RC (DLC); written on a small scrap; endorsed by TJ as received the day it was written and so recorded in SJL. Enclosures: (1) Hugh Nelson to Monroe, Gibraltar, 28 July 1823, describing his lengthy passage across the Atlantic Ocean, arrival at Gibraltar, and failed attempt, because of the French naval blockade, to enter Cádiz, Spain’s new seat of government; announcing that “almost the whole of Spain is in possession of the French”; and communicating that Portugal has severed relations with Spain (RC in DLC: Monroe Papers). (2) John J. Appleton to John Quincy Adams, Cádiz, 9 July 1823, reporting that the Spanish Cortes cannot decide what to do about its former colonies in the New World; attributing this failure to its lacking the constitutional authority “to dismember any portion of the Monarchy from the rest,” a belief that recognition of the independence of the colonies would be both ineffective and insecure without the support of other nations, and a sense that it was inappropriate to do so while French forces invaded the country; but asserting that such scruples would vanish if Great Britain were to give, in exchange for “acknowledgement of the Spanish American Governments, powerful assistance for the support of the independence of the Peninsula” (one word editorially corrected from “indepedence”) (RC in DNA: RG 59, DD, Spain). (3) Appleton to Adams, Cádiz, 10 July 1823, relaying information about the independence movement in Cuba, its offer of asylum to any “worthy Patriots” who were obliged to leave Spain as a result of the French invasion, and its desire that the United States, possibly backed by Britain, would protect Cuba from the imposition of despotic foreign rule; stating that Hugh Nelson was arriving in Spain at “the best possible moment to fix the fate of the Island in the way that will best suit the interest of the United States”; and mentioning the prospect of improved commercial relations between Spain and America (RC in same).