Papers Relating to the Foreign Relations of the United States, Transmitted to Congress, With the Annual Message of the President, December 6, 1886

No. 138.
Señor Flores to Mr. Bayard.

[Translation.]

Legation of Ecuador,
New York, August 31, 1886. (Received September 1.)

Mr. Secretary: The correspondence relative to the case of Don Julio R. Santos, transmitted by your excellency to the House of Repsentatives July 26 last, and published by order of that body, has unofficially reached my hands.

I regret to find myself obliged, complying with an unavoidable duty, to call your excellency’s attention to the fact that what is printed at pages 38 and 50 of the said correspondence as my English translation of my telegram of May 15, 1885, to the President of Ecuador is the very English text agreed upon with your excellency, which I now have with the corrections made by your excellency. Therefore what I translated was the said English text into Spanish, and not vice versa. Nor could it have been otherwise, because, for the contrary to have been the ease, it would have been necessary for your excellency to have first agreed with me upon the Spanish text of the telegram, and not, as was the case, and naturally so, on the English text, which was as follows:

Washington, May 15, 1885.

President Caamáño,
Guayaquil:

Give permission to Santos, at my request, to leave for the United States by next steamer, he binding himself not to conspire and giving written statement he has never conspired, reserving all question of citizenship. Answer “Agreed,” and question settled.

FLORES.

With the hope of avoiding this official note, painful to me on more grounds than one, I hastened to address your excellency a private note on the 7th of July last, in order to bring to your attention, there being ground for it, the fact that the word “reserving” written in the rough draft, of my telegram before “all question of citizenship “had been placed there by your excellency himself as one of your corrections, as was easy to be ascertained from the original to which I referred. Your excellency was pleased to make two other corrections in the telegrams quoted, and the time has come for explaining the meaning of those words of mine which were the object, in some degree, of your excellency’s suppression or emendation.

The first had reference to the word “passport,” which your excellency replaced by the word “permission,” a correction which I accepted at the time without remark as I had no other object in view than the immediate settlement of the question of Mr. Santos’s liberty. But it is now my duty to present to your excellency, in the inclosed papers No. 1 and No. 2, the proof of the propriety of that expression and of the necessity of the passport under the circumstances then existing, conformably with the uses and customs of Ecuador and its very constitution.

I shall thank your excellency, if, after reading the said documents, any doubt remains in your excellency’s mind in respect to the matter, to inform me of the same, inasmuch as a distorted interpretation has been publicly given to what was merely the customary language of my country and in compliance with a constitutional requirement.

In fact, not only does article 32 of the constitution make mention of a passport in time of war, but also, according to article 94 of the said constitution, “if the person accused” (of conspiracy) “shall ask a passport to leave the Republic, it shall be given him.”

Both these weighty reasons induced me, therefore, to request a passport for Mr. Santos in the telegram which I composed in your excellency’s presence on the 15th of May, 1885.

And in order that your excellency may form a more complete idea, not of the rectitude of my intention towards my Government, which is fortunately apparent, and I think cannot be called in question, but upon my private efforts to bring about the desired result, I pass on to your excellency’s other emendation to my telegram. It consisted in the elimination of the words “bajo fianza” under bail, with which I desired to request the liberation of Mr. Santos. For, Mr. Secretary, this is also the proper time to reveal to your excellency that I privately offered my security, without informing your excellency thereof, for the said Mr. Santos; and, if I mention it now, it is because it is stated by implication in the following words of the note of Mr. Martin Reinberg, vice-consul of the United States at Guayaquil, dated May 29, 1885, and printed at page 42 of the official publication I have before me:

He replied [the Governor of Guayaquil] that in answer to the telegram of the Hon. Antonio Flores, minister of Ecuador at Washington, requesting the release of Mr. Santos and his departure to the United States, the Quito Government had telegraphed him to transmit to Mr. Flores the following:

“That before Mr. Santos could be released the guarantee of Mr. Flores for the prisoner’s bail must be sent in a proper legal form.^*”

The previous words explain the meaning of the following telegram from His Excellency the President of Ecuador, which I showed your excellency on the 29th of May, 1885, “Draw document first,” which neither your excellency nor I could understand in the Department, because of the omission of the word “fianza” (bail) in the telegram.

