d of complicity with the insurgents,
and of summary embargo of their properties, and sequestration of their
revenues by executive warrant. Such proceedings, so far as they affected
the persons or property of citizens of the United States, were in
violation of the provisions of the treaty of 1795 between the United
States and Spain.

Representations of injuries resulting to several persons claiming to be
citizens of the United States by reason of such violations were made to
the Spanish Government. From April, 1869, to June last the Spanish
minister at Washington had been clothed with a limited power to aid in
redressing such wrongs. That power was found to be withdrawn, "in view,"
as it was said, "of the favorable situation in which the island of Cuba"
then "was," which, however, did not lead to a revocation or suspension
of the extraordinary and arbitrary functions exercised by the executive
power in Cuba, and we were obliged to make our complaints at Madrid. In
the negotiations thus opened, and still pending there, the United States
only claimed that for the future the rights secured to their citizens
by treaty should be respected in Cuba, and that as to the past a
joint tribunal should be established in the United States with full
jurisdiction over all such claims. Before such an impartial tribunal
each claimant would be required to prove his case. On the other hand,
Spain would be at liberty to traverse every material fact, and thus
complete equity would be done. A case which at one time threatened
seriously to affect the relations between the United States and Spain
has already been disposed of in this way. The claim of the owners of the
_Colonel Lloyd Aspinwall_ for the illegal seizure and detention of that
vessel was referred to arbitration by mutual consent, and has resulted
in an award to the United States, for the owners, of the sum of
$19,702.50 in gold. Another and long-pending claim of like nature, that
of the whaleship _Canada_, has been disposed of by friendly arbitrament
during the present year. It was referred, by the joint consent of Brazil
and the United States, to the decision of Sir Edward Thornton, Her
Britannic Majesty's minister at Washington, who kindly undertook the
laborious task of examining the voluminous mass of correspondence and
testimony submitted by the two Governments, and awarded to the United
States the sum of $100,740.09 in gold, which has since been paid by the
Imperial Government.