No. 401.
Mr. Biddle to Mr. Fish.
San Salvador, April 20, 1872. (Received May 18.)
Sir: Referring to the correspondence between the Department of State and this legation relative to the asylum and conditional surrender [Page 530] of Ex-President Dueñas, comprised in dispatches Nos. 45 and 48 (with inclosures) of my predecessor, and in your reply No. 33, I have the honor to state that, held a close prisoner in the military college, charges were preferred against him to the congress for various malfeasances in office, including not only usurpation of office, peculations and misappropriation of funds, nepotism, &c., but also the charge of assassination in unlawfully causing Ex-President Barrios to be shot to death. After a protracted investigation, the particulars of which have not transpired, the senate resolved itself into a sort of a grand jury, and presented the case to the ordinary tribunals for final determination. I was informed by the minister of state for foreign affairs that the trial might be expected within a reasonable period. There is a strong feeling against the ex-President among a large body of the community, and in these days of war with Honduras there is a renewal of the popular excitement as at this date of last year. I have heard many cautious men express the belief that the trial will end in his being senenced to death. * * * I am told that the charge of assassination is not within the seven regular accusations, but was included in those submitted to the courts.
I have been able to obtain no further data of the action of this legation in the case than that now in the possession of the Department.
I would respectfully invite your attention to the following extracts from General Torbert’s dispatch No. 45:
I offered him (Dueñas) the protection of the legation, and that I should demand of General Gonzalez a complete guarantee for his life; about 6.30 p.m. he came to my house, &c.
* * * * * *
As soon as General Gonzalez entered the city I waited upon him and asked him that he would not allow any political executions; he cheerfully and positively assured me that there should not be one, and that he would answer for Señor Dueñas’s life with his own.
By General Torbert’s dispatch to you, No. 48, and by the correspondence inclosed therein, it seems that in the surrender of the ex-President to the authorities it was understood “that in no case will Señor Dueñas’s life be forfeited,” on account of the solemn guarantee of the supreme government and the personal assurance given him by the President himself.
I also present the following as a more accurate translation of the pledge made by Señor Arbiza to General Torbert, in his communication of the 20th April, 1871, as inclosed in the referred-to dispatch, and stronger for Dueñas than that in the published Papers relating to the foreign relations, December 4, 1871.”
(Fourth paragraph.) The honorable minister of the United States must rely upon the formal assurance which the government gives him by these presents that the life of Señor Dueñas will be respected as far as it may be in its power to avoid any attempt against it, the same as in any other event, and that he will be kept in custody without causing him unnecessary annoyance.
The first translation might be construed to apply to the excited mob, but the latter to “any other event?
I believe the President of Salvador to be mercifully inclined, and I have seen his approval and that of the minister of foreign relations, when I have told the story of our regenerated republic and terrible war without one political execution, not one victim whom exasperated partisans could call martyr, but it was unwise as well as impracticable to anticipate the result of this special case.
For the present, with the increasing excitement here, a knowledge of the past, and of the Spanish-American races, it is impossible to predict [Page 531] what may be, but there is a great uneasiness expressed as to the fate of Dueñas.
The ease seems to hinge upon the compact made with General Torbert at the date of his surrender. Am I to construe it as a guarantee for Dueñas’s life, binding on this government at all events, or as an assurance that when the effervescence of first fury was over, the case should be submitted only to the regular tribunals, as now, after the expiration of a year! The only evidence is in the dispatches in your possession.
Article 112 of the constitution provides, “that the death penalty is abolished in political cases, and only can be inflicted for the crimes of assassination, assault, and arson, when death ensues.”
Praying your indulgence for thus trespassing on your valuable time, in requesting general Instructions for guidance in this case,
I have, &c.,