Office of the Historian

No. 270.
Mr. Maury to Mr. Bayard.

[Extract.]
Legation of the United States,
Bogota, December 19, 1887. (Received January 30, 1888.)
No. 67.]

Sir: I have the honor to acknowledge the receipt of your No. 44, of November 14th last.

I now have the honor to transmit herewith a communication I have this day addressed to Mr. Carlos Holguin, minister of foreign affairs, and will in due time communicate to you his reply, and what other steps I may find it necessary to take in bringing this subject to a satisfactory settlement.

I shall deliver this communication to the minister in person, and urge prompt action in the matter.

I am, sir, etc.,

Dabney H. Maury.
[Inclosure in No. 67.]

Mr. Maury to Mr. Holguin.

Legation of the United States,
Bogotá, December 19, 1887.

Sir: With reference to my notes† of the 14th and 28th April and May 12 last, I have the honor to inclose a further communication * * * on the subject of my notes, which I beg your excellency will be good enough to return me when convenient.

I am again instructed to bring this highly-important matter to the earnest consideration of your excellency’s Government, not doubting that on reconsideration you will see the necessity of preventing any private company from asserting a monopoly over the telegraph across the isthmus.

If such a course were allowed, it will be a source of great trouble to all nations in the near future, and a resolution declaring that Colombia will permit no monopoly of telegraphs or other means of correspondence across the isthmus will greatly gratify the Government of the United states, which looks with much disfavor upon the monopoly now exercised by the telegraph company owning the lines across the Isthmus of Panama, and can not permit its continued exercise.

I take this opportunity to renew, etc.,

Dabney H. Maury.
  1. Not printed.↩