Isturiz to Earl Russell - (Received January 20) Legacion de Espaņa en Londres, January 18, 1862 (Translation) My Lord, I have had the honour to receive your Excellency's communication dated the 16th instant, in reply to the note which I addressed you on the 13th, transmitting to you the instructions sent by the Captain-General of Cuba to the Heads of the expedition to Mexico. In that communication your Excellency informs me that you consider those instructions satisfactory, but that Her Britannic Majesty's Government could not yet understand why the Spanish Expedition left Cuba before the arrival of the English and French forces. I thought I had sufficiently explained this point in my note of the 22nd of December last, but since it still requires explanation, I have to inform your Excellency that according to the despatches of the Captain-General of Cuba the orders to suspend the expedition, which were sent via New York, in the hope that they would the sooner reach their destination, were not received in Cuba till the middle of December, and that the Captain-General, unacquainted with the details of the Treaty, and with the point fixed for the meeting of the squadrons, being also fearful of arriving too late at Vera Cruz, thought it right not to delay the departure of an expedition which had been for a long time ready in every point. If this doubt had been mentioned at the interview which I had the honour to have with your Excellency on the 7th instant, I should have already had very great pleasure in clearing it up, as I hope will be done by this frank explanation. (signed) XAVIER E. ISTURIZ Back to Table of Contents: Booklet No. 8, Mexico 1861-67 Back to El Dorado List of Issues Back to Master Magazine List © Copyright 2000 by The South and Central Military Historians Society This article appears in MagWeb (Magazine Web) on the Internet World Wide Web. Other military history articles and gaming articles are available at http://www.magweb.com