No. 369.
Mr. Porter
to Mr. Buck.
Washington, December 30, 1885.
Sir: Your No. 57 ot the 4th instant describing the late contest between the troops of General Cáceres and those stationed in and about Lima, has been read with much interest.
Your course in joining with your associates of the diplomatic body, in an endeavor to arrest fighting and bloodshed in Lima, appears to have been discreet. The correspondence which you transmit establishes the fact that the tender of good offices was made without suggestion of any determinate solution or purpose of intervening in the settlement of a matter pertaining wholly to the domestic competency of Peru, and that after the first effort to lead both parties towards an understanding had been fruitless and a desperate conflict in the streets of the capital had only ended by the executive of the recognized government calling a truce, the further efforts of your associates and yourself were confined to making known to General Cáceres the proposal of President Iglesias that their respective claims should be withdrawn and the people of Peru be left free to choose a national government. The fact that General Cáceres had repeatedly announced his readiness to abide by such an under [Page 770] standing made its acceptance probable, and the diplomatic body could have had no other participation in the result than the mere exercise of their impartial good offices.
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I am, &c.,
Acting Secretary.