No. 406.
Mr. Biddle to Mr. Fish.
San Salvador, June 10, 1872. (Received July 18.)
Sir: I have the honor to transmit to you herewith the war bulletins issued since the date of my dispatch No. 52. They detail the successful entry of President Gonzalez with his army into Gratias, and the rout and discomfiture of President Medina; also that the Honduranean forces have been everywhere overcome, and that the flight of Medina toward Omoa, on the Atlantic, will probably be intercepted by the Salvadoreans. Confident hopes are expressed that the war nears its close, and that President Gonzalez will return to San Salvador.
The long-threatened expulsion of the two Jesuit fathers has at last [Page 537] occurred, under the direction of Acting President Mendez. At 11 o’clock on the night of the 5th instant, in fulfillment of the twelfth article of the Arbizu-Saraayoa treaty with Guatemala, the Fathers Paul and Pozo were forced to depart from their residence for the port of La Libertad, to sail for Nicaragua the next day. This has elicited a solemn protest from the clergy.
Chapter 1, Article 6, of the constitution declares the “Catholic religion, Roman and apostolic,” that of the state; Articles 101 and 103 of Chapter 19 provide for the right of asylum, and that none shall be forced to move from their residence without judicial requirement. Hence the treaty provision requiring the banishment by the executive of certain ecclesiastics is animadverted on as unconstitutional, and its summary execution has thus roused the church.
But President Gonzalez has been victorious, and the voice of the reactionaries will be drowned in his tumultuous welcome as conqueror. Believing that the war was a reluctant necessity to this government, it is yet with anxiety that in its prosecution I view disregard to the letter of the constitution so recently concluded.
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Success has added to the popularity of President Gonzalez, and a vote by the congress when next assembled approving his course will probably silence those protesting, but the occasional appearance of printed allusions to irregularities of the kind are portentous of difficulties to the administration were it unpopular.
I have, &c.,