File No. 22372/3.
The Nicaraguan Chargé to the Secretary of State.
Washington, November 19, 1909.
Mr. Secretary: I have had the honor to receive your important communication dated yesterday and delivered to me at 11 p.m.
In compliance with your wishes I immediately telegraphed to my Government about the fact your excellency is pleased to bring to my notice and having officially received those reports I have the honor to bring the following to your excellency’s knowledge.
Two American citizens, Lee Roy Cannon and Leonard Groce, were caught in the act of laying mines in the San Juan River of Nicaragua for the purpose of blowing up two steamers carrying the Government forces. They confessed their guilty and being thereupon tried and offered every means of defense provided in such cases by the laws of my country; they were sentenced to death by the military court, which sentence was executed.
My Government has forwarded to this legation the whole record of the case; that is, the trial of these two Americans which clearly demonstrates the guilt and commission of offense which, under the military laws of Nicaragua, are punished as above stated.
I shall at the proper time have the honor to lay before your excellency the record herein above referred to.
It is to be noted that the sentenced men were well known in Central American revolutions; that they had been arrested for like offenses; that this was not their first offense; and that Cannon was recently sentenced to the penitentiary in Honduras for taking an active part against Nicaragua. All this will be fully substantiated [Page 448] by the record of the trial which is now on the way and which will, I have no doubt, be the best justification of the action of the Nicaraguan military tribunal.
I avail, etc.,