Señor Fontecilla to Mr. Kilpatrick.
Sir: I have had the honor to receive the note of your excellency of the 9th instant in which you are pleased to manifest to me respecting the conversation I had the honor to have with you that you understood that Chili would consent to terminate the war with Spain by means of an armistice without conditions or explanations save that it should he indefinite in its duration. With this understanding you are pleassd to recommend in the name of your government that all the powers that are parties in the war should meet in Washington with the object to arrive at a definite peace, in which case the government of your excellency would employ its efforts to see that the claims of all should receive due consideration. In reply to your esteemed note I desire to express to you by means of this the thought that I had the honor to give you verbally. For some time back the opinion of these countries has been vividly manifest: that the indecisive and precarious situation of the war should be terminated in a manner to give to the work of peace guarantees more solid than the simple suspension of hostilities offers. To satisfy this legitimate desire my government will not be backward in accepting a truce definite in its character, which, while preserving to the belligerents their respective pretensions, offers, nevertheless, to the neutrals all the guarantees and securities which they claim. My government thinks that, for the present, this is the most obvious way [Page 324] to arrive at a mutual agreement, and to correspond to those noble efforts made to secure peace by several governments friendly to us, among which principally figures that of your excellency. With this view the governments allied are actually engaged to procure a mutual agreement, taking into consideration the proposition of truce made by the governments of France and England. The arbitration suggested by your excellency for the belligerents to send plenipotentiaries to Washington to arrange their reciprocal pretensions, and celebrate a definite peace, would not do more than retard the accomplishment of the proposition before indicated. It is to be presumed that the recent events, and the irreconcilable character of the pretensions of the belligerents, make impossible, at present, a mutual agreement to arrive at a definite peace. In any case my government desires, as in all honor it should, to thank the government of your excellency for its constant efforts in favor of peace, and to assure it that in our deliberations with our allies the new offer which your government has been pleased to present through the respectable organ of your excellency shall be presented with all attention.
I embrace this opportunitv, &c., your attentive, &c.,
The Envoy Extraordinary and Minister Plenipotentiary of the United States.