No. 44.
Mr. Trescot to Mr. Frelinghuysen.

No. 8.]

Sir: Referring to my dispatch, numbered seven, I have to inform you that after mailing it I received a letter from Mr. Hurlbut, saying that he had already extended the invitation of the President to the Government of Peru to attend the proposed congress in Washington.

This action, of which I had been so apprehensive, rendered it necessary that the invitation should also be extended to Chili, for I had no doubt that the fact would be published in the Lima papers. And by the last mail from Lima, I find that not only the fact but the invitation in full has been published.

I therefore wrote to Mr. Adams, at La Paz, and to Mr. Blaine, who is chargé d’affaires here, to say that I desired them to consider my request for delay in the presentation of the invitation as now withdrawn. These letters, with one to Mr. Hurlbut in reply to his information, will be found in inclosures numbered 1, 2, and 3.

As an interview with the secretary for foreign affairs had been appointed for Tuesday last (January 31), Mr. Blaine accompanied me, in order to read the invitation in conformity with his instructions.

Our interview had been arranged for the purpose of comparing our respective drafts of a protocol summarizing the substance of our former confidential conferences, a proceeding to which the secretary seemed to attach considerable importance. After reading over Mr. Balmaceda’s draft in Spanish, and receiving a copy for more careful consideration, I explained to him the purpose of Mr. Blaine’s visit. To my great surprise, he expressed the wish that Mr. Blaine would not read the communication, and then, turning to me, he said, “It is useless. Your government has withdrawn the invitation.” Seeing, I suppose, an expression of astonishment, which I did not pretend to conceal, he added, “Your own instructions have been changed. Your instructions from Mr. Blaine have been published, and others are on their way to you modifying your original instructions in very important particulars. The whole question about Calderon is out of the way, and you are told to be entirely neutral.”

I replied, “I do not understand that there is any such thing as a Calderon question between us,” and then said, “Do you mean, Mr. Secretary, that both my original instructions and the instructions from the present administration are published?”

He said, “Yes, before you have received them I have a telegram, not in cipher, but open,” to which I replied that I supposed so, because I could not see the use of a cipher dispatch in referring to papers already published.

He added, “Yes, they have been published, and will be soon published here in La Patria” (a newspaper). He then went out of the room and returned with a telegram, which, he said, had come from Paris only two days before, and of which he read me the first line, which, as I recollect, was, “The Blaine-Trescot instruction has been published,” and then paused, smiling and looking over the telegram, as if he were uncertain whether he should communicate the rest. I said, “As you say that all this is confidential, don’t make a half confidence of it. If I am to receive my instructions through you let me know them in full.” He [Page 68] smiled, shook his head, and folded up the telegram, saying, “This, however, will not interrupt our negotiation,” and then proceeded, at some length, to state why and to explain what he considered the advantages of the condition of things under the new instructions.

I said to him, “That may all be so, Mr. Secretary, but I think that a diplomatist of ordinary experience would conclude, when he learns that his instructions have been communicated to the government with which he is negotiating, before he receives them himself, that it is time for him to be silent until he does receive them. I think there must be some mistake about all this, but at any rate I must decline to say a word more until I learn from my government what it has done and what it means me to do.”

He said that he hoped that I would receive my instructions very soon; that the position was strained and could not be maintained for an indefinite time, that is, Chili could not wait much longer for the United States to decide what action it would take, and then, for the first time in our conferences, his manner became excited and his language somewhat too demonstrative. “Since you have been here,” he added, “two occurrences have taken place which I am sure are disagreeable to you as they are to Chili. Mr. Hurlbut has refused to consent to the export of certain goods from the blockaded port of Mollendo, unless we will consent to the import of coal, an article contraband of war, tor the use of the railroad, and although we have a right to disregard his refusal, we have not done so. And secondly, Mr. Adams, in Bolivia, has addressed a letter to the government at La Paz, advising them of your mission, and endeavoring to induce them not to make a separate peace before Peru has effected some arrangement, and I do not know how long Chili can bear such interference.”

