No. 63.
Mr. Gresham
to Mr. Baker.
Washington, June 13, 1894.
Sir: I have received yours of the 30th ultimo, communicating copy of a letter addressed to you under date of the 12th, by Mr. Charles Lobner, of Bluefields, in which it is stated that the day after your departure, on the 11th, soldiers were “again plenty” in the town. This you characterize as in contempt of an agreement made by you with the Nicaraguan special commissioner to the reserve, Senor Jose Madriz, that all Nicaraguan soldiers should be removed from Bluefields, and that not more than fifty should be quartered at the bluff.
The President is unable to sanction any intervention by you, restrictive of the sovereign authority of Nicaragua over the territory occupied by the Mosquito Indians. Recognizing, as this Government does, the paramount rights of the Republic in that region, it ill becomes the representative of the United States to interfere to restrain the Nicaraguan Government in the exercise of those sovereign rights.
Your proper function is limited to the protection of American citizens in the reserve, as in any other part of Nicaraguan territory.
You will, before now, have received, if indeed you had not already received at the time of writing your dispatch of May 30, my instructions of May 12th enjoining you to refrain from doing or saying anything tending to disparage Nicaragua’s paramount sovereignty, or to encourage pretensions to rights inconsistent therewith.
I am, etc.,