But for this circumstance I should have hastened to have had the proper document drawn immediately, and would have then obtained the liberation of Mr. Santos by means of my own pecuniary responsibility. In any event the satisfaction remains to me of having given to the United States this additional and irrefutable proof as well of the loyalty of my procedure as of my ardent desire to settle this matter promptly and satisfactorily and to remove every cause of difference.

Before concluding, I beg to be permitted to make three additional observations:

(1) I find omitted in the printed documents my reply of the 15th of May to your excellency’s note of the evening previous, a reply which I delivered in person in the Department at 10 a.m. of that day.

(2) I have now for the first time become acquainted with the Department’s correspondence with the United States agents in Ecuador respecting the Santos affair, inasmuch as on the 15th of May, 1885, only the papers transmitted by Mr. Santos or his friends and the opinion of Mr. Wharton were shown to me.

I could, therefore, scarcely have expressed any opinion on a correspondence which I had not seen, nor on the position which ought to be assumed as a result thereof; and if the contrary has been believed, it is my fault or misfortune not to have expressed myself.

(3) I say as much in respect to the “belief” which it is thought “I showed on May 15, 1885, that my powers were sufficient to propose an arrangement by which Santos should be set at liberty,” page 50 of the correspondence. In respect to this matter I refer to your excellency himself, who, on the previous page (49), is pleased to state very exactly:

Mr. Flores declared that he was in ignorance of the merits of the case, he not having received the instructions which his Government had announced as on the way to him.

I was, indeed, at that date, May 15, 1885, without powers as regards the Santos matter or instructions of any kind, which only reached me May 30, as moreover is mentioned by your excellency at page 51:

On the 30th of May, Señor Flores addressed me a note in which he informed me he had received from his Government instructions in which he was empowered to settle the Santos matter.

Only at that time, therefore, and not previously was I empowered to settle the Santos question; that is, in respect to his nationality, since, so far as his liberation was concerned, I declared in my note of the 2d of June, page 47, that “my Government could not confer on me an authority” [that of Santos’s liberation] “which it did not have itself.”

I regret most strongly, therefore, that it may have been believed that my Government should have “authorized” me “to offer the settlement” of May 15, 1885.

If the said authority had been given, it is clear that I would not have needed further approval of the plan of settlement which was conceived by me, without the instructions above mentioned, and to which I was moved solely by my very ardent desire to terminate the affair by means of the liberation of Mr. Santos, and the reserve or the compromise of the question concerning his nationality. To this second point, and not to the first, did my note of May 30, 1885, refer; also the later one of June 2, of the same year, in which I thought it useless to fix a term apparently short for the presentation of documents which, in my judgment, could only be collected after some delay.

Certain it is that only about the middle of the present year has it been possible to send me the series of proofs which appear from the annexed résumé which the attorney sent by my Government to the province of Manabi for the purpose, transmitted with them (accompaniment No. 3).

The said evidence moreover establishes the other points stated therein concerning the legality of the proceedings in the trial which Mr. Santos underwent, the freedom accorded for his defense, and his good treatment in prison.

Not desiring to farther trouble your excellency’s attention, I confine myself to mentioning the fact, and conclude by begging your excellency to accept, &c.,

A. FLORES.

[Inclosure 1 in note of August 31, 1886.]

Señor Jaramillo to Señor Don Antonio Flores.

Republic of Ecuador,
Administration of the Province of Guayas,
Guayaquil, July 16, 1886.

According to article 32 of the constitution of the state, “All persons shall be permitted to travel freely, to change their domicil, to leave the Republic and to return to it, taking with them or bringing back their property. The case of war is excepted, when a passport is necessary.”

This passport, required of citizens and foreigners by way of precaution both in behalf of the interests of the Government and of private individuals, in no way changes or prejudices the citizenship of those who ask or receive it; therefore the foreigner who in time of war is required to ask a passport, and, in fact, employs it, does not lose thereby his character of foreigner nor contract any obligation.

Which information I give your excellency in virtue of the constitution and the laws of the state and officially, in order that your excellency may be enabled to use this note in such manner as your excellency may deem fit.

God keep your excellency.

M. JARAMILLO.

[Inclosure 2 in note of August 31, 1886.]

Mr. Flores to Mr. Kelly, contractor of the Southern Railroad, Ecuador.

