Señor Pedro Montt to Mr. Blaine.
Washington, January 23, 1892.
Sir: I have had the honor to receive your note of yesterday, as an inclosure to which you were pleased to transmit to me the instructions sent to Mr. Egan on the day previous.
In the numerous conferences with which you have been pleased to favor me, I have informed you that, immediately after the occurrence of the [Page 348] events of October 16 at Valparaiso, which my Government most sincerely deplored, the judicial authorities initiated the investigation necessary to throw light upon the facts and to detect and punish the guilty parties.
From the antecedents which the Government of Chile was able to collect at the very outset, it appeared that the disorder of October 16 began by a quarrel among drunken sailors, which assumed considerable proportions, owing to the condition of the locality in which it originated, and that the police performed their duty by reestablishing tranquillity and placing the persons who seemed to have been concerned in the disorder at the disposal of the court.
The Government of Chile has no data authorizing it to think that the quarrel was due to any dislike of the uniform of the United States, or that the police failed to perform their duty.
On the contrary, it is a well-demonstrated fact that sailors get intoxicated when they go ashore after having been on board of their vessel for a long time. This is also quite natural. The intoxication of seamen and the disorders to which it gives rise, although they may assume serious proportions and occasion very lamentable offenses, as was unfortunately the case at Valparaiso on the 16th of October, can not constitute an insult to the nation in whose service are the men who have taken part in the disorder, although they certainly do not justify the offenses committed during the disorder.
The Government of Chile could not, however, form a final opinion concerning the nature of the occurrences in question, or as to whether the police had or had not improperly participated therein, or had failed to perform its duty, until the termination of the judicial investigation which had been initiated without delay, and which was pushed forward as speedily as was compatible with the provisions of the law, with the obligation of collecting all the elements of proof that it was possible to collect in order to throw full light upon the matter, and with the necessity of promptly punishing the perpetrators of the offenses which had been committed, and which had been in part suffered by persons in the service of a friendly nation. It was the desire and the duty of the Government of Chile to discover the truth, in order to make its future proceedings conform thereto, and in order that the United States Government might be satisfied that nothing was neglected in order to do full justice.
You were pleased, with your high sense of rectitude, to remark to me that this proceeding of the Government of Chile was correct, and that, although you desired that the judicial investigation might be brought to a close with as little delay as possible, you understood that it was necessary that the ordinary legal proceedings (which were not as rapid in Chile as in the United States) should be held.
I have taken occasion at sundry times to inform you of what the Chilean authorities were doing to bring the investigation to a close.
In the criminal trial held at Valparaiso, not only have landsmen been heard, but also the seamen of the Baltimore; both have been confronted with each other, the reports of physicians and experts have been called for, the opinion of the surgeon of the cruiser has likewise been invoked, and, in a word, nothing has been neglected that could tend to bring the whole truth to light. The seamen of the Baltimore made their statements with the assistance of an interpreter, designated by themselves, who was an officer of the cruiser, so that the oath taken by the witnesses, their confrontation with each other, the reports of the experts concerning the cause and nature of the wounds, and the hearing granted to both Chileans and Americans, so that all might present [Page 349] their complaints and charges and be heard in their own justification, give incontestable authority to the trial held at Valparaiso.
In the course of our conferences we sometimes considered the case in which the Government of the United States and that of Chile should fail to agree when the investigation should be terminated, and the two Governments should have formed their final opinion, and we agreed that arbitration was the best means of settling the difficulty, and, advancing farther in this conciliatory spirit, we even formally agreed that the differences that might arise should be submitted to arbitration.
This agreement to accept arbitration has been the basis of several of our conferences, especially that of the 18th instant, and no antecedent or fact interfering therewith has come to my knowledge. On the contrary, I took occasion to inform you, on the 1st of January, that my Government authorized me to conclude an agreement looking to arbitration, and my Government subsequently approved the agreement concluded by roe with you, of which I also informed you.
As the criminal trial initiated at Valparaiso has not yet come to an end, my Government has not yet been able to reply to the demands made by that of the United States. The various documents and antecedents to which I have called your attention in my foregoing communications were designed to inform the United States Government of the progress of the judicial investigation and of the facts thereby elicited; they do not, however, constitute a reply, which can only be given when the facts are definitely brought to light by the sentence which must be pronounced by the courts.
