Mr. Bliss to Mr. Washburn.
Sir: Finding myself at length relieved from the restraint which your excellency has so long exercised over my will, I cannot do less than express freely and spontaneously the important part which your excellency has taken in the revolution in which you have involved many persons, and among them myself. I have declared (feeling deeply, because I would like to avoid such a scandal to your excellency, but following out the truth) that your excellency has been the soul of the revolution; and if this deed now appears to the light of Heaven confessed to by all its accomplices, to whom does it owe its existence save to your excellency, who has continued its direction up to a very recent period? I consider myself, therefore, completely absolved from the promise which your excellency extorted from me yesterday in your office not to reveal your proceedings, old or new. Even your brilliant speculations with the company of Hopkins, for which your excellency ought to pocket a hundred and odd thousand of patacones, have been put in evidence, as also the gilded pill you made Polidoro and Octaviano swallow, as also the last of Caxias, at the time of your excellency’s celebrated visit of mediation in March, last year.
The object of this letter is, to say to you that I have determined to request from your excellency the delivery to the bearer of my historical manuscripts, which involve a compromise with this government, and which are, without reason, in deposit with your excellency, you having taken possession of them during my illness last year, and because I have forgotten to demand them of you. They consist, as your excellency well knows, of a voluminous history of Paraguay till the year 1810, and some two thousand pages, or more, of notes in Spanish on more recent epochs, with the chronology up to our days.
Also, I beg that your excellency will have the goodness to send me the three letters written by express order of your excellency, for your justification regarding the affairs of the revolution, of which one is addressed to the New York World, another to Rev. Wm. T. Goodfellow, in Buenos Ayres, and the last to my father, Henry Bliss, of New York.
The truth having been fully displayed, these letters cannot serve your excellency for any object, and, since they are false, it suits me no longer to keep the mystery of hypocrisy, and for your own honor your excellency ought to comply strictly with these my demands.
I do not exact from you the English manuscripts which your excellency made me write in a spirit inimical to Paraguay, since these are the property of your excellency; but I advise you, as a friend, not to attempt to fight against the evidence given by infinite witnesses.
I take advantage of the occasion to salute your excellency with distinguished esteem and appreciation.
His Excellency Hon. Charles A. Washburn, United States Minister Resident.