No. 319.
Mr. Riotte to Mr. Fish.
Managua, May 27, 1872. (Received July 3.)
Sir: I beg to acknowledge the receipt of your dispatch No. 71, of 18th ultimo, together with the inclosed four printed copies of correspondence, which will be preserved as instructed.
While war is raging along the northern border of this republic, and President Medina’s authorities and adherents are flocking to her soil, there has, suddenly, a speck of a war-cloud risen also in the southern sky. In my dispatch No. 110, of the 9th instant, after reporting the failure of the Costa Rican mission, I ventured to predict that it would lead to a decided coldness between the two governments. I was but so far mistaken then as to undervalue the temper of President Guardians administration, which, indeed, not satisfied with coldness, applied, wonderfully urgent, to the honor of this country—as the Nicaraguans have it—and to her dearest material interest, the exit to the Atlantic, a deadly blow.
I beg to invite your attention to the inclosed (No. 1) printed copy and translation of an order of a certain “Juan Carrie.” There is no doubt in my mind as to his having acted under strict orders from San José. I know the man perfectly well; he is a common, illiterate Frenchman, altogether incapable of drawing up such a document, though he makes out to issue it on his own responsibility, why fore is very conspicuous.
In order to fully understand and appreciate the significance of it, I must be permitted to state some facts and to inclose (No. 2) plot of the port and bay of San Juan del Norte. I have copied from an official map.
[Page 733]Pursuant to article 2 of the treaty of April 15, 1858, (Cañas-Jerez,) the entire right bank of the main channel of the San Juan River, from Castillo Viejo down, became Costa Rican territory. This included the Colorado River in its entirety; i. e., from its bifurcation to its mouth, and all the land between the two forks; i. e., between the main channel of the San Juan and the Colorado River, together with the long and narrow sand-spit intervening between San Juan Bay and the sea, and culminating in what is called Punta Castillo, or Puntas Arenas. According to article 4 of the same treaty, the bay of San Juan was to be common to both republics, and it contains moreover two stipulations expressive of the anxiety of the contracting parties to secure to Nicaragua the advantage of unobstructed access from and to the port of San Juan. The deterioration of said port since that time has been going on at such rapid rate, by the absorption of the waters of the upper San Juan into the Colorado, (a survey made about five years ago showed that the latter carried off nine-tenths thereof,) that during the last dry season the principal entrance to the port (near B of the plot) became absolutely impracticable, the bar extending from Pun to Castillo to the main. About the same time, however, the pent-up waters of the bay effected a break through the narrow spit aforementioned, about where point A on the plot is laid down, and this passage was used, under the name of Los Portillos, as entrance to and exit from the port, or if temporarily the surf there was too dangerous, then also the Colorado River would be made use of for that purpose.
Now, both Colorado River and said land-spit forming part of the Costa Rican territory, that government seems desirous of imitating the narrow-minded policy of Holland with regard to the Rhine, of the Spanish governor of Louisiana with reference to the Mississippi, and of England regarding the Saint Lawrence, though she outstrips them in the abruptness and little consideration of her course. Costa Rica, while the ink of article 26 of the treaty of Washington is hardly dry—in the face of the constant and determinedly sustained polity of the United States, claiming for the riparian population of the upper course of a navigable river and its affluents free navigation, ascending and descending, from, to, and into the sea, as a natural right; in the face of the action of European nations acknowledging by treaties that right in the case of-the Rhine and the Danube, and in the face of the unanimous declarations of all American nations-—undertakes to shut out Nicaragua from what may be styled emphatically her river, which at the most outside portion of its ever varying delta has broken through a sand-bank, which only by a good straining of the word can be called territory, but which, in fact, is an uninhabited and uninhabitable spot, (our tars recently christened it Alligator Camp,) irretrievably at the mercy of the high winds and of the never ceasing struggle between ocean and river. She does not limit herself to making police regulations upon the use of what she pretends her exclusive waters, but she broadly asserts that the goods imported and the products exported through Portilios to, respectively, from Nicaragua, (which passage may, and probably will, become useless by the rains already setting in,) must pay Costa Rica duties considerably higher than those of Nicaragua. If it is taken into account that full half of the entire commerce of the country would become tributable to that extortion, the intense excitement spreading over this country is easily explained. There seems little doubt that Costa Rica intends and expects to compel Nicaragua to consent, to use a favorite Napoleonic phrase, to a regulation of the frontiers in accordance with the natural limits and in accord with the honor and interests of [Page 734] Costa Rica, and what she is still more after, so as to get a hold of, if not the entire line of, any possible inter-oceanic canal, at least a considerable portion of it.
During a conversation I had last night upon the subject with the President, he said, from several letters of Mr. Franco, in Paris, which he offered to show me, he felt sure that when some months ago the Costa Rican minister, Mr. Montufar, was in Europe he came to a secret understanding with Mr. Lefevre, of Franco-Lefevre canal-contract notoriety, (see my dispatches Nos. 65 i. f., 67 i. f., and 72,) and that in it Costa Rica * * * bound herself to get hold of the interoceanic canal lines, right or wrong, and that the late meeting at Rivas was the first act in the prosecution of that scheme. He stated further that at Rivas President Guardia taxed all his ingenuity to persuade him to join the Lefevre contract, but that he had told him plainly that both the government and people of Nicaragua coincided in the determination that in case a canal across the republic should prove practicable, then the United States and neither a European power nor its subjects should build and manage it.
He asked me whether, under the present circumstances, it did not seem to me judicious to dispatch an envoy to Washington, since Costa Rica had one there who, it was feared, would, particularly by working upon the members of the diplomatic corps, cause preoccupation to spring up against Nicaragua. I told him he need not be uneasy as to that, since I knew the perfect independence of my Government of any influence from that quarter; and * * * I tried to dissuade him from this idea, telling him plainly that among the politicians I knew of no man in Nicaragua fit to be sent upon such a mission. He replied I was perfectly right, yet he knew a man, not a politician, fit for it, and him he was determined to send, namely, Mr. Emile Benard, of Granada. I forthwith withdrew my objection to the plan, in consideration of the person to be intrusted with its execution, the selection of whom does honor to Mr. Quadra’s sagacity and liberality, and I will here, as indicative of the President’s character, state his very words on that occasion, viz:
“You may rely I shall never send out ministers, as hitherto was the custom here, to get rid of an opponent or enemy, or to enrich at the public expense vile sycophants. I will strive to find the best man, of whatever position, race, or nationality he may be; and rather than to dispatch an incompetent man, I send none at all.”
Mr. E. Benard is a merchant, of French origin, but born in this country; intelligent, energetic, progressive, public-spirited—-qualities he showed to great advantage while mayor of the city of Granada. Part of his education he received at Amherst, Mass., and speaks English fluently. He has seen something of the world, and has turned it to his advantage, and is a friend and admirer of our people.
With the mail of the 25th instant this government has forwarded a remonstrance and protest to San José, but it hardly anticipates a favorable reply, and seems, if I may judge from Mr. Quadra’s words, to rely altogether upon the good offices, or, if need be, the assistance of the Government of the United States.
I was careful to express no opinion on my Government’s views or action.
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I have, &c.,