Legation of Ecuador,
New York, June 26, 1886.

My Dear Mr. Kelly: Will you be so good as to answer mo the following questions, authorizing me to make use of your answers?

(1) Which is your nationality?

(2) When you left Ecuador recently, did you have to provide yourself with a passport?

(3) Do you consider that you relinquish your nationality by receiving a passport?

Very sincerely, yours,

A. FLORES.

Mr. Kelly to Mr. Flores.

Victoria Hotel, June 27, 1886.

My Dear Mr. Flores: In reply to the three questions foregoing, I beg to say to the first that I am an English subject; to the second, that when I left Ecuador recently, like everybody else I had to provide myself with a passport from the governor of Guayaquil, without which the steamship company would not have sold me tickets; and to the third, that I have never considered my English nationality in any way endangered or made questionable by having an Ecuadorian passport in my possession.

Yours, very truly,

M. J. KELLY.

[Inclosure 3 in note of August 31, 1886.]

Résumé of the evidence concerning Mr. Santos transmitted to the Ecuadorian Government by the attorney sent to Manabi to collect and examine the said evidence.

The researches lately made in respect to the affair of Julio R. Santos produce the following evidence:

complicity in the revolution of November, 1884.

The trial held in the province of Manabi contains the record of all the revelations made respecting the various revolutionary movements which began in said province, and from it have been taken the copies which form Document A. From those copies it appears that Julio R. Santos was one of the principal revolutionary agents in Bahia, as witnesses of unimpeached credibility proved, it being evident that the nullity which has vitiated a portion of the trial has left more than ten uniform declarations on the same point of no effect.

These declarations are being made again, through the confirmation of them by the witnesses, and the copied document contains only the affidavits of those who have already sworn to them before a competent magistrate.

legal trial and freedom of defense.

The course pursued in the prosecution instituted against all the conspirators, both citizens and foreigners, as appears from the copies in the same Document A, is that laid down by the laws of Ecuador both in respect to the competence of the judge who issued the process and to all the formalities of the progress of the trial.

To that joint trial Julio R. Santos has been and is now being subjected, as is shown by the various papers which the copy contains, and as also his various petitions proved, on which decision has been duly made by the judge, respecting the right of defense accorded by the laws of Ecuador to every person under trial.

delay in the judicial proceedings.

As there were different revolutionary movements which burst forth in the province of Manabi, all having the same origin, four cases have been united in one. This circumstance, the very nature of the offense, and the number of the accused, which is over sixty, have been the cause of numerous delays in the progress of the trial; the principal of these being the lack of judges and functionaries free from legal impediment growing out of relationship, friendship, or enmity, or the relation of creditor or debtor,”&c., with some of the accused, a difficulty easily appreciated where small localities are in question, in which all kinds of connections, especially those of the family, are generally extended and complicated.

Document A contains the record of the court, twelve pages, and the examination instituted by the secretary of the treasury, twenty-six pages, as conclusive proof of what is stated.

imprisonment of santos.

Documents B and F, from page 7, contain the affidavits of the officers who captured Julio R. Santos, finding him with arms in his hands, conducting armed men, and munitions of war.

good treatment of santos while in prison.

The proof of this fact appears from the investigation existing in Document C. By this it is seen that Julio R. Santos was treated in his prison with greater consideration than the other political prisoners for the same offense.

santos considered as a citizen of ecuador.

According to Don Julio R. Santos’s own view and that of the Government of Ecuador he had resumed his citizenship.

Proof of the first is the fact that Santos accepted the public office of treasurer of the Cisandine road, for the discharge of the duties of which he offered the security which appears in Copy E; arid proof of the second is the decision taken by the Government in 1881 that Santos should serve in the national guard—a decision whose copy forms Document D.

animus manendi.

Proofs on this point are the affidavits of Document F, taken in Bahia, Julio R. Santos having been personally summoned, and from which appear against him his residence for many years in the Republic; his owning real property, cultivating, and improving the same, as if to use it for a long period of time; his participation in commercial business of long duration.

Such is in substance the value of the evidence collected by the undersigned in fulfillment of the commission intrusted to him by the supreme Government.

RAFL. MA. ARIZAGA.

Guayaquil, April 15, 1886.

1. Words in quotation also given in Spanish.