Papers Relating to Foreign Affairs, Accompanying the Annual Message of the President to the Second Session of the Fortieth Congress

Mr. Hovey to Mr. Seward

No. 58.]

Legation of the United States, Lima, Peru, February 22, 1867.

Sir: I have the honor to enclose herewith a copy of the report of the secretary of foreign relations, with a brief summary in English of the same.

It will be seen that the secretary has settled the question of diplomatic asylum in Peru. He mentions with kind expressions the offer made by our government in relation to peace with Spain, and promises an answer as soon as the allied powers may be heard from on the subject, and reviews the proposals of England and France, which were refused by the said government.

I have the honor to be, with great respect, your obedient servant,

ALVIN P. HOVEY.

Hon. William H. Seward, Secretary of State, Washington, D. C.

Report of the minister of foreign affairs.

The Spanish question is reviewed in extenso from its commencement to the present time.

The steps taken by Peru to effect the alliance existing between herself, Chili, Ecuador, and Bolivia are recounted.

Mention is made of the first offer of the United States, acting upon the request of Spain, to arrange in some manner the present war. The thanks of the Peruvian government were given for this proposal, but it afterwards was acquainted with the fact that the United States would not proceed further in this matter.

Mediation was proposed by France and England, but the bases of their proposal not being admissible, the allied governments returned a refusal.

The recent proposal of the United States towards the same object has been. gratefully received, and will be answered when the allied governments can be heard from on the subject. The American congress of plenipotentiaries from nearly all of the South American republics, and, if possible, of Mexico, will assemble in this city in April, for the purpose of forming offensive and defensive treaties, commercial regulations, &c., &c.

The protest of the Peruvian government against the conduct and war waged by Brazil and her allies against the republic of Paraguay is noticed.

In regard to diplomatic asylum the minister reiterates the views which he expressed in his printed memorandum, citing especially the case which gave rise to the discussion of the subject, which was the request made by the government to the French legation for the delivery of a person criminal in the eyes of the law who had taken refuge in that legation. The request was denied; a formal demand met with the same repulse, and the government not desiring to provoke a conflict left the matter as it was, determining at the proper time to arrange the question definitely.

The legation of the United States in Lima has accepted without reservation the doctrine of the Peruvian government on this matter, such doctrine being in conformity with the laws and practices of the Union.

The representatives of Chili and Brazil referred the matter to their respective governments.

Recently the minister of the United States has informed this department that the American admiral has issued a general order, to the officers commanding vessels in his squadron to refuse asylum in the future to any Peruvian citizens who may seek it.

The President of the United States, in a message to Congress, asked for authority to enforce the payment of certain debts due American citizens by Ecuador. The Peruvian and Chilian ministers in Washington assumed the debt for their governments, but Ecuador at the fixed time liquidated the claim.

The supreme chief has offered his mediation in the difficulty between the government of. New Granada and the United States minister at Bogota.

The treaties which were in force with many foreign countries are about expiring or have expired. It is recommended to congress that the subject of renewing them or of forming new ones be attentively considered.

The secretary then gives account of several unimportant claims against this government, and concludes by giving a relation of the different legations and consular agencies of Peru in foreign countries.

[Translation.]

Memoir, which the secretary of state for foreign relations presents by order of the provisional supreme chief of the constituents congress.

Lima,, 1867.

In compliance with the order which the provisional supreme chief of the republic has pleased to give to me, I have the honor to present to the constituent congress a succinct exposition of the state of our foreign relations from the 28th November, 1865, when the supreme chief designed to appoint me to be secretary of that department.

THE SPANISH QUESTION.

The glorious revolution of the 28th of February purposed as its main object the revindication of the national honor deeply wounded by unjust and outrageous Spanish aggressions, and, even more, by the mode in which an end was put to the conflict, by making, and in part giving effect to a treaty in which Peru was made to appear as blameworthy, and bound herself to give satisfaction to her oppressor and make good to her the outlay she had made in maintaining the usurpation of our territory.

The revolution also purposed to reform our vicious internal system, and beyond doubt so laudable a proposition must have contributed powerfully to putting at ease the international relations of Peru, which up to that time had suffered from the instability of our institutions and from the abuses which, under this cloud, had become predominant.

The abusive and scandalous usurpation of the Chincha Islands by the Spanish squadron, and the acts which were its consequence, until the inauguration of the dictature, although they defined clearly the situation of the new government, surrounded it, nevertheless, with difficulties and dangers which it was necessary to overcome, and to obviate at the proper time, with prudence as well as resolution. The revolutionary government, in order to be consistent, had to declare null and of no effect the treaty of the 27th January, and that was equivalent to placing Peru in the attitude of open war with Spain. Some believed, it is true, that Peru might content herself with having overthrown the government which made the treaty, reporting such as a fact accomplished; but such merely temporizing doctrine, in proportion as it exhibited the revolutionary government as inconsistent with its original programme, left untouched the injury done to the national honor and dignity, and by accepting the fact even, it became compulsorily held to accept all the consequences which the insidious enemy that had humbled Peru, and stained her with blood, might pretend to deduce therefrom.

But even though, under these circumstances, motives of political convenience might have been so powerful as to impose the obligation of silence on the legitimate sentiments of honor and dignity, there was another fact in presence of which the dictature bound itself, and which it could not absolutely disregard. The Spanishs quadron, after imposing peace in the government at Lima, and obtaining therefrom the reward of Spanish injustice, laid its course towards Valparaiso, to demand from Chili satisfaction for the sympathies she had manifested toward Peru. When the dictatorial government was inaugurated, it was already more than two months since the ports of Chili had found themselves blockaded by the Spanish ships, and that war had been declared between Chili and Spain.

The dictatorial government understood at once that to the peculiar motives which Peru had for breaking the treaty of the 27th of January, and exacting from Spain the indemnity which was justly due to her, was added the no less powerful one of aiding a sister and friendly nation, against which it was attempted to repeat the chastisement which had been inflicted on Peru, and that only because Chili, an American nation, could not be indifferent to the injustice, the wrongs and aggressions of which a state equally American, and her neighbor, had been the victim. Besides, it was plain, in view of the frivolous causes which gave rise to the usurpation of the Chincha Islands, and the aggression on Chili, that there existed, on the part of Spain, a preconceived plan at least to humiliate the South American nations, thus disposing at random of their future destinies, and when she could do no more, to turn them to the purposes of rapacious spoliation. If any doubt could be entertained in this respect, it is dissipated by reading the documents which were found in the archives and were afterwards published.

The dictatorial government did not hesitate about the choice of the course it ought to take; the programme of the supreme chief showed clearly what would be the frank and decided policy of his government; a policy which, resting on justice, has merited the protection of Providence and been crowned with the most brilliant result.

At the epoch to which I refer, there was at Lima a Mr. Albistur, who had been recognized by the government of ex-General Pezit under the double and consecutive character of royal commissioner and diplomatic agent of the Spanish government. On the 30th November, 48 hours after the installation of the new government, Mr. Albistur presented himself at the department of foreign relations to let me know that in Callao there was published a newspaper in which discourteous things were said of Spain and its sovereign. Mr. Albistur admitted that he had no right to take any action with the new government, because he knew that it had not yet brought to the knowledge of the foreign legation the fact of its installation. I confined myself, as was natural, to listening to him, offering to give report of his intimations to the supreme chief.

Two days afterwards Mr. Albistur asked for an interview with the supreme chief, and as thereat he revealed to him that he had in his possession ample instructions to settle all the questions which might arise between Peru and Spain, the supreme chief was explicit enough to make known to him that the only basis for settlement possible was to declare at once the nullity of the treaty of the 27th of January, and to withdraw the Spanish squadron from the coasts of Chili, with disapproval of the last acts of Admiral Pareja. On my part, and in virtue of orders from his excellency, and because Mr. Albistur had wished it, I had also another interview with him, and repeating thereat the remarks of the supreme chief, I obtained the conviction that Mr. Albistur had no instructions beyond concluding at Lima the definitive treaty which had to be made at Madrid, according to one of the stipulations of the treaty of the 27th of January, that the Spanish government had not made to its representative in Lima any suggestions on the questions which might naturally grow out of the probable triumph of the revolution; above all, if this fact should take place simultaneously with the attack ordered against Chili, that the Spanish representative, following the teachings of his government, understood that the treaty of the 27th January was a fact consummated, and obligatory on Peru, whatever might have been the faults committed by the government which concluded it. The insinuations that Mr. Albistur had made to the supreme chief, directly or indirectly, and the assurances he gave before his friends that at the pleasure of the new government he was to smooth all difficulties, leaving the national honor untouched, imposed on his excellency and myself the imperative necessity of using, in our conferences with him, language clear and precise, for the purpose of getting at the truth in all its nakedness. The result corresponded fully with the judgment which the government had formed about the powers with which the Spanish agent said he was invested.

