To James Madison from Louis-Marie Turreau, 3 December 1806
From Louis-Marie Turreau
A Washington le 3. Décembre 1806.
Monsieur,
Obligé de comm uniquer à M. Le Marquis d’Yrujo, Envoyé extraordinaire & Ministre Plénipotentiaire de S. M. C. la réponse négative que vous avez faite à Ses propositions conciliatoires, comme à la réception d’un Chargé d’Affaires qu’il m’avait engagé à vous présenter; je vous prie de me faire connaître littéralement les intentions du Gouvernement fédéral. Le peu de connaissance que j’ai de la langue Anglaise me fait craindre d’avoir mal entendu ou mal Saisi le Sens de votre réponse relativement au Chargé d’Affaires proposé. Elle fut ce me Semble que “le Gouvernement fédéral ne recevrait d’Agent espagnol, en qualité de chargé d’affaires, qu’autant qu’il Serait investi de pouvoirs & porteur de lettres de créance de S. M. C. & qu’il Se trouverait ainsi par Ses fonctions Substitué à M. Le Marquis d’Yrujo.”1
Je vous prie, Monsieur, de me faire Savoir Si j’ai bien compris & l’esprit & les Sens même littéral de votre réponse. Vous jugerez sans doute que comme il ne me convient plus de me mêler d’un rapprochement que j’avais cru nécessaire aux intérêts des deux Gouvernements, je dois donner au Ministre de celui d’Espagne une communication positive du refus du vôtre, afin de mettre un terme à ces démarches inutiles. Agréez, Monsieur, une nouvelle assurance de ma haute Considération.
Turreau
CONDENSED TRANSLATION
Being obliged to communicate to the Honorable Marquis de Yrujo, envoy extraordinary and minister plenipotentiary of H[is] C[atholic] M[ajesty], the negative response which JM has made to his conciliatory propositions as well as to the reception of a chargé d’affaires that Yrujo had asked Turreau to present to JM; Turreau asks JM to let him know, literally, the intentions of the federal government. The little knowledge Turreau has of the English language causes him to fear that he has poorly understood or poorly grasped the meaning of JM’s response about the proposed chargé d’affaires. It was, it seems to Turreau, that “the federal Government would not receive a Spanish Agent, in the quality of a chargé d’affaires, unless he should be invested with powers and bearing letters of credence from H[is] C[atholic] M[ajesty] & so, as to his functions, that he should be substituted for the Honorable Marquis de Yrujo.”
Turreau asks JM to let Turreau know if he has understood both the spirit and the literal meaning of JM’s answer. JM will doubtless judge that because it no longer becomes Turreau to involve himself in trying to bring about the closer relations that he had believed necessary to the interests of both governments, he must give the minister of Spain a positive communication of JM’s government’s refusal to put an end to these useless activities.
RC (DNA: RG 59, NFL, France, vol. 2–3). In a clerk’s hand, signed by Turreau.
1. Although the U.S. government had ceased communications with Carlos Martínez de Yrujo in April 1805 (PJM-SS, 9:250, 251 nn. 8 and 12), the Spanish court instructed him to remain in the United States as minister plenipotentiary. Recognizing that the administration would disapprove of this action, Yrujo visited Turreau in Baltimore in September 1806 and asked him “to smooth by your intervention the difficulties that this resolution […] may find in the American administration” in the interest of keeping open a “channel of communication.” Yrujo also asked Turreau to present the Spanish consul at Baltimore, Juan Bautista Bernabeu, as the Spanish chargé d’affaires if the administration refused to receive Yrujo as minister (Yrujo to Turreau, 17 Nov. 1806 [SpMaAHN: Estado, 5541, expediente 19]; in French).
In a series of letters to Yrujo from Washington, Bernabeu related Turreau’s descriptions of his interactions with JM on Yrujo’s behalf (ibid.; in Spanish). On 24 November 1806 Turreau indicated that he had received a reply to his 22 November letter to JM in which the secretary of state declared that Thomas Jefferson refused to receive or acknowledge Yrujo as Spain’s U.S. minister. Turreau said that he would try to visit JM the next day to present Bernabeu as chargé d’affaires and believed that there would be no difficulty at all (Bernabeu to Yrujo, 24 Nov. 1806 [ibid.]). After two unsuccessful attempts to see JM on 25 November, Turreau visited the secretary of state the following morning and informed him of Yrujo’s proposal of a chargé d’affaires for the Spanish court. JM responded that he would present the proposal to Jefferson and apprise Turreau of Jefferson’s decision as soon as it was received. According to Turreau, “Mr. Madison made some observation about whether the proposed chargé was named by order of the king, or only by the disposition of” Yrujo. Turreau responded that he supposed “it must have been ordered by the king” (Bernabeu to Yrujo, 26 Nov. 1806 [ibid.]). On 27 November Turreau again met with JM, who reported that he would have an answer for Turreau the following day (Bernabeu to Yrujo, 27 Nov. 1806 [ibid.]). On 28 November JM met with Turreau and informed him “that the President will be always willing to appoint as chargé d’affaires another diplomatic character of H. C. M. who comes to succeed [Yrujo] but would not receive anyone who did not present their credentials directly from [the Spanish] government.” In light of this decision, Bernabeu considered his commission to have been “evacuated” and concluded that his continued presence in Washington was “useless”; he therefore decided to return to Baltimore the following day. He also conveyed Turreau’s intent to “write a letter now to the said Mr. Madison renouncing his intervention in the future in this business” (Bernabeu to Yrujo, 28 Nov. 1806 [ibid.]). This decision evidently prompted the 3 December 1806 letter from Turreau to JM.
Bernabeu apparently returned to Baltimore before he could receive a 28 November 1806 communication from Yrujo to be delivered by hand to JM on behalf of the Spanish court. The editors can find no indication that JM ever received this letter, but it is filed with the others represented here (ibid.; 2 pp.; in Spanish). At the top of the letter is written in Spanish: “Copy of a message that Bernabeu should have presented,” and in the left margin is a note in Spanish: “Message for the Secretary of State that should have been delivered by dn. Juan Bta. Bernabeu in his own hand.” The letter reads: “The circumstances of the fitting out and clearance from the port of New York of the expedition of the traitor Miranda to attack the Spanish provinces of Caracas and Venezuela are too well known by you to bother you now with their detail. This armament cleared from an American port, composed of American ships, with an American flag, American crew, American officers and troops, and the uselessness of the available resources to prevent its effects made to you and by the minister of the King my master Marquis de Casa Yrujo, as well as by General Turreau minister of France cast on the United States a responsibility as indubitable as was unexpected the cause, between two nations at peace. For these reasons the King my lord has commanded me to make to the American government, as I execute through you the most solemn protest of all of the damages and harm that have resulted or may result to H. M. and to his subjects from the said piratical expedition, and claim the due satisfaction for such a scandalous insult made against their sovereignty.” Valentin de Foronda sent an adapted version of this letter to JM on 7 August 1807 (DNA: RG 59, NFL, Spain, vol. 2A).