The Black Warrior Affair 287 tions that the consul Robertson has made or may in the future make, as I consider him to be the prime cause of the strained relations at present existing between the two governments " } Occasionally the personal hostility of the two officials finds expression in the notes exchanged by the Consulate and the Palace. In the hurry of the moment Robertson had neglected to take a copy of the first letter- to Pezuela relating to the detention of the Black Warrior, and so respectfully requested that a copy of the original in the hands of the governor might be made for the files of the consulate. The note from the secretary of the governor accompanying the copy of the letter indicated remarked insinuatingly that the Marques de la Pezuela was a gentleman and for his part had nothing to conceal. He probably adverted to Robertson's failure to transmit a copy of the letter of February 28 to the Department at Washington. Then came the articles in the Diario dc la Marina, the official paper, sav- agely attacking the consul and the head of the government he repre- sented. Robertson in both cases^ criticized the translations that had been made of a consular despatch and the President's message — translations that were so bad as to be vicious — qualifying the philippic directed against him as actuated by malice and as showing a clear intent to pervert the facts. He even went to the length of demanding that the objectionable passages in the articles he named be corrected in a manner honorable to himself. The important part of the governor's reply in the formal third person follows :* That he [Pezuela] has considered as official all communications that Your Honor has addressed to him. not having had at any time motive to ?ct otherwise; that henceforth you may abstain from directing to His Excellency complaints foreign to the exclusively commercial character of the exequatur (which Your Honor may please to reread at this point) granted to Your Honor by the Queen. My Lady : that there is no repre- sentation here recognized by the States of the Union as having such privileges, and Your Honor may turn with your grievances to your government as this government may turn to its own or to our representa- tive at Washington, when it may be necessary. The governor promised, however, to have certain of the correc- tions desired made. Pezuela in his secret despatches accuses Robert- son of improperly and clandestinely interfering in the affairs of the country. He declares that Robertson permitted the captain of the Fulton to vaunt in his house the mad purpose " of taking the Black ' Pezuela to Cueto, June 20, 1854. ' A. letter that was a purely formal protest against the proceedings of the Spaniards as to the Black Warrior. » Robertson to Pezuela (2), April i, 1854.
- Secretary of Government to Robertson, April 2. 1854.
