Mr. Sherman to Mr. Romero.
Washington, November 13, 1897.
Sir: I have the honor to acknowledge the receipt of your note of the 28th September, requesting the issuance of a warrant for the surrender to Mexico of Jesus Guerra, charged with the commission of certain crimes growing out of an attack by an armed expedition upon San Ignacio, Mexico.
After mature and careful consideration of the evidence adduced in the case before the extradition commissioner at San Antonio, I have the honor to inform you that this Department can find no sufficient ground on which to grant the extradition. From an attentive reading of that evidence it appears that Guerra was a member of the expedition making the attack, but it does not appear that he is implicated, either as an a better or participant, in the commission of any offense against private parties. Therefore he is not deemed culpable for those offenses committed without his privity; and as the evidence shows the expedition to have been revolutionary in its origin and purpose, the offense of being a member thereof was of a purely political character, outside of the purview of the extradition treaty between the United States and Mexico.
Accept, sir, etc.,