Odyssey Marine Exploration, Inc. v. The Unidentified Shipwrecked Vessel

Filing 163

REPLY to response to motion re 131 MOTION to dismiss Amended Complaint or for summary judgment (Reply to Odyssey) filed by Kingdom of Spain. (Attachments: # 1 Exhibit A, # 2 Exhibit B-1, # 3 Exhibit B-2, # 4 Exhibit B-3, # 5 Exhibit B-4, # 6 Exhibit B-5, # 7 Exhibit B-6, # 8 Exhibit B-7, # 9 Exhibit C-1, # 10 Exhibit C-2, # 11 Exhibit C-3, # 12 Exhibit C-4, # 13 Exhibit C-5, # 14 Exhibit C-6, # 15 Exhibit D)(Goold, James)

ANNEX 6 TO EXHIBIT B (O'Donnell Reply Declaration)

V Colloquium of American-Canary Island History (1982)
International Colloquium of Maritime History
THE DOCUMENTAL COLLECTIONS OF THE "MARITIME MAILS": A SECTION OF THE GENERAL ARCHIVE OF THE INDIES ANTONIO HEREDIA HERRERA
Government Corps of Archivists

[Seal]

VOLUME IV Most Excellent Interinsular Provincial Association of Cabildos de Las Palmas Most Excellent Insular Cabildo of Gran Canaria

[.

.

.]

[Page 857] [. . .]

Thus this other report proposing the establishment of a monthly mail with America was initiated. From the start, two "boxes" were to be established, one in el Ferrol and the other in Puerto Rico or Havana, as centers of distribution. The option of el Ferrol stemmed from the fact that its location implied greater brevity in the voyages and greater security in times of war. The vessels intended for mails would be sloops of 40 or 50 tons and would not have any other purpose than the transport of correspondence and furthermore a numerous crew would not be necessary: only one pilot, as captain and master, three sailors, one serving as boatswain, a cabin boy and a St. Elmo's boy. The service would be carried out with eight sloops, four in Ferrol and four in America, with six always being in service and two spare ones. Other smaller sloops would carry out the service between Puerto Rico or Havana and the surrounding lands, in the South Sea, four vessels would be available, two in Panama and two in Payta. Along with the speeding up of the maritime mails, identifying the round-trip lines of communication, between Kingdoms, it proposes the improvement of the land mails, which up to that point did not maintain communications between provinces, to the extreme that in order to send a letter from Peru to New Spain, it had to be sent to the peninsula and returned to Mexico. Communication among the lands of His Majesty being the principal goal of these mails, the ports would be regulated in accordance with distances, in such a way as to suffice to support them. Having consulted various opinions, in 1764 by Royal Decree on August 26 a common mail of the sea between Spain and the Indies was established for the first time, with its own set of characteristics, thus channeling communications, through correspondence, between the peninsula and those territories. 5 As of this moment, a vessel would leave every month with [Page 858] all the letters directed to the Overseas territories ["Ultramar"], from the port of La Coruņa heading toward Havana, and from there the return voyage to La Coruņa would be launched later. Havana became the center of distribution for documents with shipments in sloops and paquebots to Veracruz, Tierra Firme, and Peru. In the course of the paquebot to Havana, correspondence would be left along the way in Puerto Rico and Santo Domingo. Between Buenos Aires and the Galician port [of La Coruņa] a direct communication with departure every two months was established.

5

The Provisional regulation of Maritime Mail of Spain and its Occidental Indies. Printed. A.G.I. Correos, 484.

The creation of the maritime mails will also affect the administrative system of the income of the Indies and of the peninsula. [. . .]

In 1777, the Royal Ordinance of the maritime Mails is published and the General Management of the Mails is established in Madrid. According to the text of said Ordinance, a main administration would exist in Havana, where the treasury of the [mails] office is established, with Santa Fe, Veracruz, Mexico, Guatemala, Cartagena, Puerto Rico and Santo Domingo being subordinated to it. Buenos Aires remains separate. An important milestone in the history of the maritime Mail would be the incorporation of it into the Royal Navy by regulation of the Prince of Peace on April 6, 1802,[] with the Ministry of State retaining the management of the dispatch of expeditions (number, departure times, etc.) and the Ministry of the Navy being in charge of the vessels. The former had to request the vessels, the quantity and class one year in advance. Another consequence [Page 859] of this new situation would be that all of the shipyards destined for the [mails] office would come to depend on the Royal Navy, with everything marked for this service assembled in El Ferrol. The maritime mails did not limit themselves to the shipment of correspondence, but rather they also acted as habitual means of transport for individuals who could remit materials and money after the payment of freight. They were also a habitual means of transport for passengers, always with the limitation of the conditions of the vessel and its preferred cargo. [. . .]

[Page 870] [. . .]

Navigation Logs These are books of log manuscripts of the mail-ships' course kept by their captains. Each one of them begins by describing the technical characteristics of the ship: draught, speed, sails, masts, followed by the course properly described with all of the daily reports of the voyage. The tonnage of the mails-ships varied between 106 and 430 tons and the number of crew members varied between 38 and 118 men. The types of vessels used were very varied: brigantine, corvette, schooner, lugger, etc. [. . .]

[Page 872] The purpose of this report, which is nothing more than the Guide to this collection of mails, has been to call attention to the richness of information of these papers that constitute Section VIII of the General Archive of the Indies in Seville and that until now, perhaps due to the lack of an up-to-date description, was one of the least consulted Sections.

Spanish Original