Legation of
the United States,
Mexico, May 23, 1887.
(Received June 1.)
No. 141.]
[Inclosure in No.
141.—Translation.]
Mr. Mariscal to Mr.
Manning.
Department of Foreign Affairs,
Mexico, May 21,
1887.
Mr. Minister: I had the honor to receive the
note dated the 16th instant, in which your excellency was pleased to
advise me that you had promptly informed your Government of the result
of the court-martial for the trial of Colonel Arvizu,
Lieutenant-Gutierrez, and Sergeant Yalenzuela, to-day under sentence of
death; and that said Government had learned with great satisfaction the
alacrity and promptitude with which the Mexican Government proceeded in
the measures taken for the trial and punishment of the offenders. Your
excellency adverts to their offense as being of the utmost gravity, as
it involves the violation of the territory of the United States, and an
outrage upon its judicial jurisdiction which embraced the prisoner
Gutierrez at the time of his violent rescue; also that the Mexican
Government, under this view, had determined to punish the perpetrators
with exemplary severity.
In effect, the Mexican Government highly reproved the action of the
persons I refer to, and if it did not accede to the return of Lieutenant
Gutierrez to the Arizona authorities, it was due to the reasons I gave
your excellency, among them the expediency of giving to Gutierrez and
his accomplices a military trial in their own country. I stated then
that the penalty to which they could be subjected, under the military
code, would have to be very severe, and I based my judgment solely upon
the especially rigorous character of that code in Mexico, as compared
with what is observed
[Page 729]
in other
countries. The sentence of the court of first hearing has confirmed the
correctness of that statement.
Your excellency is pleased to add that your Government, while it thinks
that exemplary severity is necessary in this case, considers the penalty
of death as being too extreme; and has instructed you by telegraph to
request a commutation of the sentence of these offenders, so that their
lives maybe saved. I am charged by the President, in grateful reply to
your excellency, to state that he duly appreciates the philanthropic
sentiments of the Government of the United States upon this occasion,
and will bear the same in mind in the event that the sentence of death
is confirmed by the supreme eourt and execution is ordered.
I reiterate, etc.,
