Mr. Washburn to President Lopez.
Sir: When Captain Kirkland was about leaving this vessel yesterday to bid farewell to your excellency, I gave him a memorandum of certain [Page 826] things, to which I requested him to call your attention. Captain Kirk-land informs me that on reaching your headquarters he found he had omitted to take this memorandum with him, and therefore was unable to comply fully with my request, having only given the paper a hasty perusal. I therefore take the liberty, at the moment of my departure, of deviating from diplomatic customs, and sending a personal note directed to your excellency. In this memorandum I suggested that he might show you a letter from General Webb, our minister in Rio, from which it would appear that he had almost come to a rupture with that government, by reason of its refusal to permit this vessel to pass above the squadron. This he had done on his own responsibility, without waiting for orders from the United States government, which, on hearing of the outrage, has doubtless taken the most energetic measures to enforce its rights and extricate its minister from a most frightful position. This letter which you saw proves how much truth there was in the declaration of your ex-minister for foreign affairs, José Berges, that I was in collusion with General Webb, and in the interest and pay of the Brazilians.
I have in my possession several letters for Dr. Carreras, which I yesterday requested Captain Kirkland to deliver, but which he refused to do unless I would open them, lest he too should be accused of conveying treasonable correspondence. I herewith send the letters, however, as I do not believe that any treasonable correspondence has ever passed through my hands for or to anybody. In fact, I do not believe there has ever been any conspiracy.
The declarations of Berges, your two brothers Venancio and Benigno, and Sr. Urdepilleta, as given in the notes of your two last ministers of foreign relations, in so far as they implicate me as having any knowledge of a conspiracy, are entirely false, and you know it; and you know that not one of them would confirm or affirm the declaration imputed to him if he were out of your power, but would deny it “in toto,” and declare that he had never made it, or that he had done so under torture. Declarations of that kind, your excellency ought to know, will have no weight outside of Paraguay. Not one word of them will be believed, and that all may not be denied by them, you must not only kill off all the persons who have made them, but all by whom they were extorted.
Before finally leaving Paraguay, it is my duty to make my solemn protest against the arrest of those two members of my legation, Porter Cornelius Bliss and George F. Masterman. Their arrest in the street, as they were going with me from the legation to pass on board the steamer, was as gross a violation ot the law of nations as would have been their seizure by force in my house. It was an act not only against my government, but against all civilized powers, and places Paraguay outside the pale of the family of nations; and for this act you will be regarded as a common enemy, one denying allegiance to the law of nations.
You will also be regarded as a common enemy for having seized and made prisoners, and loaded with fetters, nearly all the foreigners in Paraguay, and afterwards entered their houses and taken away their money, on the miserable pretext that, finding less in your treasury than you expected, those who had any money in the country must therefore have robbed it from the government.
Your threat to Captain Kirkland, on his first arrival, that you would keep me a prisoner in the country, will be duly represented to my government, and I only wish to confirm his reply to you, that had you done so [Page 827] my government would have hunted you not only through all South America, but throughout all Europe.
Your obedient servant,
His Excellency Marshal Lopez, President of Paraguay.