The conviction of the government that he could do nothing in the diplomatic line being thus settled, the supreme chief proceeded to give me orders for the conclusion of a treaty of alliance, offensive and defensive, between Peru and Chili.

The argument was adjusted with the plenipotentiary, ad hoc, appointed by the government at Santiago, and was signed the 5th December, 1865.

On the 13th of the same month the usual circular was addressed to the foreign diplomatic corps resident to Lima, announcing to it the installation of the new government. Mr. Albistur was not, nor was he entitled to be, considered in the number of the diplomatic agents, and on that very day the shield of arms, which had till then remained on the door of his house, disappeared from there. On the 22d he took passage on the steamer for Europe, leaving, as the government afterwards knew, a note for the representatives of foreign nations explaining the motives for his spontaneous withdrawal.

This happened when it was already known in Peru that the Spanish schooner Covadonya had been surrendered and captured by the Chilian corvette Esmeralda, at a few miles distant from the main body of the enemy’s fleet.

A few days afterwards the news was spread through Lima of an event which, like the before-mentioned, was called to exert a decisive influence on later events, the suicide of Admiral Pareja. The triumph of the revolution in Peru, and the striking of the Spanish flag on one of their ships made him understand, it would seem, the enormity of the faults he had committed as a politician and a seaman.

Meantime, Peru having undertaken, together with Chili, to promote adhesion to the treaty of alliance just concluded between the two republics, the government hastened to designate the persons who were to exercise the functions of some of the legations which they had to send forth for this purpose. Messieurs Freyre and Quiñones at once set forth for Bogota and Quito. In the instructions given to them they were charged to call the attention of the governments of Colombia and Ecuador seriously to the danger which America incurred in consequence of the systematic aggression of which some of those states were the object, and to the palpable tendencies of Spanish policy.

The remark was made that the circumstance of there being no existing treaty between Colombia and Spain, left the. first at liberty to act as would suit her own interests and those of America; and in respect to Ecuador, that the fact of her having before made a treaty with Spain did not interfere with the observance towards her of the respect to which she was entitled as an independent and sovereign state. Mr. Quiñones was especially forewarned to avoid incidents of earlier date which bad produced some misunderstanding between Peru and Ecuador.

Bolivia was at that time disturbed by civil war, and this circumstance, connected with the fact that the city of La Paz was then occupied by the revolutionary party, prevented the early sending of a legation in that direction. The legation set out as soon as the government knew that order was restored in consequence of the battle of Viacha. But to the honor of the Bolivian government, that although the smoke of battle had not passed away, she hastened to assure the governments of Peru and Chili that the events which, were developing themselves on the Pacific were not regarded by her with indifference, and that Bolivia was ready to join with the two republics, her friends and neighbors, for the common defence. This solemn declaration, made the 30th of January, by a note addressed to the Bolivian legation and transmitted to the Peruvian government, was the answer looked for to the invitations which, almost at the same time, we sent to the government of Bolivia, to induce it to adhere to the treaty of alliance. The action of the Bolivian government should so much the more receive attention, because, as is known, there was then depending between Bolivia and Chili a veracious question of limits, which had given room for the adoption of a law of war on the part of the congress of the first of those republics, a law which was in force, and which the Bolivian government hastened to abrogate.

The treaty of alliance being approved by the Chilian congress and ratified by the government, obtained the approval and ratification of the supreme chief. The ratifications were solemnly exchanged the 14th January, 1865, and on the same day the treaty and the supreme decree declaring the republic to be in a state of war with Spain were published. In conformity with what is ordered in article 2d of said decree a manifesto was drawn up stating the causes which had induced the government to make the declaration. Both documents were communicated to friendly nations.

The first fruit of this alliance was the glorious battle of Abtao, sustained under extremely unfavorable circumstances by the small allied squadron. The news of this important feat of arms came to complete the not less fortunate news of the adhesion of Ecuador to the alliance. As a consequence of the new situation that Peru had assumed, the several departments dictated the orders and resolutions which the state of war needed. From that, in my charge, was issued the supreme decree of 7th February, 1866, declaring contraband of war stone coal, provisions, and supplies for food, when intended for Spanish war vessels. By the war and navy instructions were issued to regulate the conduct of commanders of ships of war and of privateers in the war against Spain.

In article 7th of these instructions it was enacted that judgment of good prize should be made by competent courts, which were those established by the laws of the republic. But in case of inability to bring the prize into such courts by distances or other cause, the judgment should be passed by courts which should be formed on board the ships of war. It is therein expressly said that the constitution of those special courts was a measure of reprisal, because the admiral of the Spanish squadron had established his on board the Villa de Madrid. Care was taken also to indicate (that which the Spanish commander had not done) that decisions pronounced by such courts should be ad referendum, and that the documents should be preserved, in order to present them in due season to the ordinary courts of prize which may be nearest. The arrangements provided in the article quoted gave rise at a latter day to a reclamation from the government of her Britannic Majesty through her representative at Lima. In the replies which were given to Mr. Barton, the circumstance came out that a court had been constituted on board a ship of war as a measure of reprisal, and it was said the Peruvian government would revoke it as soon as the Spanish government would abrogate on its part the institution of General Pareja. In a recent note Mr. Barton has communicated that the government of her Britannic Majesty did not desire to prolong the discussion on this matter, and accepted our reply of the 18th September, 1866, although with some reservations.

Meantime the union of the squadrons of Peru and Chili, that they might act in concert, made indispensable the adoption of principles and rules that should be common to both countries by bringing into conformity the liquidation of the one and the other where it contained differences essential in the matter of prizes. For this purpose a convention was concluded and signed at Santiago, the 26th December last, which has been approved and ratified on the part of Peru. In draughting it the doctrines of international law were kept in sight, and the stipulations of the analogous convention adjusted by France and Great Britain when they were in alliance against Russia.

The exchange of ratifications was still pending, and the publication of the alliance, when a memorandum was presented to the government at Santiago reduced to form by the governments of France and England, in which some bases were laid down for the regulation of the question pending between Chili and Spain. The Chilian government communicated them to us, through its legation at Lima, having found itself under the necessity of revealing to the representatives of France and England that it could no longer act by itself, as it was become bound to Peru by a treaty which would become sanctioned in a few days from that time. The opinion of the supreme chief coincided with that of the Chilian government as to the inadmissibility of the basis proposed in the memorandum, inasmuch as they, even supposing the alliance not to be in existence, did not contain either the satisfaction which Chili had right to claim, nor the guarantees which every American state found itself in the condition and under the necessity of obtaining, in renewing or initiating relations with a power which, like Spain, so scandalously trampled on justice and morals. The Anglo-French propositions fell through of themselves, and the same happened to proposals for arbitration made by the representatives of the United States near the government of Chili.

The publication of the treaty of alliance having been made, the Peruvian government provided to fulfil, on its part, the stipulation of article 5, and to that end addressed an invitation respectively to each other of the rest of the American states, either directly or through the channel of the legation which we had accredited to some of them.

Our minister to the United States of Colombia could not comply with the instruction, because the government at Bogota had refused to acknowledge and receive him in his public character, alleging that it would not recognize as a government that of the supreme chief. It was necessary that Señor Murillo should finish his term, and that Señor Rojas Garrido should take charge of the government in order that Señor Freyre might present his credentials. It was not, however, given to Señor Freyre to treat with the new government on affairs relating to the war with Spain, because the Grand General Mosequera was still absent. When he reached Bogota and took charge of the supreme command, news was successively received there of the bombardment of Valparaiso, and of the victory of May 2 ; but Señor Rojas Garrido and Grand General Mosequera had already manifested to Señor Freyre the sympathies which the government and people of Colombia, as an American people and government, fostered naturally for that cause which the allied republics on the Pacific were defending. If Colombia has not given adhesion to the alliance, she has at least proclaimed her positive neutrality by opening her ports to the allied vessels which might find it necessary to enter them, and there facilitating the condemnation and sale of prizes. The republics of Honduras, Nicaragua, and Costa Rica have made the same declaration. In the replies given to us by the governments of the two first they made explicit declarations of sympathy, and the senate of Nicaragua, before which our invitation was laid, adopted a resolution which speaks very highly in favor of the sentiments eminently American of that honorable body. Nicaragua through its senate declared that it was disposed to make the greatest sacrifices in defence of American independence. To arrive at a definitive conclusion the senate called upon the executive power to inquire what were the opinions of the rest of the states of Central America. To represent Peru in the United States of Venezuela, and forward the objects of the alliance, Señor Don Mariano Alvarez was appointed minister resident, but before going to Caracas, he had to attend in the United States of North America to some charges the government had given him. Some time having passed and Mr. Alvarez being delayed longer than he had calculated, the supreme chief thought fit to appoint a confidential agent, who, by approaching the government of Venezuela, might become acquainted with its disposition and would instruct us on the state of opinion in that country. Thus the ground was prepared that it might be more easy and fitted for the exercise of the diplomatic mission, and to this end the confidential agent was advised that on the arrival of Mr. Alvarez he must minutely advise him of all he had done, and furnish him with all the data he had gathered. But after the departure of our agent we received a communication from the Venezuelan government in which an account was given to us of recent manifestations by it and by congress, because of the news of the bombardment of Valparaiso, manifestations which revealed the fact that the American sentiment had not become torpid in the native land of Bolivar.

