No. 126.
Mr. Bayard
to Mr. Gresham.
Embassy of
the United States,
London, November 27, 1894.
(Received December 10, 1894.)
Sir: I had the honor by my dispatch of the 24th
instant, to lay before you a report of the interview I had just held with
the Earl of Kimberley in relation to Nicaraguan affairs and the British
action connected therewith.
Late on Saturday night, the 24th instant—and after my dispatch had gone—I
received your cablegram in cipher of that date (of which a translation is
now herewith inclosed), and I at once communicated its purport to Lord
Kimberley, and inclose herewith a copy of my note to him, dated November 26,
in which I recounted my report to you.
Yesterday (Monday) afternoon I received a reply from his lordship, inviting
me to call upon him at the foreign office, and at once went there.
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Lord Kimberley, having my note of the 26th lying before him, stated that my
report to you of the interview of Friday previous, as recited in my note of
that day to him, was entirely accurate, but that he had not, then informed
me of his latest telegraphic instructions to the British minister at
Nicaragua respecting a number of decrees which had been lately promulgated
at Blueflelds by the Nicaraguan commissioner, and which, pending the
consideration of the incident of the arrest and expulsion of the British
proconsul and the proposed discussion here by Señor Barrios, were not
accepted by the British Government, but that a notification of a cautious
nature—”a caveat” (as his lordship termed it)—had been filed by the British
minister, in order that the assent and approval by Great Britain of these
decrees, so far as they affected British interests in Nicaragua and British
duty under the treaty of Managua and the Austrian award thereunder, should
not be considered as conclusively given, but to remain suspended until the
mission of Senor Barrios and the incident of Hatches arrest should have
reached a satisfactory termination.
* * * * * * *
I have the honor, etc.,
[Inclosure in No. 126.]
Mr. Bayard to Lord
Kimberley.
Embassy
of the United States,
London, Monday, November 26,
1894.
Dear Lord Kimberley: After the interview which
I had the honor to hold with your lordship on last Friday afternoon I
wrote to my Government a full statement of what you then told me you had
in possible contemplation in relation to Nicaragua, after you should
have considered the reply of that Government (then undergoing
translation from the Spanish) to your demand for explanation of the
incident of the arrest and forcible expulsion by the Nicaraguan
authorities of Mr. Hatch, the locum tenens of the British consul at
Bluefields, in August last.
I reported very fully your statement of the attitude of Great Britain
toward Nicaragua and your desire to have it explicitly understood by the
United States that any measures Her Majesty’s Government might feel
obliged to adopt, by reason of the alleged ill treatment of Proconsul
Hatch, or of other British subjects, at Bluefields, would be wholly
apart and unconnected with the “Mosquito” question or the jurisdiction
of Nicaragua over the inhabitants of the territory included in the
region that bears that name; and that you proposed to proceed, solely
upon grounds of international duty and self-respect, to procure such
redress for an alleged wrong to your citizens as might be found just and
necessary, and that no jurisdictional or other question would be
involved.
Late on Saturday night, and after my dispatch had gone, I received a
telegram from Secretary Gresham to the effect that the Nicaraguan
minister at Washington stated that he had been informed by his
Government that the British minister to Nicaragua had announced that his
Government does not accept Nicaraguan rule in the Mosquito territory,
and that he had sent for a British man-of-war.
The Secretary is not disposed to credit these statements, and merely
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asks for information; but,
before answering his telegram, I wanted to keep you advised of all the
facts and, if you think I should be further informed than I was by you
in our interview of Friday, you will kindly let me know, and I will at
once come and see you.
And I remain, etc.,
