they have ever been."-Memoirs, iv, 404. It was of vital importance that we should take over from Spain the territories of the Floridas, and thus secure control of the Gulf. As early as 1816 the United States proposed to accept a cession of the Floridas, as a basis of the release of the claims held by our citizens against Spain. (II Wharton's International Digest, 277.)

Dominion over that region had been but feebly exercised, and it was apparent that sooner or later East and West Florida would become a part of the United States.

From the date of the Louisiana Purchase we had set up a claim to the territory (now a part of Texas) extending westward as far as the Rio Grande-a claim based upon early French discovery, but not capable of being very stoutly maintained. East and West Florida we needed, and we were readyto pay for. John Quincy Adams, Secretary of State, with marked diplomatic ability took advantage of the financial weakness of the other country, so that negotiations resulted at last in the treaty of 1819. The story of these negotiations is too long to be recited here, but it may be said briefly that we bought the Floridas by yielding our claim (such as it was) to territory west of the river Sabine, and agreeing to pay $5,000,000, when it was worth many times that sum. Mr. Adams writes under date of April 13, 1820:

"We had a just claim to the Mississippi and its waters, and our citizens had a fair though very precarious claim to indemnities. We had the mere color of a claim to the Rio del Norte, no claim to a line beyond the Rocky Mountains and none to the Floridas, which we very much wanted. The Treaty gives us the Mississippi and its waters—gives us Florida, gives us an acknowledged line to the South Sea and 17 degrees of latitude, upon its shores-gives our citizens $5,000,000 of indemnities-and barely gives up to Spain from the Sabine to the Rio del Norte.”—Memoirs, iii, 483.

By the ninth article the two Governments reciprocally renounced all claims for damages or injuries which they themselves, as well as their "respective citizens and subjects may have suffered, until the time of the signing of this Treaty."

By article eleven the United States, exonerating Spain from all damages on account of the claims of their citizens renounced by the treaty, undertook to make satisfaction for the same to an amount not exceeding $5,000,000.

In Volume iv, American State Papers, page 622, we read:

"The Chevalier [de Onis] desires that the stipulation of $5,000,000 contained in this article may be stricken out, for he is aware that the territories ceded are sufficient to pay triple that sum; and by agreeing to that stipulation it would appear that Spain, in consideration only of the said amount, has ceded the two Floridas and other territories, when she would not have ceded them for twenty millions, were it not her desire to arrange and terminate all differences with the United States."

The United States agreed to appoint a commission of three persons to decide upon the amount and validity of all claims of all persons, citizens of the United States, whose claims against Spain had been presented to the Department of State, or to the Minister of the United States in Spain, since the date of the Convention in 1802, and until the signing of this treaty, and to make payment of such claims as may be adjusted to an amount not exceeding $5,000,000.

Of course, this meant that, instead of paying Spain $5,000,000 for the territory ceded, the United States would pay to its own citizens that amount, in satisfaction of claims held by them against Spain. It is to be inferred that the Department of State had conceived that $5,000,000 would be ample to pay the sum total of claims of American citizens.

Mr. Meade's claim included in treaty stipulation.

Was Mr. Meade's claim included in this estimate of $5,000,000?

It undoubtedly was. Mr. Meade had filed his claim in the Department of State for $400,000, before the date of the signing of the treaty. His claim thus became one of the class designated by the treaty for an examination and decision by the Commission.

Why the Meade heirs in 1866 brought suit in Court of Claims.

It turned out, as we shall see in a moment, that the Commission rejected Mr. Meade's claim for want of evidence, and that the sum total of the awards upon the other claims exceeded $5,000,000. Each claimant was compelled to abate eight per centum of what had been awarded to him.

First, however, explanation must be given of the appearance of the heirs of Mr. Meade, in 1866, in the Court of Claims, and why upon technical grounds the court dismissed the petition.

Mr. Meade went before the Spanish Treaty Commission, at Washington (who sat from June, 1821, to June, 1824), on 6th of January, 1822, it having at first been the opinion of the commissioners that his claim was one over which they had no jurisdiction. The commissioners refused to recognize the decree of the Spanish junta, and required the original vouchers, although Mr. Meade had submitted copies to the commission. Spain refused to send the original vouchers, practically declaring it to be an "insult" to His Majesty, not to accept the award as conclusive of the amount of the debt due to Mr. Meade. Finally, Spain yielded, but it was too late for Mr. Meade to procure the originals; and just before expiring the commission dismissed the claim for want of proof.

Congress, by joint resolution, July 25, 1866, referred the claim to the Court of Claims for adjudication thereof, pursuant to authority conferred upon said court by any existing law to examine and decide claims against the United States, referred to it by Congress (14 Stat., 611). The petition was dismissed on the ground that the Spanish Treaty Commission had exclusive jurisdiction of claims arising under the treaty, and this court could not correct its mistakes, or reverse its decisions.

It was a technical decision that the court (NOTT, J., dissenting), felt compelled to announce. The court said, of the Meade family, "now rendered illustrious by the great and patriotic services of one of their sons, rendered to the country in the hour of her peril"—" that we cannot now award them what their father was justly entitled to forty-five years ago is to us a matter of sincere regret" (p. 279).

LORING, J., concurring, said that there was no legal obligation of the United States for this claim: whether it has those equities which make it of moral obligation, is for Congress to determine (p. 280).

NOTT, J., in a very able dissenting opinion, held that Congress meant that the cause should be heard upon its merits, and that Meade's property having been taken by the United States, judgment should be given for the claimant (p. 348).

Mr. Meade's award used by United States to pay for

Floridas.

All these claims, including that of Mr. Meade, were used by the United States to pay for the Floridas. The case presents features strikingly like those of the French Spoliation claims, where property of American citizens had been taken by the United States as a means of paying France for the territory ceded and known as "The Louisiana Purchase." We submit that the record shows the following

language of the unanimous report of the House Committee on Claims of the 51st Congress, Second Session, January 20, 1891, to be absolutely correct:

"Mr. Meade was one of those whose claims against Spain were released by the Treaty of February 22, 1819, as part consideration for the cession of the Floridas by Spain, the United States assuming the payment of them." (Report No. 3533, P. 1.)

Spain delays ratification.

There is a curious history of the events attending the ratification of the treaty. President Monroe sent the treaty to the Senate on the same day that it was signed, February 22, 1819, and it was ratified unanimously on the 24th, Congress then being just upon the eve of adjournment. Everybody took it for granted that Spain would assent at once. About two weeks after the Senate's ratification, our Government notified Spain that the article which provided that all grants of land made by Spain in the Floridas after January 24, 1818, should be declared null and void, "had been agreed to on the part of the United States, with a clear understanding that it included the grants alleged to have been made in the course of the preceding winter by the King to the Duke of Alagon, Count Punon Rostro and Mr. de Vargas."

These grants were as a matter of fact made previous to 24th January, 1818; and yet we proceeded to notify Spain that the exchange of ratifications must be with a full and clear understanding that the three grants were among those declared null and void. This was a most extraordinary action. It was little else than an attempt to insist, after a bargain had been struck, that its terms were directly contradictory to the plain language of the contract.

It is true that both the Spanish Minister and Mr. Adams thought that the grants in question had been made later