Our invitation to the government of Santo Domingo was received when General Baez exercised supreme authority, and remained unanswered, for reasons unknown to us. A political change afterwards carried the authority over to General Cabral, who hastened to inform us that the Dominican government was fully convinced of the justice which sustained Peru in her rupture with Spain, and that the government of Peru might consider as friendly that which, at the cost of bloody sacrifices, had been able to keep itself free in the midst of the slave islands of the archipelago of the Antilles.

Brazil, the Argentine Confederation, and the republic of Uruguay, had expressly declared they would remain neutral in the war between Chili and Spain. The government of Montevideo as issued a resolution, which, on the pretext of maintaining neutrality in any event, included a real act of hostility against Chili and her allies.

This occasioned a disagreeable incident which ended in the rupture of diplomatic relations between Chili and Uruguay.

The declaration itself of the oriental government and the course it took to put an end to the mission of the Chilian government, could not pass unobserved by the Peruvian government, and the supreme chief ordered me to state the reasons which obliged him not to admit the new principles put forth by the cabinet of Montevideo.

This and other incidents connected with the Paraguayan war hindered for some time the representatives of Pera and Chili from formally soliciting the adhesion of the oriental governments to the treaty of alliance of the Pacific republics. When afterwards they gave answer the response was in the negative. It is to be remarked that the answer of the government of Buenos Ayres was addressed solely to the representatives of Chili, it being the fact that the invitation had been given collectively by both. Our representative reclaimed against this, making note that the Argentine government for a long time gave no answer to his communications. The Argentine government obliged to explain, did so by saying that its answer depended on that which the governments of Brazil and Uruguay had to make, a circumstance which was not deemed necessary in giving answer to Chili.

On the inauguration of the transient government of General Canseco, General Alvin P. Hovey was at Lima, who had come to replace Mr. Robinson in the capacity of minister plenipotentiary and envoy extraordinary of the United States of America; the one and the other had sought an audience to present their respective letters, when the political change of the 28th of November occurred. Mr. Hovey gave me to know then that, notwithstanding his sympathies with the new order of things, from which he hoped much for the prosperity of the country, a doubt had come over him whether the credentials which were addressed to the President of the Peruvian republic could properly be presented to the supreme chief; that in consequence he had referred the point to his government, and that until it should solve the question he would abstain from asking recognition in his public character.

It seems that the government of the American Union, under impressions of the latest political events in that country, had purposed to adopt as a rule not to acknowledge governments de facto until they should have received the double sanction of time and law. To apply this doctrine to foreign nations and governments was to assume to constitute itself the arbiter and regulator of their destinies, and to exercise at the same time a moral pressure irreconcilable with the fundamental principles of the law of nations.

The consequence which the Peruvian government had to deduce from this was, that not being recognized as such by that of the United States, as little could it be regarded by that as a belligerent, and therefore if we should do anything in the territory of the Union to procure for ourselves, openly and without disguise, munitions of war, our acts could not be regarded as violationsof neutrality. In the end the government at Washington desisted from its mistaken idea, and General Hovey received orders to present, as he in fact did, his credential letter.

Meanwhile the Spanish fleet, which had confined itself to blockade of the port of Valparaiso, had made two attempts to destroy the allied squadron, and in both its projects was frustrated, giving to the alliance the triumphs Abtao y Tubildad.

The Spanish commander then resolved to wreak vengeance on the undefended port of Valparaiso, which he pitelessly bombarded, and without risk, during three hours on the 31st March. The news of so barbarous an outrage caused in Peru the effect which was to be looked for. Our representative in Chili, in union with that of Bolivia, hastened to declare, in the name of their nations, that they regarded as an outrage done to them that brought upon Chili, and the supreme chief ratified, as was natural, so solemn as well as legitimate adeclaration. It was necessary to take, in Peru, some measure of reprisals against Spanish subjects but those, like others taken before, were of such a mild character and were carried out with such moderation on the part of our authorities, and the prudence and discretion of the Peruvian people in these solemn circumstances, and in those still more serious which succeeded a few days afterwards, was so remarkable that the contrast was plain between them and the fury and spite of the incendiaries of Valparaiso.

At two interviews which they had with me, first the representative of Great Britain, and afterwards the same gentleman and the representatives of Italy and France, asked me whether my. government had taken into consideration a point which, in view of those gentlemen, was of the greatest importance, tow it, if the Spanish squadron should present itself at Callao would fire be opened upon it, or whether it would be delayed until it should be commenced by the vessels? The reply naturally was that the government had not preoccupied itself with that question, and that its action in the case supposed would be in keeping with circumstances.

A few days afterwards it was known that the Spanish squadron had abandoned the port of Valparaiso. The reports at first received of the course it had taken were contradictory, but some particulars confidentially communicated to us gave us to understand that it would surely come to Callao, and, in fact, it appeared in the waters of this port on the morning of the 25th of April.

The presence of the enemy’s squadron gave rise to various tentatives in the sense of a pacific arrangement. Mr. Migliorati, minister resident of Italy, made, with this purpose, many and very earnest efforts, highly honorable to him and to the noble and generous nation which he represented, but which were useless in consequence of the condition which things had reached. The minute relations of those incidents, which is made in documents which are in progress of publication, excuses me from entering into further details.

The 2d of May was, for our country, until then so downstricken, a day of unfading and imperishable glory.

To extract from this very significant fact all the consequences involved with it to assure to Peru the position to which she may legitimately aspire in America, and among the other nations of the earth, has been the unchanging anxiety and constant solicitude of the supreme chief, and his efforts have not been sterile, as already Peru, at peace with all the world excepting Spain, and in the best relations with the friendly powers, has seen its credit increased, and has deserved and continues to deserve the consideration to which he had perfect right as a civilized sovereign and independent nation. From the moment when the Spanish ships went to a distance from our shores proper orders were communicated to our agents abroad to prevent them from receiving such aids as would put them in position to renew their aggressions; our representative near the oriental governments was forewarned to make reclamations for violations of neutrality, in case the Spanish squadron should attempt to use those places for the purposes of war, warnings which have been repeatedly renewed.

In compliance therewith the diplomatic agent of Peru interposed formal and reiterated declarations with the government of Rio Janeiro, which at last did justice to our good right and notified the Spanish commander that he must leave the Brazilian ports.

Our representation in Great Britain was also notified to oppose the departure, if it should be attempted, of vessels built there for account of the Spanish government, a precaution taken because of the declaration made by the Spanish secretary of the navy that he had closed the campaign in the Pacific.

Little over twenty days had elapsed after the 2d of May when the representatives of the United States of North America communicated to the Peruvian government a note which the government at Washington had addressed to the Chilian representative, suggesting to him the idea of a pacific arrangement of the question pending between the allied republics and Spain. In the note it is said expressly that the Spanish government had solicited the interposition of the good offices of the United States, but the President of the Union confined himself to inquiring what was the disposition of the allied governments, in order to suggest some form or mode of negotiation, because the fundamental law of the Union and the habits of the American people would not permit him to propose nor accept the office of arbiter, nor to indicate the precise basis of reconciliation.

In accord with the representatives of Bolivia, Chili, and Ecuador, we draughted our reply giving thanks to the government of the United States, and sayiug that of Peru was ready to listen to the intimation it might think proper to make, always with reservation of the honor and dignity, present and future, of the allied republics, with whose governments that of Peru would place herself in correspondence in order to give suitable and definitive reply.

Our legation at Washington informed us at a later day that the government of the United States had made known to the representative of Chili that it would not proceed with the negotiation, but this declaratory statement was not communicated directly to the Peruvian government, either through our legation at Washington, or through that of the United States at Lima.

That which was noticeable in the invitation was that it was made at the solicitation of the Spanish government, precisely at the moment when the Spanish squadron was carrying out in the Pacific the instructions of that government to bombard the ports of Valparaiso and Callao.

The suspension of hostiltties which in fact followed the battle at Callao, brought about in some months the offer of good offices on the part of the governuients of France and Great Britain made at once to the Peruvian government, that confined itself to acknowledging its receipt and offering its thanks, deferring definitive reply until it would act in concert with its allies, to whom, as the representatives of those two powers expressed it, similar offer should also have been made. The idea was in fact proposed to the government of Chili by the diplomatic agents of France and England resident at Santiago. The Chilian government accepted in principle the good offices, but expressly refusing the propositions made at the same time for an armistice. The Chilian government declared decidedly that her acceptance of good offices did not in the least take from her complete freedom of action.

