specie that might arrive on account of individuals, which was ratified by the Cortes held in the city of San Fernando, in the year one thousand eight hundred and thirteen; there being included in the said accounts a bill of exchange for three hundred thousand hard dollars, given to Meade on the royal treasury of Vera Cruz, but which was not honored for want of funds; the same being ordered to be paid in Spain, and the costs and damages to be settled and reimbursed to Meade, conformably to the laws and usages of Spain and the custom of merchants; all which is well known to the deponent, from the circumstance of his having been a deputy to the Cortes in the year one thousand eight hundred and thirteen, and having been a member of the said commission of finances thereof, and having energetically supported the same at the public session wherein the business was discussed. That in the year one thousand eight hundred and fourteen, on the arrival of King Ferdinand in Spain, the Cortes were dissolved by an armed force; and the deponent, one of the deputies thereof, was arrested and imprisoned, with the greatest rigor, until the month of March, one thousand eight hundred and twenty, at which period the king swore to and re-established the constitution of the year one thousand eight hundred and twelve; and in the same month the deponent was called to Madrid, and appointed Minister of the Department of Finances of Spain and the Indies, which office was exercised by him until the month of March, one thousand eight hundred and twenty-one, as appears by public documents and by the Spanish and foreign gazettes of that period. That in the month of March, one thousand eight hundred and twenty, at the petition of Richard W. Meade, esq., and after a previous investigation by a board of ministers by his majesty for that purpose specially appointed, as also after a previous inquiry on the part of the principal accountant's office at the exchequer, his majesty sanctioned and approved of the formal liquidation of the sums that remained due to the said Meade under his contracts, advances, and services aforesaid; and the necessary certificates were granted thereof, legalized by the deponent in his then quality of Secretary of State and of the Department of Finances, recognizing the same as a national debt, without any the least reference to the treaty, which was not ratified by Spain until some months afterwards. That, at the period at which the document ascertaining the liquidated amount of Meade's debt against the Spanish nation was granted to him, no treaty existed between the government of Spain and the United States of America touching the cession of the Floridas; and the term therein prefixed for the ratification thereof having expired, and the same, for such reason, having been by the minister of the United States declared null, and as if it had never existed. That there, moreover, was another reason, of infinitely more importance, for the annulment of the said treaty, viz: that by the constitution of the monarchy it was incompetent to the king either to alien or cede, by treaty or sale, any part of the territory of the Spanish nation, without the previous consent of the Cortes; and that, consequently, the debt of Meade was recognized, and judicially substantiated, by all the formalities prescribed by the laws, as a national debt, in the month of March, one thousand eight hundred and twenty, without any sort of reference to or

connection with the treaty. That, if the payment did not at that time take place, it was merely to be ascribed to the exhausted state of the Spanish treasury at the moment of the re-establishment of the constitution, and to the enormous expenses incurred in the various expeditions sent out to the American colonies. That the Cortes having assembled in the month of July, of the said year, one thousand eight hundred and twenty, Meade, by his agent, presented a memorial praying a liquidation of his claim. In the month of October, the Cortes having proceeded to a discussion of the report of the special commission, appointed out of its members, touching the treaty of the Floridas, an account was at the same time given by the said commission of the claim of Meade; and it is indisputably true that the whole of the members were unanimously convinced, by the declarations of his excellency the Secretary of State of Spain, and of his excellency the Minister Plenipotentiary of the United States of America, that, in case of the ratification thereof on the part of the Cortes, the debt of Meade was included therein, and that payment thereof ought to be made by the government of the United States. That the deponent having read over the annexed depositions of the late Señor Don José Moreno y Guerra, deceased, with whom he was particularly acquainted, he is persuaded that everything therein by him deposed is the truth, and conformable to what passed and took place at that period. And the deponent feels it incumbent upon him solemnly to declare that the Cortes authorized, and the Spanish government ratified, the treaty, under an idea that the debt of Meade was included therein, and that the payment thereof was to be provided for by the American government, Spain remaining ex

onerated of and from all the results.

In testimony whereof, the said appearer hath signed with me, the said notary, and witnesses; and I have caused my notarial seal to be hereto affixed, to serve and avail where need may require, the day and year aforesaid.

