Before examining Floridablanca’s observations further it may be well to remark that this was the point of fact on which it was impossible for the two Courts to agree. Each relied on the statements made by its own subjects and these statements were conflicting. Meares told of his purchase of land and his erection of a building thereon in 1788 in such a manner as to lead the British Cabinet to believe that he had formed a substantial English settlement, and that the establishment was still there in the spring of 1789 when Martinez arrived. On the other hand, Martinez’s account showed that when he arrived at Nootka there were no evidences of any British establishment, but that the expedition under Colnett, which arrived two months later, came to form an establishment. Neither was wholly right nor wholly wrong.[419]
Floridablanca said that it was very difficult and almost impossible for Spain to consent that British subjects should land in unoccupied places to trade with the natives and form establishments. Places without a substantial Spanish occupation, he said, might be found almost anywhere along the coast of America. This clause, he said, ought to be omitted from the projet. Fitzherbert had proposed that British vessels should not approach within 10 leagues of places occupied by Spain. The Count insisted that the distance was too short. Instead of the expression, “occupied by Spain,” he would substitute the expression, “belonging to Spain.” With his observations the Spanish minister submitted a counter projet which embodied them. In his letter accompanying these documents, Floridablanca said that he had proposed a special junta to consider the English propositions. However, if Fitzherbert would agree to the Spanish counter projet, he would venture to propose it to the King and see if the matter could not be settled before the meeting of the junta.[420]
The Spanish minister had decided that Spain would have to yield to the English demands. He was directing his efforts toward an attempt to induce the British ambassador to modify those demands so that they would give as little offense as possible to Spanish pride. But other Spanish officials were not so ready to yield as the prime minister was.
Fitzherbert did not accept the count’s terms. He insisted on the British projet as it stood. The special junta was summoned. It was composed of eight of the principal ministers, not including Floridablanca. The order naming the members was dated October 19. The next day a note requested them to hasten, for the ambassador was very urgent. Sessions were held on the 21st, 22d, 24th, and 25th. The English projet was examined article by article.
The findings of the junta furnish an excellent notion of the feeling of Spaniards respecting the dispute. It was declared that Martinez’s conduct at Nootka had not been contrary to international law nor an insult to the English flag. What he had done was to prevent the forming of an establishment in a place belonging to the Spanish dominions, in which, by virtue of treaties made before all Europe and guaranteed by England herself, no foreign disembarkation was permitted without a just motive, and much less the forming of military or commercial establishments. Even granting that the proceedings of Martinez had been culpable, and, by a distortion of ideas, that the resistance to a usurpation could be considered an insult, Spain had already given England such satisfaction as was compatible with her dignity. The increasing of the British pretensions while the Spanish were being moderated showed that the Nootka affair was only a mask to cover England’s hostile designs of taking advantage of the revolution in France to attack the divided House of Bourbon.
Referring to a clause in the British projet providing for the return of any vessels that might have been seized since April, 1789, the conclusions of the junta declared that this showed England’s design of sending new expeditions. They would not limit themselves to fisheries nor to trading with the natives. They intended to form fortified establishments and construct vessels there to carry on trade with all of New Spain. Their first aggressions would lead to others. The weak and extended Spanish dominions afforded opportunities for their activity. There were many places that Spain had not been able and probably never would be able to people. The English pretension was the more irritating since it extended also to all the coasts of South America. If Spain should grant their demands she might expect in the end to surrender to them all of the commerce of Peru and New Spain.
The English offer of not allowing their subjects to approach within 10 leagues of any place occupied by Spain was useless, the junta declared, since they demanded the privilege of disembarking in all unoccupied places. By this means they could approach insensibly to those that were occupied. If the Spanish governors should attempt to prevent them, it would lead to disputes and to new negotiations which would afford new opportunities for aggressions. They would finally take all of these countries from Spain.
The English assumption of rights in South America was branded as an infamous artifice. Although Spain had for three centuries been in exclusive and peaceful possession of all South America, the English were now pretending that they had equal rights to unoccupied places. Appealing directly to the King, they said:
Strange, astonishing, unheard-of it is, Señor, that England should dare to pretend that Your Majesty should authorize and adopt a stipulation which prohibits mutually the forming of establishments there as long as the subjects of other powers shall not attempt to do so; adding that the respective subjects shall have the right of disembarking in those places and building huts and other temporary structures for objects connected with their fisheries. … The English pretend that all South America is open to all nations, and that its territories shall belong to the first that desires to occupy them.
England, they declared, was now exacting more than she had dared to ask in 1763, when she had so great an advantage. She had forgotten her guaranty in the treaty of Utrecht that Spain’s American dominions should be restored as they had been in the reign of King Charles II, and should remain in that condition. If Spain should grant these privileges to England, other nations would claim them under the “most-favored-nation clause” of the same treaty.