The testimony which the Government of the United States has caused to be taken in California from the crew of the Baltimore can not take the place of the trial which is being held at Valparaiso, where the offenses were committed. This testimony may be useful for disciplinary or administrative purposes in the United States, but it can not serve as the basis of a judicial sentence, either in Chile or in the United States.
The copy which I have to-day had the honor to send you of the statement made by one of the seamen of the Baltimore at Valparaiso shows that that seaman made no charge against the police. The charges which he makes here, in the absence of the accused parties, in contradiction of his first statement, can have no value, either in law or in your enlightened opinion.
It is to be observed, moreover, that the statement made by this seaman at Valparaiso is attested by the judge, by the signature of the seaman himself, and by that of the interpreter, who was an officer of the Baltimore, who had been appointed for the express purpose of inspiring the deponents with confidence.
You are pleased to state, in your instructions to Mr. Egan, that the undersigned has not communicated to the United States Government the note that was addressed to him by Mr. Matta on the 11th of December last. The first time that the honorable Secretary of State saw fit to call my attention to the aforesaid note of Mr. Matta, I told him that that note contained instructions addressed to me by Mr. Matta, and that, as I had not been directed to communicate it officially to the Department of State, there was no reason why the honorable Secretary should take cognizance of it.
I further reminded you that it was a doctrine established by the American Government that documents exchanged between the President and Congress, or between the Department of State and the diplomatic representatives of the United States in foreign countries, could not form a subject of discussion for foreign governments.
[Page 350]I also took the liberty to remind you of the case of the illustrious Webster and the representative of Austria in 1850. The Austrian Government complained at that time because it considered the instructions sent to a representative of the United States unjust or disrespectful to Austria, the said instructions having been published with a message of the President, who sent it to the Senate. “This Department,” said Mr. Webster, “has on former occasions informed the-ministers of foreign powers that a communication from the President to either house of Congress is regarded as a domestic communication, of which, ordinarily, no foreign state has cognizance, and in more recent cases the great impropriety of making such communications a subject of correspondence and diplomatic discussion has been fully shown.”
The circumstance of publicity does not change the character of a communication, in the opinion of Mr. Webster, “because such is the common and usual mode of proceeding” in the communications of the President and the Senate.
It was, therefore, on the nature of the note, and on no other reason, that I based my abstention from communicating to you the instructions which Mr. Matta had sent me on the 11th of December, and I had the honor so to inform you.
I added, however, that it was far from being the purpose of my Government to act in a manner at all offensive to the President of the United States or to any member of his Cabinet, and that Mr. Matta’s note, if rightly interpreted, admitted of no such construction.
I afterwards had the honor to inform you that I had received instructions from my Government to inform that of the United States that, considering the views expressed by Messrs. Buchanan and Webster, in 1849 and 1850, that the messages sent by the President to Congress are domestic communications which can not serve as a basis for the interpretation by foreign powers or their representatives, my Government had no objection to striking out of the note of December 11 such words as might be considered disagreeable by the United States Government.
On the 18th instant an official telegram was published, which had been addressed by the commander of the Yorktown to the Secretary of the Navy. It was couched in terms that were offensive to the Government of Chile, and, in view of what w;e had said concerning the note of December 11, I deemed it my duty to call your attention to that telegram. The lofty spirit of justice which characterizes you did not permit you to hesitate to tell me that the wording of the said telegram was improper and objectionable. This declaration on your part, which was as impartial as it was just, terminated the incident.
Since the early part of the month of October, when I had the honor to be invited to unofficial conferences with the representatives of the Department of State (as the credentials which accredited me as minister of Chile had not yet arrived), it has been repeated to me on various occasions by the United States Government that, if the representative of the United States at Santiago was not a persona grata to the Government of Chile, it was sufficient for the Government of Chile so to state, and that the said representative would be succeeded by another.
It is a rule based upon the nature of diplomatic relations, and designed to make them frank and cordial, that the representative of a nation must be a persona grata to the government to which he is accredited.
In the conference with which you were pleased to favor me on the 20th instant, I had the honor to state that the representative of the United States at Santiago was not a persona grata to the Government [Page 351] of Chile, which would be very glad to receive another representative from the United States. You were pleased to acknowledge that the Government of Chile had a right to ask that a change should be made. Afterwards, having given you notice, I addressed to you, in writing, the same communication which I had made to you verbally.
I have deemed it my duty to state, in this note, the foregoing facts, which show the friendly and cordial purpose of our conferences, in which you took a most important part.
With sentiments, etc.,