Mr. Washburn to Señor Benitez.
Sir: I have the honor to acknowledge the receipt of your note of the 31st of July, on the evening of the 1st instant. In this note you discuss at great length the various points on which I have been so unfortunate as to differ with your government on questions that have arisen during the last month.
In this note you, after a long discussion on the points of difference as to whether or not Mr. Bliss and Mr. Masterman are rightfully members of this legation, give me the most startling information in regard to the declaration of the ex-minister of foreign affairs, José Berges. This notice has caused me so much surprise and astonishment, and is of so serious and grave a nature, that I trust you will pardon me if I first reply to that part of your note, leaving the other question to another day.”
And, first, you will permit me to observe that I deeply regret that in a case of so serious a nature you should assume for facts what at best must be doubtful, and reiterate positively, as if on your own knowledge, what I, on my own better knowledge, as positively have denied. When a minister is told virtually that his words are not believed, that they are known to be false, he would certainly be excused if he declined any further correspondence. But, as I have already promised to give any aid in my power to clear up the terrible mystery in which I am surrounded, I shall pass over this matter of form, believing that what I have to say will be of service in eliciting the truth.
You express regret that in the personal interview held with me on the 25th ultimo, you were unable to elicit such facts as would render it unnecessary to include in an official note your subsequent statements. But that you were seeking impossibilities, I think I shall be able to convince you. Your statement of what Señor Berges has said before the tribunal, has led me to reflect and call to mind every incident and circumstance that I can remember which can throw any light on his strange conduct. Regarding the package which you say again and again that he delivered to me, I say again and again I never saw, nor heard of till I received your note of the 23d ultimo. But when to this he has added that it was through means of this legation that he carried on his treasonable correspondence with the enemy, I have endeavored to discover or imagine how it was possible for him to do so. I will therefore relate in detail, as far as my memory, with the assistance of my journal, will permit, everything in relation to the transmission of my dispatches.
On the 28th of April last I sent away my last dispatches for Washington, to be forwarded below, and thence passed by flag of truce through the military lines. Whether I sent letters for other persons or not I do [Page 771] not remember, but I presume I did, though I do not recollect for whom. I have sometimes sent letters for the Portuguese vice-consul, Señor Vasconcellos, but I do not recollect whether on that occasion I did or not. A few days after sending away this package of dispatches, that is, on the 6th of May, a clerk and translator in the Foreign Office, Gaspar Lopez, came to my house, bringing a small bag of dispatches. On opening it I found it contained two or three dispatches from Washington, two or three private letters from the United States, and an official and also a private letter from Captain Kirkland, commanding the United States steamer Wasp, who advised me that he had come up to take me and my family away. There also came at the same time a package of letters addressed to me, with the name of the English secretary of legation at Buenos Ayres, G. F. Gould, on the corner. On tearing off the outer wrapper of this package, I found it was addressed to the Portuguese vice-consul, Vasconcellos, and was accompanied by a note to me from the Portuguese chargé d’affaires in Montevideo, the Baron de Sousa. A copy of this note I inclose herewith. As my own letters contained no news from below, and I supposed that those for Vasconcellos would have a great deal, I went out in the afternoon of the same day to his chacra to deliver the package and learn the news it contained. He did not open it in my presence, but he afterwards brought out one or two private letters, which he read to Leite Pereira and myself, when, for the first time, I learned of the revolution in Montevideo, and the death of ex-President Berro and of Flores. This news, I suppose, was made known to the government soon after, as the next number of the Seminario contained the same. I ought to remark that the tone of these letters was very favorable to this country, representing the allies to be in a desperate condition, and the writer as convinced that they could never conquer Paraguay. This package also contained a letter for Dr. Carreras, which I brought in and delivered to him. It was read to me afterwards, and contained the same news as that of Vasconcellos, and was equally friendly to Paraguay.
This is the only correspondence that has ever passed through my hands for many months from any person whatsoever from beyond the enemy’s lines, and if Señor Berges tells the truth, (which I have reason to doubt, as on another point he states what I know to be false,) the communication he says he received from Caxias through this legation must have been in that package from the Baron de Sousa. At the time, you will remember that Berges was not here, and a few days after I went to San Fernando to see his excellency Marshal Lopez, in order to make such arrangements as would induce the commander of the Wasp to come up to that point. I had not been recalled by my government, though a gunboat had been sent to take me and my family away, and until a successor should arrive to take my place I was disposed to remain in Paraguay. I had written as early as January to be recalled, and insisted that another minister should come to succeed me, as it would look like the abandonment of a brave and gallant people if the only accredited foreign minister were to be withdrawn. Whether this letter ever reached Washington I have great reason to doubt, as, ever since my visit to the camp of the Marquis de Caxias, he seems to have done everything he dared do to stop my communications and supplies. I venture the assertion that if he has been engaged in a plot with traitors in Paraguay, I am almost the last person he would wish to know anything about it. I flatter myself that he considers me, whatever you may do, a friend to Paraguay, and such a friend as Brazilian gold is powerless to seduce.
