James Russell Lowell and His Friends

by Edward Everett Hale

To us in America it is interesting to remember that in the court of this young king, who made so favorable an impression in his short reign of eleven years, was one whom we may call an American lady. That is to say, Madam Calderon, to whom the important charge of the education of his sisters was intrusted, was the wife and afterward the widow of Calderon de la Barca, a distinguished Spanish diplomatist. She was Miss Fanny Inglis, born in Scotland, the granddaughter of Colonel Gardner, of Preston Pans. In her youth she removed to Boston with her sister, Mrs. McLeod, and there was a teacher in her sister’s school. She was a very brilliant, conscientious, and agreeable person, and as the wife of Calderon de la Barca when he was Spanish minister to the United States, and afterwards in Mexico, made, as she deserved, a wide circle of friends. She had the charge of this prince as soon as he needed a governess, and of his sisters. The Spanish government showed its appreciation of her services by presenting to her a beautiful home, above the Alhambra, in Granada, where many of her old American friends subsequently visited her. She died in the royal palace at Madrid, in the winter of 1881–82.

Of our legation in Madrid Lowell himself says, in a private note, that the secretary of legation whom he found there says that it is the hardest-worked legation in Europe.

I myself have known personally five or six gentlemen who have held the position, and all of them have given me the same impression. I remember one of these gentlemen told me that he was still at work on a claim which one of our captains had against the Spanish government for interference with his vessel ten years before. The mañana policy had dragged the thing along so far. So that in that legation one had to keep in mind the history of half a dozen Spanish dynasties.

At this moment, writing when we are in war with Spain and the plaza of Santiago de Cuba is again historical, it is impossible not to go back a quarter of a century. At that time the governor of Santiago shot, without trial, in that plaza, fifty-four men, most of them American citizens. They had been captured in the Virginius, a filibustering steamer; but according to any law of any nation which pretended to any civilization, they deserved and should have received trial. It was then that Mr. Fish sent to Mr. Sickles, our minister in Spain, the dispatch to which I have referred, “If Spain cannot redress these outrages, the United States will.”

Why was Spain let off then? It seems such a pity now. A short shrift then would have saved two or three hundred thousand lives which have been lost in the barbarism of Spanish administration since. Whoever will read the complicated correspondence of that year will see that General Grant exercised the utmost forbearance. Spain was at that moment a republic: what American wanted to crush a poor little European republic which could hardly hold its head above water? The gentlemen in authority in Madrid descended to the most pathetic petitions that they might be excused,—if only this time we would let them off from what they deserved, no such barbarism should ever be tolerated again. The minister of foreign affairs would come over himself to the American legation to plead a postponement of justice. At the end Spain promised to pension the families of the people her viceroy had murdered. So General Grant gave way, and when, four years after, Mr. Lowell arrived, it was his duty to show that we had forgiven, and were trying to forget.

Of the foreign dispatches from our ministers, our government means to print only that which is wholly harmless in future diplomacy. There is, therefore, but little of Lowell’s in print which bears upon the questions most interesting now. But once and again he says that, when the Spanish government had paid something which it owed, the foreign minister would beg that notice might be taken of it, as showing their friendly wish to do their duty when they could.

Here is a little scrap, unimportant enough in itself, but fairly pathetic now in its open confession by a Spanish minister of the power for reserve or deception which such a minister has—or thinks he has.

In inclosing it Lowell says:—

(April 2, 1878.) “The interpellation of General Salamanca may either indicate that there is some doubt in the mind of the party to which he belongs as to the complete pacification of Cuba, or that he thought it a good topic about which to ask a question that might be embarrassing to the ministry. The answer of Señor Canovas admits, as you will see, that armed resistance still exists, and seems to imply even more than it admits. I am not sure that it would be safe to draw any inference from this, as Señor Canovas has, from the first, shown great discretion and reserve with regard to the recent events and Cuba.”...

(Inclosure.) “Señor Canovas.... For the rest, the government, in fact, knows concerning the internal condition of Cuba, concerning the preliminaries of capitulation, and concerning other points, more than it has hitherto had occasion to lay before the members of this body. But this is not what I said before; I did not say that the government had not more information on this than it had communicated to Congress, for if that were the case, I should not have had occasion to suggest what I have suggested.... Concerning what preceded the capitulation, concerning the capitulation itself, concerning what the government expects after the capitulation, concerning what it believes will result from the capitulation, concerning the possible length of the war, concerning the reasons the government has for hoping what it may hope and fearing what it may fear,—the government has its own knowledge, and thinks it inopportune, at present, to enter into discussion. But concerning the fact of the forces which have submitted, concerning what remains to be done in the way of pacification, the government has no kind of secret.”