[Mexico]: Ruiz de Apodaca, Juan:

$4,500 · Offered by William Reese Company

DON JUAN RUIZ DE APODACA Y ELIZA, LOPEZ DE LETONA Y LASQUETI, CONDE DEL VENADITO...POR LOS MINISTERIOS DE GUERRA Y DE LA GUBERNACION DE ULTRAMAR SE ME HAN COMUNICADO LAS REALES ORDENES ... A very rare and significant Spanish decree promulgated in the final months of Spanish rule in Mexico, granting amnesty to American, English, and French nationals imprisoned for participating in the ongoing War for Mexican Independence. The decree, made by Ferdinand VII on April 17, 1820 and largely at the behest of liberal forces empowered by the just-reinstated Constitution of 1812, states that "The King has pardoned and wishes made immediately free all of those Anglo-Americans who are imprisoned in his dominions for having raised arms in favor of the insurgents, for having been spies, for having been found without passport, for having aided the rebellion in the Americas directly or indirectly; in effect, all those who are not detained for murder, robbery, or debt..." [our translation]. An addition, dated two weeks later, "granted by the King at the request of the Ambassador of His Most Christian Majesty [Louis XVIII]," extends the same favor to "all French persons who have been detained at any point in Spain or America." The third paragraph, added in July, stipulates that the pardon will not apply to British who have fought with or aided the rebels after September 1819, when a bill of British Parliament went into effect prohibiting enlistment and relief in favor of any foreign country. Th

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