Papers Relating to the Foreign Relations of the United States, Transmitted to Congress, With the Annual Message of the President, December 2, 1878

No. 365.
Mr. Foster to Mr. Evarts.

Legation of the United States,
Mexico, September 23, 1878. (Received October 9.)

No. 788.]

Sir: In a conversation which I had with the acting minister of foreign affairs last week, I referred to the announcement made in the President’s address to Congress of the proposed campaign against the Indians in Coahuila, and expressed my gratification at the movement, which I said, if successful, would have a very beneficial effect on the peace of that frontier. I, however, at the same time, expressed some doubt as to whether in the present depleted condition of the federal treasury the means would be at hand to properly equip and render effective the expedition.

Mr. Avila, in reply, said that the President had already provided $40,000, which had been placed at Monterey, and a like sum or more, if necessary, would be supplied to the force; and that he was determined to leave nothing undone to make the campaign entirely successful. Since this conversation, the government gazette has published an article, of which I inclose a translation, in which the deposit of funds on the frontier for this purpose is mentioned; on which account it states the civil list cannot be paid the amount due for August, and it makes an appeal to the patriotism of the employés, in view of the necessary postponement of payment to them.

The Executive appears to be really in earnest in this movement, which I have so long urged upon it, and I will watch it with attention, prepared to give it full credit for all that may be accomplished in the punishment and removal of the Indians from that frontier, where they have so long been a scourge to the people of Texas.

I am, &c.,

JOHN W. FOSTER.

[Inclosure in No. 788.—Translation.]

Deposit of funds on the northern frontier.

[From the Diario Oficial, September 21, 1878.]

The President of the republic, as he stated in the address which he read on the 16th instant upon the opening of the sessions of the Congress of the Union, has determined to undertake an action, and, from all points of view, an efficacious campaign, against the barbarous Indians and marauders of the northern frontier, who cause so much injury to the peaceful inhabitants of both sides of the Rio Grande. With this object it has been necessary to deposit lately, in various federal offices of the same frontier, considerable sums of money, and, for this reason, the amounts due to the civil list for the last half of August (or if not the whole of them, at least the greater part of them) have not been paid.

We believe that the nation, and even the employés themselves, who have not been paid the amount of their salaries for one mouth, will approve of this resolution of the Executive, which is dictated in view of sentiments of justice and patriotism, and in the good results of which the whole republic is deeply interested.

Notwithstanding the foregoing, the good season in the ports being now near at hand, and the contraband trade having diminished in consequence of the energetic measures of the department of finance, which have recently occasioned the seizure of certain contraband goods of importance in distant custom-houses, it is hoped that the condition of the treasury will improve.