I said, “Mr. Secretary, the facts which you state are grave, so grave that even in the most confidential conversation I will not express an opinion unless you communicate them to me officially; then I will meet the questions you raise.”

He said, “I have no intention of doing so; I did not even intend to draw a confidential answer from you.”

There the interview ended.

The facts of Mr. Hurlbut’s action, as I have heard them, are these: At the blockaded port of Mollendo, on the Peruvian coast, there has been a large accumulation of produce waiting for exportation. An application was made by Mr. Adams, without consultation with Mr. Hurlbut, to the Chilian authorities in Lima for license to certain mercantile firms, German, I believe, to take out their goods. Fearing that such permission might be considered as an abandonment of the blockade, the Chilian authorities asked the consent of the diplomatic corps in Lima to the issue of the license. Mr. Hurlbut replied that the only American interest in Mollendo was the railroad from Mollendo to Puno, and if that corporation were allowed to import the coal and supplies necessary for its wants he would consent.

You will observe that these facts, if correct, furnish ground for a very different estimate of Mr. Hurlbut’s action than that made by the secretary for foreign affairs. But as I had no official information, either from Mr. Hurlbut or from the Chilian Government, I deemed it injudicious to enter upon any confidential discussion of the subject.

As to Mr. Adams there has been a general impression here that Bolivia had consented or would consent to a separate peace with Chili, by which, in exchange for her littoral territory upon the Pacific, she would be indemnified by some cession of Peruvian territory. When Mr. Adams returned to La Paz he communicated the purpose of the special [Page 69] mission to the government, and did, I believe, succeed in inducing them to suspend any such action until it could be ascertained if the good offices of the United States could effect a general and satisfactory solution. In this I conceive that Mr. Adams was only acting in the line of his duty, but I did not deem it proper to discuss it in a confidential or informal way, for reasons which I think will be obvious to you.

Having thus given you a concise account of the interview, you will allow me to express the hope that my conduct will be approved. My original instructions were in the alternative, and if I failed to obtain such a settlement as the President deemed he had a right to expect, I was directed to take certain action, which could not have been agreeable to the Chilian Government. I could not suppose that such an instruction would be made public while I was endeavoring to secure, and not without some hope of success, the amicable solution of this delicate and difficult question. Still less could I believe that if my original instructions had been seriously modified any communication of such change would have been made to the public, or even confidentially to the Chilian Government, before I could possibly have received it. I could not admit, what the Secretary’s conversation clearly implied, that I did not represent the wishes or intention of my government, and that he was better instructed than myself as to the purposes of my mission.

But as his language and action were evidently based upon his confident knowledge of these supposed instructions, any further conference with him was useless until I heard from the Department.

As both the telegram which I received upon my arrival at Valparaiso, and that of the 10th of January, which reached me only on the 31st ultimo, the translations of which are herewith inclosed, indicated the propriety of very great caution in the execution of my original instructions, and as my telegram of January 23, stating the terms upon which Chili would accept the good offices of the United States, and a reply to which was absolutely necessary for any further negotiation, has not yet been answered, I have determined to do nothing whatever until the receipt of instructions from the government.

I have, &c.,

WM. HENRY TRESCOT.
[Inclosure 1 in No. 8.]

Mr. Trescot to Mr. Adams.

Sir: In my last communication, transmitting the dispatches which had been intercepted, I called your attention to that one in which you were instructed to convey to the Government of Bolivia the invitation from the President of the United States to that government to send representatives to the proposed peace congress at Washington.

In doing so, I asked you to suspend action upon this instruction until you heard further from me on the subject. In the mean time I have been informed by Mr. Hurlbut, the minister of the United States at Lima, that he received similar instructions, and has already communicated them to the Government of Peru. He does not say to whom he has communicated them, as the representative of that government.

