Mr. Romero to Mr. Gresham.
Washington , March 21, 1894 . (Received March 21.)
Mr. Secretary: I have the honor to acknowledge the receipt of your note of yesterday, in which you state to me, with reference to the note I wrote to you on the 17th of February last, whereby I communicated to you the determination of the Government of Mexico to give, by way of equity, to Mrs. Baldwin the sum of $20,000 in the installments expressed in that note, that you understood from our previous conversations on this matter that this sum was to be paid in gold, and that on such terms the offer would be accepted by the Government of the United States.
I have the honor to state to you in reply that the Government of Mexico authorized me to offer to that of the United States the sum of $20,000 in gold, payable out of the fund which is in deposit and which [Page 421] belongs to the La Abra and Weil claims, in the event of the Court of Claims of the United States, before which the respective awards are pending, declaring that this fund belongs to the Government of Mexico and is to be returned to it in conformity to the provisions of the act of December 28, 1892.
I communicated this offer to you in the interview which we had in the Department of State on the 6th of June, 1893; but, the condition fixed by the Government of Mexico not having appeared acceptable to you, I made the necessary negotiations in this relation, and in the end the Government of Mexico authorized me to make to you the offer which I conveyed in my note of the 17th of last February.
Not being authorized to alter the terms of that offer, I now transmit your note to the Mexican Government, in order that in view thereof it may decide as it deems proper; but nevertheless I believe I can say to you forthwith that if the offer of $20,000 payable from the fund in question should be deemed by the Government of the United States preferable to the last submitted offer, I am sure that the Government of Mexico will abide by it.
Be pleased to accept, etc.,