The writer added that if the offer should be thought too small he was confident that Spain would increase it ten, fifteen, or even twenty thousand Spanish dollars. If Grenville should reject the offer and wish the matter to revert to arbitration he said that Aranda would facilitate it.[462] The amount offered was 200,000 Spanish dollars. About two months later the Nootka claimants were called upon to decide whether they wished to accept the offer or to have the matter referred back to Madrid in hope of having the sum increased.[463] The claimants apparently did not accept the offer. A month afterwards Dundas, the home secretary, wrote:
The Nootka business, I take it for granted, will get on, but it hangs rather unaccountably. I suspect that both sides are in some degree to blame.[464]
After a delay of several months more, the Spanish Court increased the offer by $10,000. On February 12, 1793, the following convention was signed:
Nootka claims convention.
In virtue of the declarations exchanged at Madrid on the 24th of July, 1790, and of the convention signed at the Escorial on the 18th [28th] of the following October, Their Catholic and Britannic Majesties, desiring to regulate and determine definitely everything regarding the restitution of the British ships seized at Nootka, as well as the indemnification of the parties interested in the ships, have named for this purpose and constituted as their commissioners and plenipotentiaries, to wit, on the part of His Catholic Majesty, Don Manuel de Las Heras, commissary in His said Majesty’s armies, and his agent and consul-general in the Kingdoms of Great Britain and Ireland; and on the part of His Britannic Majesty, Mr. Ralph Woodford, Knight Baronet of Great Britain; who, after having communicated their full powers, have agreed upon the following articles:
Article I.
His Catholic Majesty, besides having restored the ship Argonaut, the restoration of which took place in the port of San Blas in the year 1791 [1790], agrees to pay as indemnity to the parties interested in it the amount of two hundred and ten thousand hard dollars in specie, it being understood that this sum is to serve as compensation and complete indemnification for all their losses, whatever they may be, without any exception, and without leaving the possibility of a future remonstrance on any pretext or motive.
Article II.
Said payment shall be made on the day on which the present convention shall be signed by the commissioner of His Catholic Majesty in the presence of the commissioner of His Britannic Majesty, which latter shall give at the same time an acknowledgment of payment consistent with the terms enunciated in the former article and signed by the said commissioner for himself and in the name and by the order of His Britannic Majesty and of the said interested parties. And there shall be attached to the present convention a copy of the said acknowledgment of payment, executed in the proper form, and likewise of the respective full powers and of the authorizations of the said interested parties.