No. 340.
Mr. Bayard to Mr. Romero.
Washington , April 22, 1886.
Sir: I have bad the honor to receive your note of the 13th instant, with which you lay before me certain extracts from the speech read by the President of the Mexican United States before the Congress of the Union on the 1st instant, at the opening of the sessions of that high body, concerning the encounter at Teopar, in the State of Chihuahua, on the 11th January last, when Captain Crawford, of the United States Army, lost his life.
As you thus officially bring the remarks of President Diaz to my notice, I feel authorized (as otherwise I should not have felt) to say that the information of his Excellency the President is wholly different from all that has been received by this Government in relation to the grave occurrences attendant upon the killing of Captain Crawford by the volunteer troops of Mexico.
In order to bring to your knowledge some of the facts which are entirely inconsistent with those upon which his Excellency President Diaz seems to have relied, I inclose herewith a copy-of a recent instruction* addressed by me to Mr. Jackson, the United States minister at Mexico, which was accompanied by the latest report on the subject received from Lieutenant Maus, the officer who succeeded in command after the killing of Captain Crawford. The Government of the United States will of course await the fullest investigation, although, as the case stands, there is little room left to doubt the hostile and criminal conduct of the officers and men of the Mexican detachment that came into collision with Captain Crawford and killed him and some of his men, besides subsequently grossly insulting by actual arrest and threatened detention Lieutenant Maus and his interpreter after their nationality had been perfectly understood.
These instructions to Mr. Jackson and the report of Lieutenant Maus are communicated to you in the confident hope that they will procure your most impressive exercise of influence and representations toward your Government in order to lead to its fulfillment of the obligations due to a friendly neighbor and bring about the vigorous punishment of the guilty.
Accept, sir, &c.,