Mr. Ugarte to Mr. Hay.
Ministry of Foreign Relations,
Tegucigalpa, December 10, 1898.
Sir: In pursuance of a treaty concluded at Amapala on the 20th day of June, 1895, the States of Honduras, Nicaragua, and El Salvador delegated their transient sovereignty to the diet of the Greater Republic of Central America, which was installed September 15, 1896, and assumed charge of the foreign relations of the three countries.
That diet, according to the aforesaid treaty of Amapala, was to cease to exercise its functions as soon as the constitution should be adopted whereby the three contracting States were to unite their interests in a stable and permanent manner.
That constitution was discussed at Managua by the representatives of the three States, was signed on the 27th of August last, and was promulgated as a law of the new political entity called “The United States of Central America.”
[Page 178]On the 1st of November last, in pursuance of the provisions of the constitution adopted, a provisional executive council was installed at Amapala for the purpose of discharging the functions of president of the Republic, pending the election by the people of the citizen who was definitively to fill that high position.
Unfortunately, a movement for separation, headed in the State of El Salvador by Gen. Tomás Regalado, and the subsequent events mentioned in the instrument of dissolution of the council which I have the honor herewith to inclose for your excellency’s information, resulted in a rupture of the federation, the States which formed it resuming in consequence their transient sovereignty under the name of Republics, and the decree being issued here in Honduras, an authenticated copy of which I likewise inclose to your excellency, in order that you may take note of its contents.
Having been called by the Government of this Republic to discharge the duties of minister of foreign relations, I take pleasure in assuring you excellency, in obedience to the instructions of the President, that the Government earnestly desires to continue to cultivate and daily to draw closer, if possible, the friendly relations which have happily existed, and still exist, between Honduras and the United States of America, and that it is firmly purposed to do all in its power to promote the moral and material interests of both by means of a policy of sincere cordiality.
With assurances, etc.,