It seems that the commissioners failed to agree and that the matter was referred to a court of arbitration, which sat at or near Madrid in the early part of the next year. On May 14, 1792, St. Helens wrote from Aranjuez that the Nootka arbitration business was “en bon train,” and though it was going more slowly than expected he hoped to send dispatches concerning it in a very few days.[460] A fortnight later the business had taken a new turn. The British ambassador wrote:
I can not but hope that the proposal which goes by this messenger for settling what the Count of Aranda[461] calls the fastidious business of the Nootka claims by the payment of a round sum of money as a discharge in full will strike your fancy as much as it does his and mine.
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:
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: