To James Madison from Hugh Lennox, 31 October 1806
From Hugh Lennox
Kingston October 31th. 1806
Sir,
I have the honor to enclose you for your information, a Copy of certain papers found on board the Spanish Schooner Santa Cecilia—lately captured by one of his Britanic Majestys cruizers.1 The consequence of these invoked papers will be the detention of all American Vessels bound to Spanish Ports on the main—the cargo of the Schooner Speculator of New York was condemned last tuesday, in consequence of her having on board Two hundred & fifty barrels of flour—and the name of Jenkins & Havens to the charter party—altho the Schooner was Cleared out for Porto Ricco—and found dismasted in a proper latitude for that Port. Indeed I apprehend every Invoice of Cargo having the Spanish counsuls certificate attached as pointed out in these invoked papers will be brought in and condemned. I have thought proper to give this information that you may use it as you see fit. I have the honor to be Sir, your most ob Servant
Hugh Lennox
RC and enclosures (DNA: RG 59, CD, Kingston, Jamaica, vol. 1). In a clerk’s hand, signed by Lennox; docketed by Wagner “Spanish licenses.” For enclosures, see n. 1.
1. Lennox enclosed English translations of three letters from Miguel Cayetano Soler, Spain’s finance minister, to the army intendant at Caracas; all three were marked “Private” (2 pp.; filed following 18 Feb. 1805). The first, dated 5 Mar. 1805, listed the following U.S. merchants named in a 24 Dec. 1804 royal order allowing them to import “produce, Merchandize an⟨d⟩ Effects” into La Guaira and other ports of the intendancy, from any neutral port: Rossier & Roulet, LeRoy, Bayard, & McEvers, Gurdon S. Mumford, and Jenkins & Havens of New York; Stephen Higginson & Co., James and Samuel Perkins, Timothy Williams, and Nathaniel C. Lee of Boston; Joseph Sterett of Baltimore; and “Mr. Clark” of New Orleans. Soler instructed the intendant to give these merchants “every assistance they may be in need of.” In his second letter, dated 17 Apr. 1805, Soler informed the intendant that these merchants would also be permitted to participate in the importation of 100,000 barrels of flour into the intendancy, a privilege previously granted solely to the marquess of Branciforte. Under an injunction of “greatest Secrecy,” Soler also noted that an additional reason for the intendant to actively support this arrangement was that its greatest beneficiary would be the king of Spain, through his Caja de Consolidación (for the role of the Caja de Consolidación in funneling Spanish subsidies to France, see Adrian J. Pearce, “The Hope-Barings Contract: Finance and Trade Between Europe and the Americas, 1805–1808,” English Historical Review 124 [2009]: 1326). Soler’s third letter, of 9 Aug. 1805, stated that the permission to import described in his first letter had been extended to any neutral merchant who could show a license signed by Soler and an “invoice of the Cargo Certified by the Spanish Consul or vice-Consul in the Port of Sailing.”