In testimonium veritatis : [L. S.]

JOSE CANGA ARGUELLES.

D. S. MERCERON, Notary Public.

Witnesses: JUAN RICO, GEO. ROBERTS.

Consulate of the United States of America, London:

I, Thomas Aspinwall, consul of the United States of America for London and the dependencies thereof, do hereby make known and certify, to all whom it may concern, that Daniel Simon Merceron, who hath signed the foregoing certificate, is a notary public, duly admitted and sworn, and practising in the city of London aforesaid; and that to all acts by him so done full faith and credit are and ought to be given, in judicature and thereout.

In testimony whereof, I have hereunto set my hand, and affixed the seal of the said consulate, in London aforesaid, this seventh day of August, in the year of our Lord one thousand eight hundred and twenty seven, and in the fifty-second year of the independence of the said United States.

[L. S.]

THOS. ASPINWALL.

G 2.

The deposition of Joseph Moreno Guerra, taken at Philadelphia before Francis Hopkinson, and by him reduced to writing, one of the commissioners appointed to take affidavits by the circuit court of the United States for the district of Pennsylvania.

The said Joseph Moreno Guerra, on his solemn oath, doth depose and say: That he is a native of the town of Rumbla, province of Cordova, Andalusia, in Spain, and is aged about forty-six years and upwards; that he was duly elected, from his native province, a deputy to the National Cortes of Spain, in the year 1820, for that and the following year, 1821; and that the said Cortes assembled at Madrid on the 7th day of July, 1820; that on or about the beginning of October, in the same year, the Cortes discussed the question relating to the treaty signed during the year before, at the city of Washington, between Spain and the United States of America, involving a cession of the two Floridas. At the same time a special committee, to whom the business of that treaty had been referred, made a report on a memorial previously presented by the agent of Richard W. Meade, of Philadelphia, in the United States, claiming an appropriation for the payment of a sum acknowledged to be due to him by his majesty the King of Spain. This committee, in their report, informed the Cortes that, in order to decide definitively upon the claim of the memorialist, it was necessary to ascertain whether the amount of money due to Richard W. Meade, and to those who were represented by him, had been included among those claims which the government of the United States undertook to pay, and from which it was wholly to exonerate Spain; for, if this should not prove to have been done, the debt owing to Richard W. Meade, in particular, ought immediately to be paid, as it was considered a national debt, arising either directly out of contracts, or from the consequences of contracts, made by him in aid of the liberty and inde pendence of Spain at the most critical periods of the revolution; that at the periods of those contracts, and in the full confidence that they would be fulfilled, the services of Meade had been of the most import ant kind; and that the sum for which payment was required had been liquidated and fixed by a special commission of councillors appointed for that purpose by his majesty the king, who had subsequently sanctioned and approved the settlement. In consequence of this report of the committe, it was proposed in the Cortes to address an official letter to the Secretary of State, to ascertain whether or not the sum then claimed in the memorial above mentioned had been included among those which the United States undertook to discharge. Such letter was accordingly written by the secretary of the Cortes, in the usual manner, and a reply from the Secretary of State was received, stating distinctly that the debt due to Richard W. Meade was expressly included in the treaty; that the nature and amount of said debt were well known to the government of the United States, as the same had been officially communicated to the American minister residing at Madrid; but that the same government of the United States required the large cessions of lands made to the Duke of Alagon, Count Punon Rostro, and Mr.

Vargas, to be cancelled, considering the entire Floridas appropriated to the payment of the claims of its citizens upon the Spanish government. In order to avoid any possible misunderstanding or mistake upon this subject, it was proposed in the Cortes that a committee of two of its members should be appointed to wait on the minister of the United States, Mr. Forsyth; and accordingly this deponent, with Mr. Thomas Isturio, member of the city Cadiz, were appointed, did wait on Mr. Forsyth, and obtained from that gentlemen the clear and distinct assurance that the debt due to Richard W. Meade would certainly be paid to him by the United States, if the treaty were ratified by the Spanish government, and the cessions above mentioned totally annulled. And this deponent solemnly declares that these assurances, thus con-veyed to the Cortes, and these assurances only, induced that body to annul the grants of land in the Floridas, two of which had been acknowledged valid in the treaty itself; that had not the Cortes been perfectly satisfied by these solemn assurances that the national debt (as it was regarded) due to Richard W. Meade would be fully paid by the United States, it would not have consented to vacate those grants of land, as far as respected the United States, but would have vacated them as respects individuals to whom they had been made, reserving them to the Spanish nation by the law of reversion, for the express purpose of paying, by them, the debt due to the said Richard W. Meade, either by their transfer to said Meade or by sale, and with the product thereof would have paid the debt and interest.