As was agreed upon by the Chilian government with the representatives of the powers tendering their good offices, Spain on the one part, and the allied republics on the other, ought to have presented their respective bases, that the English and French governments would have examined and put in shape to form others which might be acceptable to one and the other party.

Meantime our legation in London send advice that the cabinets of France and England were busied with the examination of certain bases presented by Spain, which deserved to be regarded as moderate by the two governments, and would undoubtedly be forwarded by first steamer. It really was done, and if not presented to the Peruvian government it was because that had not replied to the first proposal about good offices. The acceptance which was at first given to them by the Chilian government authorized the representatives of France and England to communicate said bases to it. They changed absolutely the aspect of the negotiation. The primitive idea of presenting bases for discussion by each of the parties belligerent was completely strippeed of all force directly the friendly powers came forward to propose those which in their opinion should serve as the point of departure for the discussion.

It mattered little whether such bases should be suggested by Spain, or spontaneously reduced to form by the two governments which presented them.

As for Peru, it was enough to consider that one of the bases alluded to proposed the re-establishment in all its force and vigor of the treaty of the 27th January. To advance such a proposition it would have been necessary to have cast into complete oblivion the events, too notorious in truth, which had had their origin in that very treaty. Peru could not consent that there should be proposed to her, even as a subject of merely speculative discussion, the legitimacy of her last revolution with all its consequences, one of them being the establishment of the existing government, nor the perfect right which annulled the treaty of the 27th January, and declared war against Spain, nor any less its power to consider as offences the ratification and execution of that same treaty, and to subject its authors to the action of the courts of justice. It must be excused from examining into the other matters in which the rights and justice of the course of the allied republics were palpably disregarded.

The opinion which the four republics have formed on the bases have been uniform; as they were submitted only to that of Chili, she became charged to answer in the name of all four, and has done so in effect by analyzing the proposed bases and showing the powerful reasons which militate against their admission. A recent proposition for an armistice or indefinite truce has been made at Santiago in the name of the same French and English governments, as a consequence of the acceptance on the part of Chili of the good offices. These being put an end to by the non-acceptance of the bases, it is to be supposed that the proposal of a truce already deprived of the cause for originating it may be withdrawn; but even if the proposition of truce should be regarded as independent of that of good offices, the supreme chief has determined that no plausible reason existed which could make it acceptable. The government of the United States of America, resting on a resolution of the House of Representatives, which incited it to interpose its good offices to procure peace for the two regions east and west of South America, has also officially made an offer in this sense. It proposes the plan of a conference of plenipotentiaries of all the belligerent states, to assemble at Washington under the presidency of a competent person named by the President of the United States; but such person should not take part other than that of counsellor and mediator to smooth away difficulties. The resolutions agreed upon should be previously approved by the respective governments and those points on which there was divergence of view should be submitted to an arbiter, which should not be the American government. We have acknowledged receipt of this official invitation by offering to consult our allies about it.

Before this the idea was insinuated of assembling at Washington a sort of American congress which should treat of and solve the questions of the Pacific, of Paraguay, and of Mexico, but that idea was never formally reduced to shape, and in its place came that of which I have just finished speaking.

AMERICAN CONGRESS.

When the present government was installed it had no knowledge that not one of the states which took part in the American congress which operated at Lima in 1864 had approved and ratified the treaties made by that body on the supposition that they could have been as explicit and conclusive in what had relation to the principal object of American union. The new government of Peru should not seem to be imposing on other nations that situation in which through special causes she found herself, and it would have been believed that it was purposed so to do, if not directly at least indirectly, by sanctioning treaties which as yet had not been formally accepted by the other contracting parties. But the tenor of those very treaties shows that they do not contain principles sufficiently established, nor precise rules, so that without difficulty, and without room for explanations, the circumstances could be determined in which a casus fœderis could be declared. Every government is absolute judge of those circumstances; the obligation contracted is, so to speak, imperfect, and its observance depends not on the nature itself of the questions ventilated, but on the appreciations which may be entertained about them, and perhaps on the interests of the time being.

There have been states which, notwithstanding they have given their formal approbation to the treaties of the American congress, have declared their neutrality in the war of Spain with the republics of the Pacific, and there has not been wanting some one which has perhaps expressly made known that the assurance given by the Spanish government, that it was not its intention to attempt anything against the sovereignty and independence of those republics, was sufficient to do away all apprehension, and to counsel a prudent policy of noncommittalism; and in getting off in such manner, far from estranging itself from the principles laid down by the American congress, observed and acknowledged the most solemn and principal of all of them. In the treaty of union and defensive alliance, adjusted for the purpose of uniting the contracting parties together, of providing for their eternal safety, to draw closer their connection, to assure peace among themselves and promote other interests in common, it is established in article first that the high contracting parties may unite and engage themselves for the purposes above expressed, and mutually guarantee their independence, their sovereignty, and the integrity of their respective territories, obliging themselves in the terms of the treaty to defend themselves against every aggression which might have for purpose to deprive any of them of their rights therein set forth, whether the aggression should come from any foreign power, or from any of those bound by the treaty, or from foreign forces which were not in obedience to any recognized government. To give more fixedness to the foregoing principles, it was stipulated in article second that the alliance should have effect when there should be a violation of the rights mentioned, and especially in those cases of offence which might consist, first, in acts directed to taking from any of the contracting nations a part of its territory with the purpose of appropriating to itself dominion over it, or ceding it to some other power; second, in acts directed to the annulling or changing the form of government, the political constitution, or the laws which any of the contracting parties might enact for themselves or have made in the exercise of their sovereignty, or which may have for object to alter by force the internal regulations, or in the same manner to impose rulers thereon; third, in acts directed to subjecting any of the contracting parties to a protectorate sale or cession of territory, or the establishment over it of any superiority, right, or pre-eminence which may take from or injure the full and complete exercise of its sovereignty and independence.

The provisional government certainly accepted in all its fulness and extent the principles laid down in the treaty of the American congress, and not only accepted them, but carried them into effect, whether in forming the alliance with the three neighboring republics, or in the protest against the treaty of 1st May, 1865, made by Brazil and the Argentine and Uruguayan confederations against the Paraguayan republic. It was ready, therefore, to approve and ratify the treaty of union and alliance as the rest were, as soon as it came officially to their knowledge that the other signing states had approved and ratified them. But this did not prevent that there should be discovered in the treaty of union and alliance that which might make and would make the important work of the congress illusory in effect.

The aggressions against which the contracting states guarded themselves in alliance, by means of the alliance, might perhaps not take the forms which the congress assigned to them. The expedition against Mexico at first encountered none of them, and, notwithstanding, the result was a complete change of its institutions and of the form of government.

Just the same happened to Paraguay until the revelation of the secret treaty of 1st May, 1865. The aggressor never discloses the real object which is proposed, and such can only be known through circumstances which at times escape the sharpest penetration. It would follow from this, as it has already done, that the true tendency of an aggression could only become known after it had been consummated. To avoid the evil is always better and more easy than to remedy it.

The American congress did not stop at this consideration, or did not give it all the consideration which it contained in itself. The time having come for determining in what manner the aggression should be characterized so that it could be declared a casus fœderis, it was limited to saying in article third of the treaty that the allies should decide, each for itself, whether the offence which had been done to either of them was comprehended among those mentioned in the preceding articles. According to this, the individual judgment of each isolated state must decide on the nature of an act concerning the alliance of all, and the state whose judgment should differ from the others was not under obligation to form part of the alliance, and the influence which would be necessarily exercised on the one side by the peculiar circumstances in which such state might be placed, and, on the other part, the declarataions which the aggressive nation would hasten to make in order not to give to its attitude any of the characteristics requisite to provoke a collision between the nation aggrieved and its neighbors, give ground to presume that the union and alliance, such as they appear in shape in the treaty of the American congress, were intended to remain as principles incontrovertible in theory, but of difficult, if not of impossible, realization in practice. Therefore, the government has deemed that it would be of the greatest advantage for the present welfare of America, and for its future safety, to give more precision to the stipulations adjusted by the American congress, and that this might be done by a new assembly of that body. With this purpose there has been addressed to all the American nations a correspondent invitation, and the coming month of April has even been fixed upon as the probable epoch at which the congress might begin its labors.

The Colombian government has seconded our ideas, and its President has addressed a circular letter to the chiefs of the rest of the American states inviting them to appoint plenipotentiaries for the new congress. The favorable answers which various governments have given already to that of Peru and to that of Colombia, make us hope with reason that in a short time there will again be installed in Lima the American congress, under auspices doubtless more favorable than those which gathered around it on its first assembly.