[Page 772]From San Fernando I wrote to Captain Kirkland, telling him that the allies had no right to prevent him from passing their blockade, and that for other reasons I could not avail myself of the presence of the Wasp unless he would come higher up the river. Afterwards, I returned to this place, and on the 30th of May I received another letter from Captain Kirkland, in which he informed me that the Marquis de Caxias refused to allow him to pass his squadron, but offering to furnish me facilities to go by land from Pilar or Tayi to Curupayti. This offer of Caxias I took as an insult to me and my government, and so advised Captain Kirkland, telling him to force the blockade and let the Brazilians tire upon him if they chose to do so. It seems, however, that he did not feel authorized under his instructions to take such violent measures, and on the 10th of June he wrote me that he should start that day for Montevideo in order to get such instructions as would require him to pass the blockade or fight the whole Brazilian squadron. I then believed that he would be back within a month, but now nearly two months have passed and I hear nothing of him. It may be that the admiral does not wish to take the responsibility of commencing a war on Brazil without orders from the government, and that, instead of sending back Captain Kirkland with orders to force the blockade, he has sent to Washington for instructions. Was it not for the delay, this would be the course I would prefer, for I have no doubt the orders would be that the entire squadron should come at once to Paraguay without as much as asking permission of the Brazilians. The delay, however, is what I deplore. While my government is debating whether to make war on Brazil, by reason of my representations and situation, the government of Paraguay refuses to credit my positive statements as against those of an accused, convicted, and confessed traitor.
Neither of these last letters from Captain Kirkland to me were accompanied with any letter to anybody else, and I sent no letter from anybody else with my letters to him. I expected him to come up here to take away my family, and therefore I did not send away a single letter except my own official letters to Captain Kirkland himself.
I cannot find words to express my surprise at the account which you give me of the declaration of ex-Minister Berges. It is all false from beginning to end, and that I believe I shall easily convince you, and that he has evidently ascribed to me a part which was performed by another person. I do not imagine he is a person of the ingenuity to make up out of nothing his story about the package which he says he delivered to me, but that he should try to screen some one else by imputing to me the acts of one of his accomplices is quite possible. I do not suppose he would do that out of malice to me, for I have no reason to think that he ever cherished any such feelings towards me. Yet he might think to screen another by ascribing his acts to me, and at the same time imagine that my official character would prevent inquiry into my own acts. Yet, whatever his object or motives, the whole declaration is, as far as it relates to me, a monstrous fiction.
You express regret that it should have become necessary to put this declaration in an official note. I also would have preferred to have been privately advised, and given my explanations in an unofficial form. But, notwithstanding this, I am glad at last to know what has been the ground of the action of your government towards me which has hitherto been entirely incomprehensible. Had I been advised earlier of this declaration of Berges, very much of this long and unpleasant correspondence would have been avoided. But I have been groping in the dark, without the least idea of what the government knew or suspected. I seemed [Page 773] to have lost its confidence, but I knew not for what reason. But this declaration of Berges, though entirely false, explains all. After a man who has held such high positions as he has occupied, has accused me of knowing of his treachery and aiding in it, it is not at all strange that the government should regard me and all near me with suspicion. But, now I know what his declaration is, I shall be able to show, by a careful reference to dates and other well-known or easily ascertained facts, that it is all false from beginning to end.
I will now examine his statement somewhat in detail. First, he says he received a letter from the Marquis de Caxias, the date of which he does not remember, and that he received it through this legation. The date is important, as if it passed through my hands it must have been in that package from the Baron de Sousa to Vasconcellos, or must have come as early as December last, when the Italian consul came through the military lines, for between the arrival of the Italian consul and the arrival of the Wasp I received nothing whatever from below. But as Berges says it was the second letter that came by the Wasp, the first must have come several months before. He also says that his answer was sent by the same channel. Of that I can only say that if he did send through this legation, it must have been under the cover of somebody else. I remember of his asking me on one occasion, when I was about sending off my dispatches, to include some letters for him. But I refused to do it, giving as a reason that it would be an abuse of the faith and confidence of the allies to do so; that I could only send correspondence with their assistance, and to take advantage of that to send the letters of their enemies, would be such an abuse that, should it be discovered, they would be justified in refusing to allow any more of my correspondence to pass either way. Therefore, if he sent anything through this legation, it must have been by getting some one else not connected with the government to give it to me as a letter to his family. But, if he did impose upon me in that way, it must have been as long ago as the middle of January last, for between that time and the depart ure of Berges for Paso Pucu I sent no correspondence away.
It appears from the note of your honor that Berges made two declarations, and that the two are very inconsistent with each other. In the first he says that the second letter from Caxias, which was brought by the Wasp, was dated the beginning of June, but that he did not receive it till the beginning of July, when I delivered it to him personally at his house. If that letter, dated near the beginning of June, passed through my hands, it must have come with the last letter to Captain Kirkland, which was dated the 10th of June, at Curupayti, and which I did not receive till the 23d, as appears both from my diary and the verbal note of your honor, which you were kind enough to send me with the letter. The 23d was the day after my first visit to Berges, so that I could not by any possibility have had any such letter at that time in my possession, as no communication reached me from the 1st to the 23d of June, the day after my first visit.
