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Madrid, September 16, 1848.
I have placed before the Queen your Excellency's Dispatch dated 15th August No. 422 in which is related the conference which you have had with the Secretary of State concerning the plans of insurrection that are formed with respect to the island of Cuba and Her Majesty has seen with high satisfaction the loyalty with which the Government of the United States has acted on this occasion corresponding worthily to the repeated proofs of friendship which in all circumstances Spain has given to the American Union. Her Majesty desires your Excellency to express to that Government her acknowledgements for sentiments so loyal and moreover to manifest how well disposed is the Government of Spain to do everything in its power to strengthen the friendly relations which have long united both nations.
The earnest desire which Her Majesty entertains that on no occasion any cause of disagreement should arise between Spain and the United States imposes on the Spanish Government the duty of hastening to put an end to every attempt on the island of Cuba which might by any means give rise to difficulties. I therefore recommend your Excellency again to spare neither means nor efforts to discover the plans of the conspirators and to give instant notice of them to Her Majesty's Government and to the Captain General of said island.
At the same time it is likewise indispensable that your Excellency should make known generally the firm and unalterable determination of the Spanish Government to preserve its possessions in the Antilles and that it commands means fully adequate to resist als manner of attempt against them. This intelligence may by itself serve to check those pretensions founded on a mistaken notion that the will and means of Spain on this point are weak and unstable. Your Excellency must make it public that in Spain no Government could exist that should be capable of taking into consideration the transfer of the island of Cuba. Such an idea cannot be entertained by any patriotic Government nor would it be tolerated by the nation. If your Excellency recollects the opposition and rejection which met with, in the Cortes the project of ceding to England the island of Fernando Po and Annobon islands which Spain possessed merely by right and which were connected by no other ties to the mother country you will easily imagine what would be the result of the project of alienating the islands of Cuba and what would be the fate which would await the author of this proposition.
It is therefore expedient that every body should know that Spain will neither now nor ever enter into any transaction having as an object the abandonment of her rights on the island of Cuba and Porto Rico that she is resolved to maintain her possessions against every attempt whatever may be its nature and that she has ample means to struggle with all her enemies.
I have the honor &c.