No. 362.
Mr. Foster
to Mr. Evarts.
Legation of
the United States,
Mexico, September 19, 1878.
(Received October 9.)
No. 785.]Sir: On the 10th instant I sent to the Mexican
Foreign Office a copy of your dispatch No. 495, of the 13th ultimo, with a
note, in which I stated that my object in the transmission was to enable
said department to be correctly informed of the position held by my
government on the subject of frontier-affairs.
The Minister of Foreign Affairs has sent me a reply to your dispatch,
[Page 609]
of which I inclose a translation.
In his note the Minister limits himself to three points. The first relates
to your assertion that the condition of affairs remains substantially as
before the recognition; the second refers to the question of extradition;
and the third to the bases proposed by Mexico for the reciprocal crossing of
troops in pursuit of Indians.
In acknowledging receipt of the Minister’s reply, I have assured him that I
would forward the same by the first mail for your consideration, and such
reply as you might think proper to make. In view of the doubt expressed by
the Minister as to whether I had transmitted to yon full reports of his
conferences with me in June last, I regarded it as important to add that I
faithfully communicated to you all the details thereof, and that you were in
possession of all the necessary information when you advised me that “the
suggestions of the Mexican Government * * * could not now be
entertained.”
You will notice that the minister expresses surprise that you should indicate
that the proposition made by his government was indefinite as to time, or
that it required the subsequent ratification of the Mexican Senate. In your
dispatch No. 495 to me, you refer to the proposition or suggestions of the
Mexican Government as contained in my No. 740. The proposition is only
incidentally referred to in my No. 740, but is formally transmitted in my
No. 735, of June 27. The bases of its verbal proposition are contained in
the concession of the senate, of which I therewith inclosed you a copy,
which conferred or sought to confer upon the executive the authority to
enter with that of the United States upon a convention in regard to the
pursuit of the Indians. The Minister claims that the action of the senate is
absolute, and that a convention will not require the subsequent ratification
of that body. It may be noted, however, that distinguished Mexican lawyers
entertain an opposite opinion.
The Minister, in his note inclosed herewith, for the first time has made the
offer in writing to enter into the convention, upon the precedent condition
of the withdrawal of the instructions to General Ord. It will attract your
attention that he declined, under instructions of the cabinet, to submit it
in writing in our conference in June last, and does not take that step until
after he is informed by you that the proposition cannot now be
entertained.
I am, sir, &c.,
[Inclosure 1 in No. 785.]
Mr. Foster to Mr.
Mata.
Legation of the United States,
Mexico, September 10,
1878.
Sir: Haying communicated to the Secretary of
State at Washington a report of the conference which I had the honor to
hold with Your Excellency on the 21st, 24th, and 28th of June last, in
regard to affairs on the Rio Grande frontier, and having transmitted to
him copies of your note of July 12 last, and my reply thereto,
concerning the crossing into Mexico of American troops in the preceding
month, I am now in receipt of his acknowledgement thereof.
The Secretary of State has been pleased to approve of my note addressed
to Your Excellency on the 15th of July, and has set forth the views of
my government at some length relating to frontier affairs. In order that
Your Excellency may be correctly informed of the position held by my
government on this important question, I inclose herewith a copy of the
dispatch which the Secretary of State has addressed to me on the
subject.
I improve the opportunity to reassure Your Excellency of my high
consideration and esteem.
[Page 610]
[Inclosure 2 in No.
785.—Translation.]
Mr. Mata to Mr.
Foster.
Department of Foreign Affairs,
Mexico, September 13,
1878.
Mr. Minister: With Your Excellency’s note of
the 10th instant, I have had the honor to receive a copy of the dispatch
addressed to the legation of the United States in Mexico by the
Department of State in Washington on the 13th of August last, which
document is transmitted to this department, as Your Excellency states,
to the end that it may be accurately informed of the attitude which the
American Government has assumed upon the affairs of the frontier.