But the provisional government, which was desirous to obtain immediately all the fruits which the alliance of the Pacific republics was called upon to produce, deemed that it would at once assemble a conference of its own plenipotentiaries, as well as for guaranteeing and perpetuating the alliance as for cementing it in behalf of the moral and material interests of the four nations. In consequence of an indication from the representative of Ecuador about making a treaty of commerce and navigation between Peru and Ecuador, the idea was suggested of making a general treaty common to the allied republics, without prejudice to special stipulations which the respective situation of each of them might require. This general treaty might very well be accepted by other American states, and in this manner the union of all of them become realized. Naturally, the allied republics ought to sanction reciprocal and special concessions, which might at a later day be extended to other American nations. For this end it would be necessary that we should detach ourselves from compromises entered into with other nations which are not placed under the like circumstances as those which belong to Latin America. Let us proceed, then, by getting rid of treaties the obligatory duration of which may have expired, in which number are to be found those made with Belgium and Sardinia, those made with the United States and Great Britain having already run out before now.

Our idea was favorably welcomed by the governments of Bolivia, Chili, and Ecuador. Some difficulties surged up which hindered its prompt realization. When they were smoothed over the representative of Ecuador had already left Lima temporarily, whose return we have pressed efficiently so as to have achieved it.

Whether there be a conference of the representatives of the four allied republics or of the American congress, which will undoubtedly assemble in a few months, the provisional government believes that it ought to obtain the establishment as a cardinal point of the mode of declaring the casus fœderis; and it seems the surest way to obtain it is by conferring that attribute on the congress of plenipotentiaries, and that it should besides adopt measures suitable to the end of assuring the permanent assembly of that congress even with the privilege of change of place for holding it.

If a foreign power should menace with war or any other measure of coercion, the congress of plenipotentiaries should take into consideration the causes of conflict, and decide on the justice or injustice of action of the nation making reclamation, for the purpose, in the one case, of obliging the allied state to comply with its duty, and in the second case to aid and sustain it by declaring the casus fœderis to have arisen, which declaration would be obligatory even on the states which might have dissented from the opinion of the majority on questions of the allied states as among themselves. The congress of plenipotentiaries would exercise the functions of arbitrators, their decision being equally obligatory on the states which were in disagreement. Thus war among the states of the American continent would disappear; any foreign aggression would be almost impossible: a stop would be put to reclamations without number, which are sustained not so much by their justice as by the material force which presents them.

In the invitation which has been given for the next congress the government of Mexico has been included, availing ourselves for that purpose of the medium of its legation at Washington, as it was not possible to do it directly.

THE PARAGUAYAN QUESTION.

A war complicated in origin and of uncertain, although alarming results, but which presented as tangible facts the ferocity of the combatants, the shedding of torrents of blood, the exhaustion of the treasure and resources of the countries engaged in it, and the perspective of deep-rooted hatreds in the future, desolated the beautiful and fertile districts bathed by the Plata and its affluents, at the same time when in Chili and Peru the bases for the alliance on the Pacific and the future union of the American nations were beiug laid; and they were American nations which were engaged in that obstinate strife, the prolongation of which could not but weaken the continent, thus offering to the common enemy advantages readily appreciable. While part of America was entering into alliance to repel systematic aggressions, it was the more sad that other states menaced by equal danger, were exhausting their strength in contests which properly should be called fratricidal. Notwithstanding the important avocations pressed upon the supreme chief in the early days of the inauguration of his government, he devoted him self nevertheless to the investigation of the oriental question, and judging that interest easily to be reconciled were involved in it, and that the belligerent nations would disdain the interventions of another friendly and sister nation of whose impartiality they might be assured, hastened to order, on the 20th December, 1865, the representatives of Peru to the governments of the La Plata, to offer our good offices and even our mediation, to cause the cessation of a conflict which was the cause of sorrow to all America, and a nursery for incalculable evils for all the states which were engaged in it.

Some time afterwards the representatives of the allied republics of the Pacific gave form at Santiago to a solemn agreement proposing a collective mediation of all of them. It was offered in fact, and the governments allied against Paraguay deferred their answer until they should come to an agreement, not without expressing confidentially some opinions which revealed the decided purpose not to accept the mediation.

The Peruvian government, respecting the rights of the belligerents, had care fully abstained from inquiring which party was in the right, restricting itself on the one part to the expression of the deep regret which was caused to her at the view of the American nations reciprocally destroying themselves, and on the other part offering the most sincere wishes for the final termination of so vexatious and so sad a contest.

In this sense Peru expressed herself, in answering some communications from the Para guayan and Brazilian governments, about the events of the war and in giving orders to the Peruvian representative, that he should offer the good offices and mediation of Peru.

The aspect of affairs changed completely when official knowledge was had of the secretreaty of 1st May, 1865.

From the tenor of this compact, it was deduced that the oriental alliance had been formed not merely for repelling an aggression, or avenging an insult, but with the deliberate purpose of causing the disappearance of the Paraguayan nationality; therefore this affected the solemn undertaking contracted by the allies not to lay down their arms until they had succeeded in overthrowing the existence of the actual government, of demolishing all the forts and gathering in all the armament which might exist in the Paraguayan territory; of guaranteeing between themselves alone the existence of that republic for five years of circumscribing it within the precise limits which the treaty assigned, without giving in such demarcation any part to the government of Paraguay.

Throughout all these stipulations, the signification of which was very clear, the future existence of Paraguay, although shut up within the limits which the triple alliance conceded to it, presented itself as a mere contingency, as might at some future day happen to be the spirit of the policy of the three subscribing states. If it were even conceded that Paraguay were, as it has been pretended, a nation whose existence should be considered as a blot upon America, not even this circumstance gave any right to its neighbors to cause its disappearance, or although less, to subject it to a vassalage more or less prolonged; nor was it sure either in view of what contemporary history says of the oriental nations, that the disappearance of the Paraguayan nationality were a pledge for the peace and safety of nations among which had existed and still continue to exist at any rate other deep and rooted causes of antagonism and distrustfulness.

Peru could not see with indifference that the fortune, present and future, of an American nation should be thus disposed of, and with justice raised its voice through the medium of its government, to protest solemnly against the manifest tendencies and the real purposes of the constitutive treaty to the triple alliance, almost at the same time the government of Bolivia framed its protest.

Both were afterwards seconded by that of the government of the United States of Colombia and if the government of Chili did not unite with us at once, it was because, as its minister for foreign relation had just told us, of consideration to the pending offer of mediation.

To justify the stipulations of the treaty of the 1st May, 1865, the perfect right of every state to make war on another, and to the extent of reducing its territory into possession, has been invoked by some. The right of conquest might have been legal in other times; at the present day it is scarcely tolerated when exercised against barbarous nations, and although the allies on the orient consider Paraguay as such, that opinion is not in conformity with that held by the people and government of the rest of the continent. The recent examples of Italy and Germany are cited, but the question properly considered, no conquest has been made by those countries properly so-called, but merely a unification of homogeneous nations, whose constant aspiration had been to form one single family. We do not know that Paraguay may have desired to incorporate herself with any of the neighboring nations, although she may have with them great affinities and common interests, such as all the American nations have.

Besides, the conquest needs also the sanction of other states more or less interested in the existence of that which is about to be conquered. If what has happened in Germany and Italy be really a conquest, then assent has been yielded to it, express or tacit, of other European nations.

That is a question purely of political convenience; but the immutable principles of justice and of morals will always overrule that convenience. In the case of Paraguay the different states which have protested against the tripartite treaty have made it manifest that they may not deem it advantageous to their own interests, nor to those of America, that Paraguay should disappear as a nation, and therefore that those controlling motives do not exist whicn under certain circumstances silence the voice of justice, in order that the voice of interest only may resound. The allies themselves would know without doubt that the bargain made by them was not adjusted pefectly on the precepts of justice and equity, and that the work they are attempting would not merit the approval of the other American nations. In no other way can we explain the care with which the treaty was kept secret, and the clamorous consequences which its publication occasioned. Principles so fundamental as those which have been set forth, besides those which are stated in the note of the 9th July, caused the protest of Peru; apart therefrom, and now that in the interference of one state with the affairs of another it is required that there should be a direct motive, because such being wanting the intervention would be considered (and so has the Brazilian and Argentine press considered ours) as an act of intrusion, it becomes necessary to recall to mind that Peru had a direct and immediate interest in the question, such as if it were asserted in the tripartite treaty, neighbor and conterminous with Brazil, it was important to it not to consent that regulations should be established about territorial demarcations without the intervention of one of the parties interested. We have had various and vexatious questions about limits with Brazil and other states, and the manner of running the boundaries of a territory with regard to the stipulations of the treaty of the 1st May, 1865, might perhaps in the course of time, if it had been accepted in silence, been invoked as a precedent.

Our protest was a call upon the sense of justice and equity of the governments signers of the tripartite treaty.

