Mr. Pacheco to Mr. Seward.
The undersigned, secretary of foreign relations of Peru, has the honor to remit to the honorable Secretary of State of the United States of America the Peruano, the official gazette of the republic, which reprints the treaty of alliance, offensive and defensive, concluded between Peru and Chili, and the decree which declares the republic to be at war with the Spanish government; he remits also to you the manifesto of the motives which have induced the government of the undersigned to make that declaration.
His excellency the chief magistrate takes the greatest interest in convincing friendly governments that Peru, prudent but honorable in her international conduct, in assuming a warlike attitude does nothing but frankly accept a situation created exclusively by the pretensions, day after day more exaggerated, of the Spanish government.
The unjustifiable occupation of the Chincha islands, disapproved by all the governments of the earth, also was by the Spanish government, because it declared it had not given instructions to do this; but running into a palpable incongruity, maintained it as a means of carrying out pretensions each day more exaggerated, under pretext of having, through her agents, thought of restoring the islands, an assertion which the Spanish government never entertained, and which is belied by the facts, by the documents which have come to light, and from the lips even of those agents. She wrenched from Peru an indemnity of three millions of dollars; at a later day she attempted to impose on Peru, by force, a treaty in virtue of which it is pretended that the republic should pay all the costs of the war which the Spanish government made in order to fight her, as well as all the obligations which, for her own advantage, the Peninsula government held in the old viceroyalty. The mode and the conditions on which the payment of those supposed obligations is claimed would create a debt which the storied wealth of Peru would not satisfy, and which would only serve to encourage Spain on the march of despotism which she ever sets up to exercise, over South America. She has declared the principle of revindication to be existent; she has announced the pretension that Peru must pay the expenses of her Catholic Majesty’s squadron in its hostilities against America; and has manifested at different times the purpose to interfere in the domestic questions that have lately disturbed Peru. In fine, on pretexts which Europe and America have repelled with indignation, the ports of Chili have been blockaded in violation of the well-known forms of international law.
It is true that the Spanish government has all the while protested moderation and disinterestedness, but this is belied by facts; at the foundation of that violent, disorderly, and contradictory diplomacy are only plainly seen the old colonizing tendencies of Spain, and her settled purpose to humiliate free countries which were previously her colonies; and this end she attempts to accomplish by filling the exhausted treasury of her Catholic Majesty with the proceeds got from the Chincha islands, which belong to Peru. It is therefore necessary that these purposes of Spain should vanish away, and to attain this there is no means but war. It is the only recourse the Spanish government has left us. It is necessary that the difficult but fortunate progress of the American republics, and their commercial relations with other civilized states, should not be interrupted at every moment by the violent and capricious aggressions of the Spanish government. When that becomes convinced, by events, that America knows how to maintain her rights, and that peace cannot be solid and lasting unless when voluntary and honorable; when by her conduct she may have convinced America that she does not mean to wound her dignity and interests, peace will naturally follow, and then, only then, will produce its real fruits.
[Page 662]The government of Peru dwells on these considerations because it is actuated by the desire to convince friendly governments of the justice which sustains it. It will observe the greatest care in ever maintaining with them the good relations which happily connect them, and hopes, at the same time, that the state of war in which she is involved with Spain will not in the least affect the friendship which happily exists between Peru and the United States.
Animated by these sentiments, the undersigned hastens to offer to the honorable Secretary of State of the United States of America the assurances of high and distinguished consideration with which he has the honor to subscribe himself his excellency’s very obedient and very humble servant,
Hon. Secretary of State of the United States of America.