American demands for vengeance.

When the news of all this reached the United States, public indignation rose rapidly.  Mass-meetings were held demanding vengeance on Spain.  President Grant sent special messages to Congress, and the state department began diplomatic negotiations.  Hamilton Fish, secretary of state, declared that the Virginius, having been registered as an American vessel carrying official documents regular upon their face and bearing the United States flag, was entirely beyond the jurisdiction of any other power on the high seas in the time of peace; that if she had secured fraudulent entry or committed any other fraud against the laws of the United States it was for her to be turned over to the United States courts for punishment, and not for her to be captured and punished by some other power.

The Spanish minister of foreign affairs at that time was Admiral Polo de Bernabe, father of the new Spanish minister who succeeded Dupuy de Lome.  He wanted to submit the matter to arbitration, and Secretary Fish replied to him that the “United States was ready to refer to arbitration all questions properly subjects for reference, but that the question of an indignity to the flag of the nation and the capture in time of peace on the high seas of a vessel bearing that flag and having also the register and papers of an American ship, is not deemed to be one referable to other powers to determine.  A nation must be the judge and custodian of its own honor.”

Most of the men were executed after protests to Madrid began to be made.  Madrid mobs made a demonstration against the American minister, General Sickles.  November 4, Secretary Fish cabled Sickles:  “In case of refusal of satisfactory reparation within twelve days from this date close your legation and leave Madrid.”  Ten days later, when the executions were over, he telegraphed:  “If Spain cannot redress these outrages, the United States will.”  Ten days after that he wired:  “If no settlement is reached by the close of to-morrow, leave.”  Next day Spain became tractable and war was averted.

By his conduct in Madrid at that time General Sickles made many friends of those Americans who wanted to see energetic action, and many enemies among those who wanted peace at any price.  It was alleged afterward that the latter influence became dominant, and that his recall from that post was the result of their work to punish him for his energy that was not always diplomatic in its forms.

Settlement of the trouble.