Understood in its real significance, it might easily furnish a means for the definitive and pacific arrangement of the Paraguayan question, even after the refusal of the mediation which, in the name of the four governments on the Pacific, was offered to the belligerents. Our representative at Montevideo was advised in advance that he might throw out the proposition in those terms by suggesting the idea of assembling a conference of plenipotentiaries, to which the pending difficulties should be submitted, in order to determine the manner of settling them with respect for the rights of all, doing justice to who should be entitled, and settling the basis of a solid and durable peace. The allied governments have refused to listen to these propositions, which a recent well-known fact has shown to be entirely in conformity with the desires of the Paraguayan government.

The strife continues, every day more fierce and bloody, thus placing at a distance the hope of seeing an end put to a question which so legitimately engages the attention of America.

DIPLOMATIC ASYLUM.

The proposition has been under deliberation on the part of the supreme chief not only to maintain, but even to draw more closely the relations of Peru with foreign powers, but also to preserve the most perfect harmony with the diplomatic corps resident in Lima, by avoiding as far as possible all vexatious discussions and settling in the most friendly and most equitable manner whatever question may arise to disturb such relations. This determination has been unchangable, and has contributed powerfully to keep us out of fastidious disputes, and, from respect to truth, justice should here be done to the kindly dispositions which the government has met with among the most respectable members of the diplomatic corps. To both causes is it to be attributed that during the troubled epoch through which we have passed, and when individual interests found themselves to be under the double influence of a foreign war and of internal reforms, there arose none of those serious conflicts which even in calm times have been used to appear in the ominous apparatus of threatening diplomatic reclamations.

It is true some have shown themselves as will hereafter appear, but the most serious had their origin in acts anterior to the dictature, and the rest, of little consequence, have been satisfactorily solved.

Notwithstanding this the provisional government could not avoid one misunderstanding which in the first days of his inauguration brought him into contest with the French legation.

When the revolution of 1865 can be impartially judged of and the two governments which in consequence thereof were successively inaugurated, it will be impossible not to do justice at least to the forbearance and moderation which ruled over the one and the other. The triumphant revolution prosecuted no one because he had belonged to the conquered party, nor characterized as a punishable act the mere fact of having fought under the banner of the fallen government.

This did not prevent some persons, through fear or excess of precaution, from following the beaten road of seeking protection at the foreign legations.

From the 28th November to the 13th December, when the usual circular was sent around to the diplomatic corps, the government was not astonished that information of this fact had not been made to it, but the same silence was observed until the 20th, when the government became aware of the reality, thanks to the circumstances about to be stated.

The central court, having been constituted to try those who had been delinquent in the exercise of high public functions, decreed, on the application of its marshals, that various persons should be arrested and placed at its disposal who it was affirmed were in asylum at the French legation. An interview was therefore had with M. Vion, who then temporarily exercised the functions of consulate and legation of France; and the fact was confirmed, stating to me that his intention was to have come the next day to inform me thereof. In consequence, I made verbal application for their delivery, which was refused. This application being renewed in writing, had the same result, and some communications were interchanged between the department and the legation, the one sustaining, the other denying the right which the government had to request and obtain the delivery of persons who were called for by a court of justice.

Thus once more came up the so-much controverted question of asylum, but with especial characteristics on this occasion, because the government did not reclaim those in asylum of its own authority, although it could do so, but for the purpose of complying with what was ordered by one of the courts of the country, that the administration of justice might have due course.

The French legation discussed the powers of the central court, taking notice of the circumstances which had given origin to it and the epoch of its creation, and characterized also the situation in which the accused were placed before they were subjected to trial. This was evidently assuming an interference of the most direct kind with the internal regulations of the country, and opposing a formal veto to the administration of justice.

The government repelled with energy, as was its duty, such exaggerated pretensions. It would not, however, provoke a conflict which, under the circumstances in which we were placed, it was at any rate expedient to avoid, and therefore limited itself to protesting against the proceedings of the chief ad interim of the legation.

Some time had elapsed when analogous questions were perhaps about to come up, because of asylum which some Spaniards sought at the legations and on board of foreign ships of war. M. Lesseps wrote a note, to which he gave the character of personal and confidential, through which he informed me that the French minister of foreign affairs had approved the conduct of Mr. Vion, and that he was commended for having put an end to the matter by having referred it to the imperial government. It is to be noted that this Mr. Vion, in his note of the 4th January, did not regard the matter as ended by referring it to his government, but rather that he proposed to give his attention in a few days to the note which was addressed to him from this department under date of the 2d instant.

The note went on to say that the minister for foreign affairs of France, invoking in support of what is called in America the right of asylum, a constant practice, the benefit of which is in succession enjoyed by all parties, because of the incessant revolutions of the Spanish American republics, considered that the maintenance of the principle was in reality of more consequence to the political leaders of those countries than to the legations, to which it was only a cause of embarrassment and outlay, and that the right which has been conceded to the foreign agents to give asylum to those personages under circumstances in which life is frequently threatened, was too much in keeping with the sentiments of humanity in France for her to consent to abandon it.

After adducing other arguments in support of asylum, the imperial government and its representatives agreed at least that it ought to be circumscribed within the limits which prudence and honor naturally prescribe to foreign agents. In consequence M. Lesseps indicated his wish that the diplomatic corps and the minister of foreign relations of Peru would come to some agreement on the question, which had frequently occasioned in their reciprocal relations deplorable altercations, in order to establish definitive rules for the exercise of that South American right, and to avoid the difficulties and misunderstandings which its application always stirred up between the government and the legations.

The note of M. Lesseps, which bore date the 24th April, was received at the moment of the appearance of the Spanish squadron in the waters of Callao. After the 2d of May, at a conference which I had with him, I showed him that the government desired also definitively to settle the question of asylum, and that, acceding to his wishes, I would convoke the diplomatic corps as soon as other more urgent engagements would permit.

In the state of alliance in which Peru was placed we had to consult the opinion of the allied governments on a question about which, in our view, it was of the highest importance, as nothing less was to be treated of than to devolve on the American states the plenitude of rights which as such, and in conformity with the law of nations, might belong to them.

This and other secondary inconveniences prevented the actual meeting of the diplomatic corps until the middle of the month of January last past.

At the first conference on the 15th January, after having had reference to the antecedents which had given room for the convocation, the ideas of the Peruvian government about asylum, and its decided intention to conform strictly to the principles of the law of nations, as the only means of cutting short the abuses and inconveniences of a custom which only had been tolerated until now because of exceptional circumstances, were expressed. Upon the intimation from the dean of the diplomatic corps the conference was postponed, and a few days afterwards, at the saloon of the department of foreign relations, a committee from the said corps presented itself for the purpose of notifying, or making known to the government, that the diplomatie corps, at a conference held at the residence of their dean, had adopted an agreement rejecting the proposition about the abolition of asylum. I refused to accept the notification, as incompatible with the dignity of the government and of the nation, remarking that a conference had by express invitation and under the presidency of the minister of foreign relations could not be continued by making entire omission of that functionary, neither could the termination of a business brought forward by the minister for foreign relations be admitted because of a mere agreement of the diplomatic corps. This gave way to satisfactory explanations, first on the part of the committee, and afterwards on the part of the diplomatic corps, as appears by an act, of which the dean furnished me with a copy, and also made room for a second conference at the department.

On that occasion, after deliberate discussion, the opinion of the diplomatic corps having been expressed, the principles that the Peruvian government professed, which are no other than those established by the laws of nations, were adopted. They are undoubtedly sufficient to solve those extreme cases in which asylum is in truth the exercise of humanitarian duties, without the necessity for its conversion, either in principle or practice, into a diplomatic immunity, derogating from the sovereignty, independence, and dignity of the nation. The powerful arguments which determined the government to proceed in that manner were entered on the memorandum in regard to the matter, which was transmitted, as agreed upon, to the dean of the diplomatic corps. The memorandum finishes with a declaration of the rules which the Peruvian government will observe henceforward in the matter of asylum; and as one of its conclusions is the renunciation by Peru of that pretended right, established also in respect of its legation in those states of America where it has existed, the needful directions have been given to our diplomatic agents in the matter, so that they may regulate their action according to the declarations of the government.

The supreme chief has thought that among the great questions with which the sovereignty and the dignity of the nations were mixed up, that relating to diplomatic asylum deserved to occupy a prominent place.

The facts which I have related made indispensable the adoption of a fixed and safe rule which should control future relations between the government and foreign legations, avoiding those abuses to which, more than once, a vicious institution, had created a fruitful source of difficulties to the government, as well as of embarrassment and personal annoyance to the foreign representatives. The custom subsisting, as it had existed to this time, it was impossible to indicate the line of demarcation between lawful asylum and that which had been unduly conceded—between the fulfilment of duties of simple humanity and those which press upon the diplomatic agent in his relations with the authorities and with the laws of the country to which he is accredited. The safest course was the indefinite extension of asylum, especially if the person in asylum clothed himself with the mantle of political persecution, although it might be imaginary. It is, besides, unquestionable that humanitarian sentiments should always give place to the action of the law; to sustain asylum under color of law is only to sustain the absurd principle that the law does not otter to the person subject to proceedings security enough, or, that the law is less humane than the legation.

