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  4. Document 733

No. 729.
Señor Camacho to Mr. Evarts.

[Translation.]
Legation of Venezuela,
Washington, March 1, 1881. (Received March 2.)

Most Excellent Sir: I yesterday had the honor to receive your excellency’s note of yesterday, whereby you were pleased to reply to mine of the 7th of February last, in which it was proposed that your excellency’s government should, if it thought proper, distribute through its legation at Caracas the amounts which the Government of the United States of Venezuela pays monthly to its foreign diplomatic creditors, and I cannot avoid beginning this note by expressing to your excellency the very lively satisfaction which it affords me to see the favor with which your government regards the friendly confidence of that of Venezuela in matters touching the continental relations of America with Europe, and by availing myself of this occasion to express my sincere gratitude for your excellency’s earnest and consistent endeavor to promote harmony among the republics of the new world. I can assure your excellency that my government is actuated by the same sentiments that you have inspired and maintained during the whole time that you have so worthily presided over the Department which you are about to leave.

I shall transmit the reply with which your excellency has honored me to my government, that it may decide and instruct me on the various points therein referred to, but I can assure your excellency, even now, that the friendly office which I have had the honor to request in behalf of my government of that of the United States in no wise implies the assumption of the responsibilties of a fidejussor with regard to the foreign diplomatic obligations of Venezuela.

I beg your excellency to accept this respectful explanation with the same sincerity with which it is made, it being dictated by the desire to effect an arrangement which is desired by my government, and which would contribute in every way to expedite the payments which it is interested in making punctually, and with all the facilities that would be secured by the proposed arrangement.

Be pleased, &c.

SIMON CAMACHO.