The President has instructed me to reply to Your Excellency, considering
only three points in the dispatch of the Hon. W. M. Evarts, since they
are sufficient to clearly define the position which the Government of
Mexico, on its part, holds in regard to matters on the frontier, and to
establish the truth of the facts; considering that the other points
contained in the same dispatch, although meriting rectification, have
already been the subject of former discussions.
The honorable Secretary of State, after enumerating the causes which
induced the Government of the United States to officially recognize that
of Mexico, states that “Nevertheless the condition of affairs upon the
Rio Grande frontier remains substantially the same. No effective step
seems to have been taken on the part of Mexico to check the raids.”
Against these erroneous assertions is the irrefutable testimony of the
presence of Mexican troops upon our frontier in numbers which have never
before existed in a permanent manner in that region; the confessions
contained in the dispatch of the Department of State, dated March 23d
last, in which instructions were transmitted to Your Excellency to
recognize the Government of Mexico; the note of the 9th of the following
April, in which Your Excellency recognized said government; the
declarations of the most eminent officials of the Army of the United
States before the investigation committee of the House of
Representatives of the same United States; the manifestations contained
in the letter of General Ord, which Your Excellency did me the honor to
show to me a few days since, and lastly these identical words written by
Your Excellency in your note of July 15th last: “I have very freely and
repeatedly recognized the efforts of the present administration of
Mexico toward the suppression of the cattle-stealing on the lower Rio
Grande, and my government was gratified to refer to these efforts as a
reason for the recognition of that administration; and
if the same measures had been taken on the upper Rio Grande to
repress the more murderous and destructive Indian incursions, there
would have been no occasion for the recent crossing of American
troops.”
The words of the honorable Secretary of State are not in harmony with the
declarations formerly made by him, nor with the testimony of the
distinguished officers of the Army of the United States to which I have
referred, nor with the declarations of his legation in Mexico, since,
while the first asserts that no efficient measure has been taken on the
part of Mexico, the last not only recognizes the fact of such measures
having been issued, but characterizes them as so efficacious that if
applied to the upper Rio Grande the passage of American troops to Mexico
in June last would not have been necessary.
I pray Your Excellency to fix your attention on the fact that the
foregoing proofs emanate from the testimony of functionaries occupying
the most exalted positions under the said Government of the United
States, which prefers against that of Mexico such grave and repeated
charges.
With reference to the views of the honorable Secretary of State
concerning the extradition of criminals, and the amendment of the
respective treaty, I should reply that the executive, through its
representative in Washington, proposed modifications in July of last
year, to the Government of the United States, which, in its conception,
would make such extradition more efficacious, which modifications up to
the present time have not been accepted, and that the Government of
Mexico has gone so far in the matter of extradition as to concede, in a
special case, that of several of its own citizens, an act which is not
made obligatory by the treaties and which has had no: analogous
precedent on the part of the United States. The cases of extradition
demanded by the United States have only met with difficulty, as was
natural, when the extradition of Mexican citizens has been asked, which
is not obligatory in conformity with the existing treaty; while, on the
other hand, certain cases can be cited in which, upon the demand being
made by Mexico for the extradition of various criminals, the American
authorities not only have not granted it but have not even replied to
the respective demands.
With relation to the bases proposed to the Government of the United
States in June last by this department, and through Your Excellency, for
the reciprocal crossing of troops the Hon. Mr. Evarts states that they
“cannot now be entertained. In substance, they Seem to be that the
orders to General Ord should be revoked, and the border left to the
mercy of the marauders, in the hope that at some future day, or at some
[Page 611]
future session of the
Mexican Congress, laws may be enacted or treaties ratified which might
offer a solution of the difficulties.”
On reading these words and comparing them with the antecedents which took
place in the interviews which Your Excellency had with the undersigned
Secretary in June last, I have experienced a painful surprise which has
led me to doubt whether Your Excellency forgot to bring to the knowledge
of your government certain of those antecedents, or whether, on being
faithfully transmitted by Your Excellency, the Department of State
overlooked some of them on taking them into consideration.
