Mr. Mountjoy to Mr. Jorningham
Your Excellency: I have the honor to say that this moment Mr. James Feeley, a very respectable English merchant, has sent to request me to inform the representative of her Britannic Majesty that some days since, in the general work of destruction and devastation that has been committed in this province and others adjoining by the public authorities, his two commercial establishments have been completely sacked and destroyed to the amount, more or less, of $30,000; and having to-day visited me to consult as to the best means of bringing these circumstances to your knowledge, he has been arrested, placed in prison, and heavily ironed, by order of the sub-prefect of the province, Thomas Tello. Another unwarrantable outrage has been committed on the person of Mr. Thomas A. Batt, an English subject, who was so brutally beaten by armed emissaries of the authorities, a few steps from his own door, that his life has been in danger for a few days.
I can justly say, in favor of Messrs. Feeley and Batt, that they are and have been entirely neutral in the revolution that is distracting this part of Peru, and can imagine no cause whatever for these outrages.
Should your excellency desire to know the state of affairs in this part of Peru, his excellency General Hovey, minister of the United States, will give you the substance of my last dispatches to him, and I can only say, in addition, that some decided steps should be taken by foreign ministers to prevent and punish such outrages as are at present being committed upon foreigners of all nations.
I have, &c.,
Wm. S. Jorningham, Esq., Her Britannic Majesty’s Consul, Lima.