In his second declaration you add that Berges says that it was at the time of my first visit to him after his return from San Fernando that I delivered this second letter from Caxias, and then he pretends to relate very minutely everything that took place on that occasion. That visit took place on the 22d of June. How long that was after his return I do not know. I only know that several days before I had heard of his return, and that he was at his house in the Salinares, very infirm. I thought it a duty of courtesy to visit him, and as I was passing by to go to the Trinidad and back by way of the house of Vasconcellos, I called for a few [Page 774] minutes to see him. He was lying in his east room, apparently very feeble. He was, or pretended to be so, paralyzed in his limbs, that he could hardly move in his bed. I expressed regret at finding him so, and we talked on general subjects, and nobody could have talked more loyally than he did on that occasion. But he did not rise from his bed; in fact, he appeared unable to do it; and after asking him if I could do anything to alleviate him, and inviting him to visit me when he got better, and promising to visit him again shortly, I took my leave, not having been, according to the best of my recollection, more than fifteen minutes in the house.
Such is the true and exact account of that visit. All that Berges says in his declaration about my giving him a letter from Caxias and waiting for him to read it, my taking up a book to pass the time, the conversation that passed, the taking of papers from a secret place in a writing-desk, the folding and labelling of the papers, all, every word is false— false as false can be.
I apprehend, however, as I have already said, that he has not the ingenuity to make up such a tissue of lies out of nothing, but that what passed between him and somebody else he has declared to be the transactions between himself and me. How that mysterious letter from Oaxias was brought I do not know. I can think of no other way than that it came ill that package of the Baron de Sousa. But if it came in that way, you can divine as well as I can by whom it was delivered.
It does not appear from the declaration of Berges that, at my second visit to him on the 3d of July, anything passed but expressions of courtesy. On that occasion, as on the former, I expressed sympathy for his sufferings and a desire to be of service to him. But I had no idea that he was then a traitor, plotting with the enemy against his own government; and at this time, as on my former visit, our brief conversation was carried on with doors and windows open, and servants passing to and fro at their pleasure. On neither occasion did Berges leave his bed.
If you will carefully scrutinize the dates of the occurrences that happened about this time I think you will find everything to corroborate, not only what I have stated, but my theory or explanation of the strange declaration of Berges. In your notes of the 23d you positively state that on the day after his arrival from San Fernando he delivered to me a certain package at his house in the Salinares. In his later declaration he says that it was at the time of my first visit, not specifying the day. That visit, however, was many days (I do not know how many) after his return, and I think (though it is only a speculation) that on closer investigation it will be found that the incidents about the package, that Berges alleges to have taken place between him and me, actually took place between him and one of his accomplices, before I had seen him or even knew of his return.
There is one other thing in Berges’s declaration which, though not of much importance, will nevertheless serve as proof of its entire falsity. He says that I told him I would prefer to receive jewels or other things to keep for him in my legation rather than the papers which he wished to deliver me, and that I offered to take such things from him without charging the same per cent or commission that I charged others. That this is a pure and malicious invention is evident from this fact, that though I have received since the order of evacuation money and other valuables from a great many people, I have never charged nor thought of charging a single person one penny for it. Many things left with me about the time of the evacuation have since been taken away, but I have never asked nor received from any one any commission, percentage, or [Page 775] compensation. How, then, could I make allusion to such a thing to Señor Berges?
From this statement you will see that if I have in any way been the means of conveying intelligence to and fro between the enemies and traitors to Paraguay, I have myself been the victim of the most damnable treachery and ingratitude. But I yet cherish the hope that of those who have abused my confidence the number will be found the smallest possible. I cannot yet bring myself to acknowledge that I am of a nature so credulous, and so unfit to be a minister, as to have in my house for near five months persons with whom I was on the most intimate terms, and all whose thoughts I ought to have known, and yet who were at the same time engaged in a plot against the government, without my suspecting it. I yet cherish the hope that a full investigation will clear this legation of having given shelter to such parties. But, if there be any who have thus abused my confidence and hospitality, it is not for me to ask for their pardon, but rather to demand their summary punishment.
As I have before said, I do not think it strange that, after the declaration of Berges, the government should have regarded me, and those around me, with suspicion. But I do think it was not showing me the respect to which my position and my long-known character and friendship for Paraguay was entitled, to accept without question as true the charges and accusations of a confessed traitor in the face of my positive denial. This matter, however, I shall leave to the sense of justice of the government of Paraguay.
After this long and explicit statement of all that I know or even suspect in regard to the treason of Berges and his accomplices, I trust that your government will believe that this legation is not so dangerous a place as it may have at one time been suspected. I have not in this note taken into consideration the case of Mr. Bliss and Mr. Masterman, as I was anxious to clear up the other matter as soon as possible, and with your permission I will delay any further discussion on that point until I shall again hear from your honor.
I avail myself of this occasion to renew assurances of distinguished consideration.
His Honor Gumesindo Benitez, Acting Minister of Foreign Affairs.