“Tegucigalpa, September 5, 1899.
“Whereas, in the month of February, 1896, there was
communicated to the Government of Honduras through His
Excellency P. M. B. Young, envoy extraordinary and minister
plenipotentiary of the United States of America, the claim
of Mrs. Luella A. Oteri, founded on the detention of the
American steamer Joseph Oteri, Jr.,
which took place on the 15th of July, 1892, by Col. Leonardo
Nuila, chief of the insurrection forces against the
Government presided by General Ponciano Keiva, said claim
amounting to the sum of twenty-two thousand eight hundred
eighty-nine dollars and ninety-five cents for losses which
the claimant alleges to have suffered in the fruit business
during the detention of the steamer, and to the sum of
nineteen thousand nine hundred fifty-four dollars and thirty
cents for damages resulting from the denial to the aforesaid
steamer of entrance into the ports of Honduras in July,
1892.
“Whereas this Government not finding the claim well founded,
this office so indicated it to His Excellency General Young
in a note of February 27, 1896, because it was a fact which
could be proven at any moment it might be desired that Mr.
Nuila detained the steamer and used it on his expedition to
Trujillo with the consent of the captain and other officers;
and because the steamer having served on the expedition of
Mr. Nuila, nothing was more natural than that the
authorities of the constituted Government should not permit
its entrance until receiving satisfactory explanations.
“Whereas, in view of the above expressed and because the new
administration of the country, which arose because of the
revolutionary movement of Mr. Nuila begun at La Ceiba, makes
it possible to treat the matter from a benevolent
standpoint, this office, in the note before mentioned,
proposed to His Excellency General Young, not as an
indemnity for damages, but as payment for services lent by
the steamer, that the claim be arranged in the sum of
($2,500) two thousand five hundred dollars, gold, or its
equivalent in Honduras silver, to be paid in the
custom-house of La Ceiba in monthly installments of ($250)
two hundred and fifty dollars each in gold, beginning with
the date of the termination of this agreement; which
proposition was ratified on the 9th of June of the current
year. Whereas, in an official communication of the 7th of
July last, His Excellency Mr. W. Godfrey Hunter, the present
American minister to the Governments of Guatemala and
Honduras, this office was informed on the same date that the
aforesaid proposition was accepted; and that in consequence
it is proper to effect the payment in the form indicated:
Therefore,
“The President decrees: To order that the custom-house of La
Ceiba pay to Mrs. Luella A. Oteri ($2,500) two thousand five
hundred dollars, gold, or its equivalent in Honduras silver,
such payment to be made in monthly installments of ($250)
two hundred fifty dollars each in gold, which will be
delivered to the Honorable Frederick H. Allison, consul of
the United States at this capital, who has been commissioned
to receive them as they become due and to grant the
corresponding receipts in the name of the United States of
America. Let it be communicated. Sierra. The secretary of
state in the department of foreign relations, by the law.
Ricardo Pineda.”