You will understand that however inopportune I may consider this communication of Mr. Hurlbut, it renders necessary the communication of the invitation to the other powers.

You will therefore consider the request for delay which I made you as now withdrawn.

I beg to acknowledge your communication of January the 12th, with its inclosure. I am waiting in hourly expectation of telegraphic instruction from the Department, upon the receipt of which I will write you again.

I am, &c.,

W. H. TRESCOT.
[Page 70]
[Inclosure 2 in No. 8.]

Mr. Trescot to Mr. Walker Blaine.

Sir: The reasons which induced me to ask you to withhold for the present the invitation from the President of the United States to the Government of Chili to take part in the proposed peace congress at Washington are known to you.

The dispatches which I have addressed to the Department upon this subject have also been communicated to you, and you are aware that a similar request was made of Mr. Hurlbut, at Lima, and Mr. Adams, at La Paz.

I have received from Mr. Hurlbut a communication under date of January 18, in which he informs me that he has already communicated this invitation to the Peruvian Government.

However inopportune I may consider this communication, it renders the delivery of the invitation to the Chilian Government at once absolutely necessary.

My request that the invitation be withheld is therefore now withdrawn.

I have written to Mr. Adams to the same effect, and inclose you copies of my communication to Mr. Hurlbut and himself.

I am, &c.,

W. H. TRESCOT.
[Inclosure 3 in No. 8.]

Mr. Trescot to Mr. Hurlbut.

Sir: I have to acknowledge your communication of January 18, in which you inform me that you have received and communicated to the Peruvian Government the invitation from the President of the United States to the proposed peace congress in Washington.

The circumstances under which I asked that you would suspend action upon this instruction until after consultation with me were these:

When I was about leaving Washington I was informed by the Secretary that such an invitation would be issued, indeed that it had already been sent to Mexico and Guatemala. I understood that the invitations to Chili, Peril, and Bolivia were to be sent through me to be delivered as the circumstances of the anticipated negotiation seemed to render opportune.

Not finding any such instructions, I telegraphed and wrote from Panama, saying in my dispatch of December 12, “I beg to inform you that the mail contains no such communication, and it will occur to you without suggestion from me that if at some later date these invitations are transmitted to the ministers at Lima, Santiago, and La Paz they should be instructed not to present them without my knowledge and approval. Their delay might, under circumstances by no means improbable, cause very serious embarrassment in the conduct of the special mission with which I have been charged. A reference to my instructions will, I think, sufficiently explain my meaning.”

The difficulty which I anticipated must, I think, have occurred to you.

I could not with any fitness extend this invitation to the Chilian Government until I had ascertained what were the relations between us. If the negotiations should terminate in failure, disturbing the amicable relations between us, the invitation would be either offensive or idle; Chili might, if irritated by the position of the United States as defined in my instruction, construe it to mean an appeal to the public opinion of the American republics against her. But still more important was it that this invitation should not be communicated to Peru and Bolivia without at the same time being communicated to Chili.

My hope therefore was that Mr. Adams and yourself would wait until the time came when the invitation could be properly extended to Chili. I thought it not improbable that you would consider the instructions sent you in reference to the special mission as sufficiently indicating that all questions bearing upon this very delicate and difficult negotiation were to be left to my discretion.

But if your instructions did not in your opinion bear this construction, I felt sure that you would, at my request, co-operate with me in such a line of conduct as, in my judgment, seemed necessary here. I can only regret therefore that my request reached you too late, and after you had carried out your instructions as you understood them.

The communication of the invitation to Peru of course now renders it absolutely [Page 71] necessary to extend the invitation to Chili at once, and I have so informed Mr. Blaine, to whom, as the successor of General Kilpatrick, the invitation is intrusted.

I have also written to Mr. Adams that he will consider my request of delay on his part as now withdrawn.

I am, &c.,

W. H. TRESCOT.