Was it easy, or even possible, to adopt a system which should shut asylum within its just and legitimate boundaries? After serious and closely conscientious consideration, the government arrived at the conviction that the only acceptable system was common and general, such as was established by the law of nations; every other presented a thousand dangers, because in the final estimate it would always rest with the will of the government or of the chief of a legation to interpret in this or that way the rules newly introduced, and the conflict would appear with greater force. Nor was there any plausible reason even for adopting in Peru international laws, so to say, of local character, which could have application only within its territory, and would be ignored by other nations.

To put an end to a situation in every respect indefinite, to reinstate the Peruvian nation (it was full time for it) in the plenitude of the rights of sovereignty and independence, and to prevent these vexing questions about asylum from coming up again, questions which have so much impaired its dignity, the supreme chief has decided that the only equitable means was to recognize, as he does recognize, the absolute rule of the general principles of international law, to which Peru has always submitted herself, and will continue to submit henceforth, exacting on her part, because thereto she acquires perfect right, that other nations of the world shall act toward her on the unchangeable bases of equality and reciprocity.

The legation from the United States of North America has accepted, in all its breadth, the conclusions of the Peruvian government as in conformity with the laws and practice of the Union.

The representatives of Chili and Brazil have made reservations, referring the matter to the decision of their respective governments; but the first notes the fact that there exists not in Chili anything extraordinary or exceptional, nothing that affects the modern law of nations in the matter of asylum.

Lastly, the representative of the United States of America has communicated to us a general order, issued by the admiral commanding in chief the American squadron in the Pacific, accepting the conclusions of the memorandum, and extending them over the United States vessels of war. The admiral says asylum had not been granted to this time, except from motives of humanity; but as in his opinion that practice had only existed through the tolerance of the Peruvian government, that government formally repudiating it, the vessels of war of the United States ought to conform fully and in good faith to the wishes of the Peruvian government in a matter which exclusively concerns it and its subjects.

AFFAIRS OF ECUADOR AND OF COLOMBIA.

The President of the United States of North America addressed Congress asking for authority to employ coercive measures against Ecuador for the delay of payment of a sum of money owing to some American citizens. Scarcely had the supreme chief knowledge of the fact by the mention made of it in the newspapers, when he ordered that the secretary of foreign relations should address himself to the Ecuadorian representative at Lima, and to the diplomatic agents of Peru at Quito and Washington, and should request from them all the points relating to that question. But the representatives of Peru and Chili in the United States had hastened, in the name of their governments, and assuming the attitude of a friendly and allied state for Peru and Chili, to offer immediate payment of the sum required, inasmuch as Ecuador could not meet it at the time fixed, as must undoubtedly have happened.

The government at Washington accepted the good offices, and agreed to wait until the expiration of the term which had been fixed upon by the two diplomatists. Their conduct received the approbation of their respective governments, and a vote of thanks on the part of Quito. Before the expiration of the term Ecuador satisfied the payment which was required from her.

In the United States of Colombia a disagreement lately arose between the central government and the representative of the same United States of North America. A question more of form than substance induced the latter to ask for his passports, which were refused, because there were not reasons sufficient to justify the application. Despite of this the North American representative resolved to break off his relations with the government of Bogota, and did so, leaving to the Peruvian legation the protection of American citizens.

The supreme chief, who greatly regretted the misunderstanding, offered to the two governments of Bogota and Washington his friendly interposition to put an end to it. We hope on good ground that it may be accepted, and that mutual and satisfactory explanations on one part and the other will re-establish harmony between the two countries and the two governments.

From a publication in the newspapers, in the month of September of last year, the supreme chief knew that the congress of Ecuador had conceded to the Ecuadorian citizen, Don Victor Proano, property in a great tract of land on the shores of the river Morona, from the creek of Manseriche. Proaño was then at Lima soliciting the government to associate itself with his undertaking, which would only be of the nature of a scientific exploration of the Morona. As in the giant from the Ecuadorian congress there appeared to follow, so to say, a question of limits between Peru and Ecuador, and with result in favor of the last, instructions were given to our legation at Quito to make, in the name of the Peruvian government, the fullest reservations in respect of the aforesaid legislative resolutions. Meantime it was agreed to appoint, and in fact there was appointed, a scientific commission which was to be associated with Proaño, and its appointment as well as the question of limits gave room for the exchange of some communications between the Ecuadorian government and our legation. To the suggestion made by us that it should proceed to form a mixed commission for marking the frontier line, the Ecuadorian government replied that it would take it under consideration as soon as other matters entitled to preference would permit.

TREATIES AND CONVENTIONS.

Besides the treaties of alliance with Chili and Bolivia and the agreement made with Ecuador for the same purpose, two postal conventions have been adjusted with Chili and Ecuador; a convention with Chili about prizes, and another with France on the reduction of price and differential duties on the guano and Peruvian borax that may be introduced into the empire.

The postal convention with Chili, signed the 27th July, was ratified by both governments, and the ratifications exchanged on the 25th September began from that time to show its results. That made with Ecuador the 13th August, although recently approved by the Peruvian government, has not been by the Ecuadorian, because it was necessary first to submit it to congress. The same has happened with the convention about prizes, because the Chilian congress came to a close without having had it under consideration.

The convention about guano and borax was signed at Lima the 2d December and obtained the approval of the provisional supreme chief, orders having been issued for its fulfilment on the part of the Peruvian agents as soon as the French government should also approve it, which ought to have occurred at this date.

It is known that on the 15th January, 1864, a convention was signed at Panama, which was approved and ratified at the close of that year, in which it was stipulated that the differential duties which burdened guano imported into France in foreign vessels should be reduced to 18 francs per ton of one thousand kilograms, and that the selling price of Peruvian guano should be reduced to 310 francs a ton of a thousand kilograms, and that in no case should the sale price of guano in France exceed more than 10 francs per ton the price it may reach in other European markets. In these stipulations no difference was made between the rate of sale at wholesale and retail, and by making a rigorous interpretation of the text it would be inferred that the price fixed was for sales of every class.

The legation of Peru in France solicited in the year 1865 that the differential duties on Borax should be reduced, grounding itself for this purpose on a clause in the treaty in force between Peru and France, but the imperial government replied that according to another clause in the same treaty, every concession would have to be reciprocal; it offered, in consequence, to do away the differential duties, not only on borax, but also on guano, if Peru should consent to equalize the price of the latter with that which it bore in other European markets, establishing it as uniform in every class of sales, either wholesale or retail.

The first of these propositions presented no difficulty at all, because it having been the steadfast purpose of the government from former times to obtain the like price of guano in every market, if there was any difference in that which was sold in France, it was because of the differential duties; so that with their disappearance the reason for the difference of price of the manure would also disappear.

The second proposition, to which the French government attached great importance on account of the peculiar situation of the rural proprietary of France, would as little occasion any serious difficulty to Peru, especially as the existing government, to avoid the inconveniences which enure from distinctions in sales and difference in prices, and to give more extension to the consumption of guano, by placing it within the reach of the small farmers, had formed the purpose of equalizing the price at retail with that at wholesale. This purpose was corroborated by the fact that the advantage gained from retail prices was of little consideration, for the simple reason that the agriculturists who wanted small quantities of guano, joined with others in the same condition in order to buy a lot at wholesale and afterwards to divide among themselves. But the gain, even supposing it to be of some account, would be amply compensated by the increase of sales, thus avoiding the adulteration of our manure through the shelter of an intermediate trade.

If to this it be also added that we are going to obtain a decrease on the duties levied on borax, it will be a reasonable deduction that the convention was called to produce results reciprocally satisfactory to the contracting parties.

On the 29th December, 1863, a treaty of commerce and navigation was adjusted between Peru and the States of the Zollverein. In the 23d article it is said that the treaty should be ratified by both parties, and the ratifications be exchanged within the term of 18 months, or before if it should be possible. At the most extended time, the exchange should have been completed at the latest by 29th June, 1865.

The want of this formality might certainly be remedied by showing the causes which have occasioned and postponed the period by mutual consent.

But this treaty had in it a special circumstance. The obligatory duration of treaties is generally computed at a certain number of years, or months, which begin to run from the day of the exchange of ratifications, or, in other terms, the period of the expiration of the treaty is uncertain until the ratifications are exchanged, and depends entirely on the fact of the exchange. In the treaty with the Zollverein it is stipulated, on the contrary, in article 22d, that it should be in force for all the time which should elapse from the date of the exchange of ratifications to the 31st December, 1865. In this way the exchange being verified as it should have been at the 18 months, in conformity with the stipulation, the obligatory duration of the treaty would have been six months.

