No. 253.
Mr. Frelinghuysen to Mr. Morgan.

No. 595.]

Sir: Your dispatch No. 820, of the 2d instant, has been received. It presents the case of Howard C. Walker, an American citizen, arrested and imprisoned at Minatitlan, the 19th of March last, charged with having stolen some lumber.

Mr. Walkers statement to you is that for the past two years he has been shipping or river clerk for Mr. R. H. Leetch, of Minatitlan, the heaviest mahogany merchant in Mexico, and that in pursuance of his, Walker’s, legitimate business, he shipped on board the bark Circassian, together with other timber, some hundred and odd logs of mahogany which, as afterwards learned, were claimed by one José R. Teran, but all bearing the brands of Mr. Leetch, and undoubtedly his property. The ship,” continued Mr. Walker, “has been discharged by order of the tribunal and not one log was found with the mark claimed by said Teran, yet, from pure maliciousness, I (Walker) am still held a prisoner.”

You accordingly presented Mr. Walker’s case to the Mexican Government, asking for a speedy investigation thereof. Mr. Fernandez advises you, in reply, that, as a matter of courtesy, he will obtain information upon the subject, but admonishes you that, Mr. Walker not having been registered at the foreign office, diplomatic intervention in his (Walker’s) behalf will not in future be admitted.

Like yourself, I confess to not a little surprise that the Mexican Government should have again resorted to so untenable a ground as that herein advanced, especially, too, in view of the fact, which you state, that since your note to Mr. Mariscal of September 25, 1882, based upon my instruction of July 24, 1882, No. 298, wherein the question of matriculation was fully discussed, you have had occasion to repeatedly call the attention of the Mexican Government to cases of American citizens imprisoned in Mexico, with a view of securing an investigation and speedy trial, and in not one of which has objection been made to your interposition on the ground that the accused person had not matriculated.

In that instruction you were told that this Government declined to recognize the pretension of Mexico to limit the diplomatic intervention in behalf of abused citizens of the United States in Mexico, to those cases in which the injured person had been registered or matriculated, and that the inherent right of such citizen to demand of his Government and its duty to afford him such protection as was possible in a foreign land could not be controlled or abridged by a Mexican municipal statute.

Your action and conclusion in respect of Mr. Walker’s case is therefore approved. Until Mexico shall meet our argument as to matriculation on such basis as this Government may accept, with due regard to its constitutional and international right to protect its citizens abroad, you will continue to ignore the Mexican contention that a failure to matriculate necessarily debars a citizen of the United States from the assistance of its diplomatic representative at the Mexican capital.

I am, &c.,

FRED’K T. FRELINGHUYSEN.