In compliance with this order of His Majesty, I can do no less than observe to you, sir, how unfounded one of the reasons is in your note of the 6th instant for the recognition by this Government of those of the insurgent Provinces of Spanish-America—­that it was founded on the treaty made by O. Donoju with Iturbide—­since not having had that power nor instruction to conclude it it is clearly null and of no value.

I repeat to you, sir, the sentiments of my distinguished consideration, and pray God that you live many years.

JOAQUIN DE ANDUAGA.

Don Joaquin de Anduaga to the Secretary of State.

[Translation.]

PHILADELPHIA, April 26, 1822.

JOHN QUINCY ADAMS,
Secretary of State.

SIR:  I have received your note of the 15th instant, in which you are pleased to communicate to me the reasons which induce the President not only to refuse to His Catholic Majesty the satisfaction which he demanded in his royal name for the insults offered by General Jackson to the Spanish commissaries and officers, but to approve fully of the said chief’s conduct.

Before answering the contents of the said note I thought it my duty to request instructions from my Government, and therefore without delay I have laid it before them.  Until they arrive, therefore, I have confined myself to two observations: 

First.  If in my note of the 18th of November last I said that as General Jackson had not specified the actions which had induced him to declare the Spanish officers expelled from the Floridas criminal, nor given proof of them, I thought myself authorized to declare the accusation false, I did not this through inadvertency, but upon the evident principle that every person accused has a right to declare an accusation destitute of proof false, and, much more, an accusation not pretended to be proved.  This assertion of mine does not presume that I am not persuaded of the merit of the said General and of the claim which he has upon the gratitude of his country; but although it is believed the duty of his country to eulogize and reward his eminent services, yet it will be lawful for the representative of a power outraged by him to complain of his conduct.  I can not persuade myself that to aggravate my said expression you could have thought that I had been wanting in due respect, it not being possible for that opinion to have entered your mind, when by his orders Mr. Forsyth had sent to the Spanish minister on the 1st of September last a note, in which, complaining of the Captain-General of the island of Cuba, he accuses him of dishonorable pecuniary motives in not having delivered the archives, without giving any proof of so injurious an assertion; and I must remark that the rank of General Mabry in Spain is at least as elevated as that of General Jackson in the United States, and that the services performed by him to his country have rendered him as worthy as he of its consideration and respect.