If the ratification were delayed, the time of the obligatory duration was less, and if the 31st December should pass with the accomplishment of that formality, it could not then be carried out, without running into a clear anachronism, inasmuch as it gave retroactive force to an obligation the period of which had expired, from its having been contracted ad diem.

Such were in substance the reasons which determined the government not to defer to the application of the consular agent of Prussia, when in the month of March, 1866, he formally asked that the exchange of ratifications of the treaty in question should be proceeded with. To do so it would have been necessary to alter one of the essential clauses of the treaty, and that it would be impossible to do in the act of exchange, nor with a plenipotentiary appointed only for such purpose. On the other hand it was also necessary to take into account, and so the consular agent of Prussia stated, the recent and notorious changes which had been made in Germany, the consequences of which had been the disappearance of some of the States of the Zollverein which figured as contracting parties in the treaty adjusted with Peru.

So ended this incident, which on the other hand came in aid of the views of the provisional government about putting an end to treaties in general, for the purpose of making them afterwards with regard to the exigencies of the peculiar situation in which Peru and the other American states found themselves.

RECLAMATIONS.

The reclamations which have been interposed in the department of foreign relations since the 28th November, 1865, have been various, but here mention will only be made of those which by their importance deserve it. Such are those relative to the treasury bills of the government of Bolivia, and to the bark Domitila.

The others appear in the documents which in a short time will be made public.

Bills of the Bolivian government.—By the treaty of customs and commerce made at Lima the 5th September, 1864, Peru engaged to pay to Bolivia the sum of 37,500 dollars monthly in exchange for import duties which were to be collected at Avica on merchandise destined for consumption in Bolivia. The monthly payments were to be made at Avica or Tacua to the Bolivian consul, but in consequence of the occupation of Avica by the military forces of the revolution, a ministerial understanding was had with the diplomatic agent of Bolivia that payment of the monthly liabilities should be made at Lima. The manner in which the Bolivian government disposed of the funds was by negotiating drafts on its legation in Peru, but afterward, and from peculiar ircumstances, it issued three directly on the government at Lima, and in favor of Don Nicanor Arana and Don Santiago Soruco, recommending the payments in special notes. The drafts, which amounted to the sum of $115,000, were accepted after asking from the Bolivian legation a reason for the burdens which through former enaggements weighed upon the stipends of the revenue officers. The order for payment being issued, the Bolivian legation opposed compliance with it, and the opposition was in force when the dictatorial government was inaugurated. The affair was discussed with the legation and maturely examined, and the supreme chief did not find enough to warrant departure from what the former government had done, by acceding to the intimations from that of Bolivia. The determination of the supreme chief gave rise to a protest on the part of the legation from Bolivia, but the government of that republic, now installed at La Paz, after the victory of Viacha gave orders to its representative at Lima not to carry any further the opposition he had given shape to. Mr. Benavento hastened to bring this resolution to our knowledge.

Bark Domitila.—The Spanish bark Salvador Vidal, after having changed her flag, by hoisting the Italian and assuming the name of Domitila, sailed from Callao in the month of October, 1864, and steered for Coquimbo, where she was in service of the Spanish squadron. There she was attacked by some Chilian troops, who, nevertheless, could not get possession of her, on account of aid from one of the enemy’s frigates. From Coquimbo she was sent to Cobija, and was there again attacked by some Chilians, who took her and carried her out of the harbor on the high seas; they put the Spanish crews into a launch, and steered for the port of Avica, whence the vessel was sent to Callao, in charge of an officer of the navy. Knowledge of these facts and of the later arrival of the vessel at Callao had hardly reached Lima, when the consul of Italy and the representatives of Bolivia and Chili addressed themselves to the department of foreign relations; the first asking that the vessel should be seized and the crew arrested; the second applying for the return of the vessel; and the third making patent the innocence of his countrymen, and the protection which was due to them, inasmuch as the act done by them could only be tried by the authorities of Chili. The diplomatic agent of Italy afterwards supported the petition of the consul.

The Peruvian government adopted as a measure purely of precaution, that of the seizure of the vessel, which had already been abandoned by its new crew; and to dispose of the reclamations, it was sufficient to consider, first, that the capture was made in the port of Cobija, and if there was crime it was not in the incumbency of the judicial officers of Peru to take cognizance of crime committed in a foreign territory; second, that the Peruvian jurisdiction did not extend to the trial of acts committed on the high seas, on board a vessel which did not carry the Peruvian flag. As for the vessel itself, the government could not have any interest in keeping her, and it needed only to ascertain to whom delivery might be legitimately made.

At a conference had with the three diplomatic agents interested in the question, those of Bolivia and Chili agreed that delivery should be made to the representative of Italy. Afterwards he insisted on the apprehension and trial of the captors of the vessel, on whom he also cast the imputation of the subsequent burning of the ship in the bay of Callao. The government did not consider it a duty to accede to that demand, without prejudice to ordering what might ensue upon trial by a competent court in regard to the discovery and punishment of the delinquents, if the burning had been intentional. The result of the judicial proceedings has not corroborated that conjecture.

DIPLOMATIC AND CONSULAR SERVICE.

For the regulation of the diplomatic service the supreme decree of the 15th December, 1865, published in Peruano, vol. 49, number 30, was issued, and by its means the abuses which had been introduced under cover of former defective regulations were cut short. A reasonable limit was placed on the advances made to diplomatic agents, a rational scale of pay and expenses of travel was established, and a proportionate annual quota for departmental expenses settled, &c. By later resolutions it was declared that the concession made in the preceding arrangement of double time for pensions in favor of diplomatic agents should be without effect, and that it could not extend to a mere ceasing from discharge of official duties.

At present Peru maintains the following legations: one of the first class for France and England, with the respective secretaries in each of those two countries; three of the like class in the United States of America, in the United States of Colombia, and in Chili; one of the third class near the government of Brazil, of the Argentine Confederation, and the republic of Uruguay. The legation to Ecuador, which was of the first class, is at present ad interim in charge of the secretary. That of Bolivia remains vacant, because Mr. Cornejo has been lected representative of the nation.

In the special situation in which America now is placed, it is proper and indispensable that Peru be represented in all and every of these states.

The expenses attending this will be amply compensated by the advantages, in every line, which would fall upon the nation on finding itself in more immediate connection with the rest on the continent, thus constantly to keep up abundant and sure intelligence on their sitnation and tendencies, and avoiding the labor of seeking after them when they are necessary, and are so at least from unusual sources, or through special missions which do not always reach their destination at an opportune moment. The measure proposed will also produce the practical and highly important result of establishing more intimate relations between the American states, and confirming the close union which ought to exist among them.

Besides the first-class legation to the United States of North America, it would be convenient to keep up another of the same category in Chili; five of the second class in Brazil, Colombia, Mexico, and Venezuela; the last might also serve for the republic of San Domingo and Hayti; and four of the third class, one for the republic of Central America, another for Ecuador, another for the Argentine Confederation and the republic of Uruguay, and the last for Paraguay.

Consulates with salaries have been established with exceeding parsimony, there existing only of that class the consulate general of Guayaquil, and those of Valparaiso, Cobija, Panama, Bourdeau, and Serena. The last, and that of Cobija, are filled by military men, with the pay of their rank. The peculiar situation of the ports of Valparaiso, Panama and Para, require that they should be raised to the grade of consulates general, and it is necessary also that paid consulates should be established at La Paz, Potosi and San Francisco.

The diplomatic and consular agents of Peru have discharged their duties to the entire satisfaction of the supreme chief; all have perfectly understood the situation in which Peru and America are placed, and have given frequent proofs of the zeal and patriotism which animated them.

The minister plenipotentiary appointed to the United States of North America, to Chili, and to France and England, declined their salaries, and have served gratuitously up to the 1st October, from which date they have been ordered to make good that to which they are entitled.

LIQUIDATIONS.

Proper settlements have been had with some diplomatic and consular functionaries who served under the former administration, ordering the pay from receipts of the treasury, and the paying over of balances in its favor. The multiplied labors of the department, and above all the frequent changes which because of the calls of the public service have occurred in the accounting section, have not permitted the conclusion of this labor, respecting other diplomatic agents and retiring consuls.

CONCLUSION.

The complement of this memorial will be the diplomatic correspondence between the 28th November, 1865, up to date.

The supreme chief has ordered its publication so that it may be presented to congress. In view thereof, and of the brief exposition I have just finished making, congress will be able to judge if, in the conduct of the foreign relations, the government of the supreme chief has succeeded in sustaining the rights and dignity of the nation, and filling, as far as possible, its legitimate aspirations.

T. PACHECO.

Department of Foreign Relations, Lima, February 15, 1867.