During the afternoon the rum-laden schooner Mathilde was taken, after a lively chase, by the torpedo-boat Porter. Between five and six o’clock in the evening the torpedo-boat Foote, Lieut. W. L. Rodgers commanding, received the first Spanish fire.
She was taking soundings in the harbour of Matanzas, [pg 50]and had approached within two or three hundred yards of the shore, when suddenly a masked battery on the east side of the harbour, and not far distant from the Foote, fired three shots at the torpedo-boat. The missiles went wide of the mark, and the Foote leisurely returned to the Cincinnati to report the result of her work.
At Hongkong the United States consul notified Governor Blake of the British colony that the American fleet would leave the harbour in forty-eight hours, and that no warlike stores, or more coal than would be necessary to carry the vessels to the nearest home port, would be shipped.
The United States demanded of Portugal, the owner of the Cape Verde Islands, that, in accordance with international law, she send the Spanish war-ships away from St. Vincent, or require them to remain in that port during the war.
April 24. The following decree was gazetted in Madrid:
“Diplomatic relations are broken off between Spain and the United States, and a state of war being begun between the two countries, numerous questions of international law arise, which must be precisely defined chiefly because the injustice and provocation came from our adversaries, and it is they who by their detestable conduct have caused this great conflict.”
The royal decree then states that Spain maintains her right to have recourse to privateering, and an[pg 51]nounces that for the present only auxiliary cruisers will be fitted out. All treaties with the United States are annulled; thirty days are given to American ships to leave Spanish ports, and the rules Spain will observe during the war are outlined in five clauses, covering neutral flags and goods contraband of war; what will be considered a blockade; the right of search, and what constitutes contraband of war, ending with saying that foreign privateers will be regarded as pirates.
Continuing, the decree declared: “We have observed with the strictest fidelity the principles of international law, and have shown the most scrupulous respect for morality and the right of government.
“There is an opinion that the fact that we have not adhered to the declaration of Paris does not exempt us from the duty of respecting the principles therein enunciated. The principle Spain unquestionably refused to admit then was the abolition of privateering.
“The government now considers it most indispensable to make absolute reserve on this point, in order to maintain our liberty of action and uncontested right to have recourse to privateering when we consider it expedient, first, by organising immediately a force of cruisers, auxiliary to the navy, which will be composed of vessels of our mercantile marine, and with equal distinction in the work of our navy.