Lord Eliot Convention

Quesada responded to this with: "...it would be pointless one way or another how much time we give before executing them" ("...será inútil la menor o mayor concesión de tiempo para ejecutarlos").

"[4] The issue was discussed by the British government, which sent a commission to ensure that both sides reach an agreement to suppress indiscriminate executions, under Lord Eliot and Colonel John Gurwood.

One historian has written that "the reciprocal massacre of prisoners had several times occurred, and the deadliest hatred and revenge was manifestly encouraged by both parties; in short, so savagely was the Spanish contest carried on, that the Duke of Wellington, from motives of humanity, sent Lord Eliot and Colonel Gurwood on a mission to Spain, to endeavour to put a stop to the cruelties practiced by the belligerents, and render the war less bloody and revengeful.

"[7] Lord Eliot arrived on April 5, 1835 at Bayonne, and got in touch with Francisco Espoz y Mina, commanding general of the Isabeline forces and based at Pamplona.

The British commissioners traveled with Zumalacárregui from Asarta to Estella in search of the Isabeline general Gerónimo Valdés, in charge of the operations in the north of Spain after the resignation of Espoz y Mina, to sign the agreement.

A Carlist colonel who had accompanied the British commissioners to Logroño brought back the new text to Zumalacárregui, who signed the newly worded agreement on April 28, 1835 at Eulate.

The Convention contained the following nine stipulations:[11] Article Six specifically stated: During the present contest, no person, whoever he may be, civil or military, shall be deprived of life on account of his Political Opinions, without having been previously tried and condemned in conformity with the Laws, Decrees, and Ordinances in force in Spain.

[13]Charles Frederick Henningsen, who had served with the Carlists, dedicated his book, Twelve Months' Campaign with Zumalacárregui, to Lord Eliot, whom he described as "one of the very few who have in any way interfered in the civil strife now desolating Spain, whose name will not be a curse to her people, but on whose head the blessings of all ranks of Spaniards will be showered.