No. 140.
Mr. Bayard to Mr. Flores.
Washington, December 21, 1886.
Sir: Your notes of the 31st of August and 5th of October last, relative to the case of Mr. Julio R. Santos, have been received.
So far as the question of Mr. Santos’s citizenship is concerned, the Department is not aware of the existence of any reasons for further discussion. The position of this Government was definitely stated in my note to you of the 1st June, 1885, in reply to your request for delay in the execution of the agreement for Mr. Santos’s release. In that note I said:
I now understand you to ask a reasonable delay in the execution of that agreement, to enable you to possess expected documents before confirming the settlement we reached. I understand you to ask this that you may feel assured that you discharge your duty toward your own Government under your full powers in carrying that settlement into effect.
To such a reasonable delay I have no desire to interpose objection, and the less so as I am convinced that it can merely postpone for a few days, and not overturn the good understanding at which we have arrived.
Permit me, however, to say that it must be expressly understood that there is no implication, from my consent to this delay, that the decision of this Government as to its duty in the premises will be changed or opened for discussion. * * * Your Government releasing Mr. Santos and, for its part, reserving the question of his citizenship, such reservation will naturally extend to and include any personal rights dependent on his citizenship. As I have already told you, no ulterior questions of this nature have been suggested except by yourself. * * *
In replying to this note on the following day, you said:
As for the hope which your excellency expresses that the delay may not result in inducing me to annul my proposed settlement, I assume your excellency does me the justice to believe me incapable of such a proceeding.
Then, after detailing certain circumstances which might operate to delay Mr. Santos’ release, you make this further statement:
I state what in my opinion may be the cause of the delay, for your excellency’s satisfaction, but now without any desire to ask an extension of time. On the contrary, [Page 297] since your excellency reminds me of the grave responsibility which I assume in asking it, I beg to be permitted to respectfully withdraw that request. Other motives constrain me to this withdrawal, and especially, if I have correctly understood your excellency, if there be no room for discussion, and if it be useless to present such proofs as my Government may send me to offset those of Señor Santos. I shall abstain, therefore, from presenting any proofs whatever, and will confine myself to reporting what has occurred.
On the 6th of August, 1885, you officially informed me that the freedom of Mr. Santos had been proclaimed by the President of Ecuador oh the 11th of the preceding month, and you then entered upon an elabo rate discussion of the question of Mr. Santos’s citizenship.
Upon that discussion I did not enter, because I did not perceive its utility or propriety. This Government is not now urging upon Ecuador any demands which depend upon the question of Mr. Santos’s citizenship; and as, by the terms of settlement agreed upon by us for his release and embodied in the telegram sent by you to your Government: on the 15th May, 1885, that question was expressly reserved, speculative discussion in respect of Mr. Santos’s citizenship does not seem necessary to show that, while releasing Mr. Santos, Ecuador did not assent to this Government’s conclusion as to his citizenship.
As to the telegram of the 15th of May, 1885, my recollection coincides with your own; and, although it is not material whether the phrase “reserving all question of citizenship “or “without touching the question of nationality” was employed I regret that by the publication of the correspondence it should have been made to appear, as the understanding of the Department, that the text originally agreed upon was the Spanish, containing the phrase “sin tocar cuestion nacionalidad,” instead of the English containing the phrase “reserving all question of citizenship.”
The English text was the original; and the phrase in the Spanish text, “sin tocar cuestion nacionalidad” (without touching the question of nationality), was your own translation of the expression “reserving all question of citizenship.” I also concur with you in the recollection that the word “passport” in your first English draft of the telegram was stricken out at my suggestion, and the word “permission “inserted, making your telegram read: “Give permission to Santos, at my request, to leave for the United States by next steamer,” instead of “Give passport,” &c.
Your statement in this regard accords with my recollection, and entirely agrees with the position taken by this Department on the question of Mr. Santos’s citizenship. The Government of Ecuador was, of course, at liberty to give Mr. Santos the evidence of such “permission “in whatever form and by whatever name the laws of that country prescribed.
Hence, I suggested the term “permission”in place of “passport,” employed by you, which is generally understood to mean an identified safe-conduct granted by Governments only to their own citizens.
In reference to the omission of your note of the 15th of May, 1885, from the correspondence as printed, I may remind you that other communications were similarly omitted, because some were deemed confidential and others considered immaterial. Nothing, however, has been omitted which is essential to the full comprehension of the views of either Government.
Accept, &c.,