, in her harbOrs and upon
her soil. Her territory and all the rights of
sovereignty thercupOn still belong to her,
She alone exercises there legally those rights
of inspection and jurisdiction which the Brit
ish cruisers have dared to take upon them
selves to the prejudice of the American ships.
She cannot therefore, we repeat it, fail to in
terfere in the existing question between the
United States and England. She has been
hit by the same stroke the first, and the
injury to her dignity and her sovereign rights
is still more signal and more fatal. She WILL
then also demand and has to obtain satisfac-
ton for acts which wrong her and cOmprO-
mise her dearest interests. England, which
shows herself now so prompt TO give to the
United States the naughty satisfaction which
they claim, will she refuse satisfaction TO
Spain? In his speech of June 8, the Earl of
has announced that was a ques-
ton essentially Spanish, and was only to be
mentioned in T, latiOn with the
American question. The two questions. are,
however, inscparable: for Spain, formally
compelled by the American Government, can
not fail to unite with il and TO demand that
they should be decided at the same time.