In this debt to the said Meade, the deponent says that the Cortes took a particular interest, as it arose from contracts, the most of which had been sanctioned by the former Cortes, which sat in Cadiz during the years 1811 and 1812. The Cortes deemed itself especially bound to see such engagements complied with; and the said Meade was considered as more than commonly meritorious, having been unjustly persecuted on account of the services he had rendered the Spanish nation.

The deponent adds, that the Cortes founded their right to vacate, as to the individual grantees, the cessions of land in Florida above referred to, and to reserve them for the nation, to be devoted to any purpose that might be deemed just and proper, upon the law called reversion and incorporation, well known in the history and legislation of Spain since the fourteenth century-a law which converts into national property whatever the prodigality of the monarchs might confer on their favorites, as happened with those termed Enrequenas, and with many others. This deponent has been absent from Spain during the last nine months, having left his country on the second day of July, 1823. He arrived at New York in October last; left the United States of America for Mexico on the 14th day of October, 1823; and he is now on his return to Spain, intending to embark from this country for Gibraltar in the course of a few days.

JOSE MORENO DE GUERRA.

Sworn and subscribed, April 23, 1824, before

A true copy:

FRANCIS HOPKINSON, Comm'r.

R. W. MEADE.

G 3.

Deposition of Don Alvaro Flores Estrada.

[Translation.]

In the city of London, on the ninth day of the month of July, in the year one thousand eight hundred and twenty-seven, before me, Daniel Simon Merceron, notary public, of this city, and in the presence of the undersigned witnesses, appeared Don Alvaro Florez Estrada, commissary general of the army and province of Seville, and lastly of Valencia, and late deputy to the Cortes for the province of the Asturias, in the years one thousand eight hur.dred and twenty and one thousand eight hundred and twenty-one, who, as well from the circumstance of his having held such office, as from the particular and intimate knowledge which he had, both prior and subsequent to his election as deputy, of the just claims of citizen Richard W. Meade, a native of Philadelphia, against the Spanish government, as also from the interest he took in the payment thereof, seeing the honor of his nation was compromised therein, said and declared, as by these presents he doth solemnly say and declare for truth, that during the struggles and difficulties experienced by the Spanish nation in maintaining and carrying on a war against the Emperor Bonaparte, from the year one thousand eight hundred and eight to that of one thou sand eight hundred and fourteen, the said Meade, by means of certain formal contracts and loans, without interest, facilitated and advanced to the Spanish legitimate government considerable sums and provisions and money; that the deponent further well knows, in his late quality of commissary general of the army, as is equally notorious to those who at that period were at the head of the affairs of the Spanish nation, that the latter would have found it almost wholly impracticable to maintain and carry on such a noble achievement had it not been for the services rendered it by Meade by means of the said contracts and loans; that it is likewise well known to him, the deponent, being equally public and notorious, that the Cortes of Cadiz, for the reasons above indicated, expressly and individually declared as a sacred and national debt that which arose from the said contracts, by most strictly charging the government with the payment of the amount of what was due to Meade out of certain funds, exclusively appropriated to that object; that he, the deponent, likewise knows well that the government, not having been able to complete the payment to Meade, on the return of his majesty, Ferdinand VII, from France, acknowledged as a national debt the balance which Meade had against it at that period; and his majesty, in consequence thereof, ordered the formation of a special committee, composed of members of various councils, in order that, after an examination of the whole of the original documents produced by Meade in support of his claim, they might liquidate the total amount thereof, after a previous deduction of the sums antecedently received by Meade; that the said committee, after a careful and mature examination, made a report, which, by a royal order, being referred to the principal accountant's office at the exchequer, his majesty, after due consideration of the whole of the proceedings, ordered the most formal and authentic docu