I cannot understand, in fact, how the honorable Secretary of State refers
to future acts (and for this reason uncertain) of the Mexican Congress,
when Your Excellency has the certainty, and your government should also
have it, that the senate has already considered the international
arrangement for the reciprocal crossing of troops; when that body has
already declared the bases upon which it conceded to the executive the
authority to carry it into effect, avoiding thus the necessity for
approbation afterwards; when through this department it has given a copy
of those bases to Your Excellency; and, lastly, when the only condition
imposed on the part of Mexico for carrying that arrangement into effect
is the previous revocation of the instructions issued to General Ord by
his government to the end that American troops may discretionally cross
the frontier to invade Mexican territory.
The very testimony of Your Excellency may strengthen that to which I have
referred as proof of the disposition of the Government of Mexico to
adjust without delay an arrangement for the reciprocal crossing of
troops. Your Excellency will remember that in the conference which you
had with the President on the 23d of August last, on his stating that
upon the withdrawal of the instructions to General Ord the final
arrangement would be the work of a few days, this period was modified by
me, fixing it at twenty-four hours.
The said revocation is fully compatible with the interests of the two
governments, since on conceding the passage of troops the existence of
the instructions to General Ord is unnecessary. It in no way affects the
rights of the Government of the United States, and it is at the same
time a testimony of respect for the justice and the perfect and sacred
rights which attend Mexico.
If after my government declares, as it has already declared in the
conferences had with Your Excellency, and as it to-day repeats, that it
is disposed to conclude an arrangement for the reciprocal crossing of
troops upon the bases conceded by the senate, and previous to the
withdrawal of the instructions issued to General Ord, the same hostile
policy, accompanied by friendly professions, is persisted in by the
United States, it will prove even more fully that it is not the Mexican
Government which delays the pacific solution of the difficulties of the
frontier, nor that of the United States which shows a disposition to
secure it.
Your Excellency will please to accept my very distinguished
consideration.
His Excellency John W. Foster,
Envoy Extraordinary and Minister Plenipotentiary
of the United States of America.
[Inclosure 3 in No. 785.]
Mr. Foster to Mr.
Mata.
Legation of the United States,
Mexico, September 16,
1878.
Sir: I had the honor on yesterday to receive
Your Excellency’s note of the 13th instant, in which you acknowledge the
receipt of the copy of the dispatch of the Secretary of State of the
United States to this legation of the 13th ultimo, and in which note
Your Excellency replies to some of the points of said dispatch in regard
to the frontier.
I will not fail to forward by the first mail a copy of said note to the
Department of State at Washington for the consideration of the Secretary
of State.
In view of the reference which Your Excellency has made to me in your
note, I deem it necessary to state that without any delay I forwarded to
the Department of State a full and faithful report of the conferences of
June last, to which Your Excellency refers, and inclosed therewith a
copy of the bases of the concession granted by the Mexican senate to the
executive. Hence the Secretary of State was in full possession of all
the necessary information when he informed me that “the suggestions of
the Mexican Government * * * cannot now be entertained”; and the plain
inference is that, using the language of said dispatch, they do not
“offer a solution of the difficulties.” It will be remembered that, in
my note of July 15 last, from which Your
[Page 612]
Excellency quotes, I stated that “it would be
difficult, if not impracticable, for my government to entertain” the
suggestions.
I have, likewise, transmitted to the Department of State the assurance
made by His Excellency President Diaz, in the interview of the 23d
ultimo. As Your Excellency now, for the first time, has reduced the very
limited and conditional proposition to writing, I will forward it to my
government with the explanations which accompany it, for such reply as
the Secretary of State may think proper to make.
Meanwhile I remain, with high consideration, Your Excellency’s obedient
servant,
His Excellency J. M. Mata, &c.
