No. 455.
Mr. Mariscal to Mr. Fish.
New York, March 9, 1875. (Received March 11.)
Mr. Secretary: I have had the honor to receive your note of the 19th ultimo, whereby you were pleased to reply to mine of the 30th of Janary relative to the murder of seven Mexican shepherds, which was committed in Nueces County, Texas. You had the courtesy to praise in your note the moderation, clearness, and fullness, as you express it, of the statement which I made of the case; adding that you were unable to understand my conclusion in regard to the responsibility of the Government of the United States in the matter.
“I am not aware that any government is answerable, in pecuniary damages for the murder of individuals by other individuals within its jurisdiction.” In these words of the note, to which I have the honor to reply, is set forth, I think, the principal reason why you consider as without foundation my request that the families of those shepherds, and the owner of the estate on which the crime was committed, might be indemnified for the injury done them. The principle laid down in the above passage is an unquestionable truth, and for my part I am very far from wishing to dispute it. 1 did not claim that the mere fact of the shepherds having been murdered by Texans, who so far as is known were not acting in a public capacity, obliged the Government of this country to furnish redress for any injuries caused by that crime. No, indeed; the ground which I proposed to state for such obligation was the denial of justice, or rather the absolute lack of its administration in the case, as I endeavored to explain in my aforesaid note; no effort was made for the detection of the criminals, although their detection would have been very easy in view of the circumstances adverted to by me. I stated that the Mexican consul at San Antonio had taken measures, although without success, to secure an investigation of the matter and the punishment of the offenders; similar steps were likewise taken by the consul of Mexico at Brownsville, with the same result.
You were pleased to observe that it is the duty of a government, in [Page 979] cases like the present, “to prosecute such offenders according to law, by all means in its power. If this duty,” you very justly add, “be honestly and diligently fulfilled, the obligation of a government in such a case is discharged.” I agree to these propositions entirely; but in my judgment they condemn the more than negligent conduct of the Texan authorities, including the chief magistrate of the State, its governor, who admitted the inefficiency of the laws in Nueces and other counties, and put an end by his insinuations to all hope of obtaining justice.
It would certainly not be reasonable to expect that, in that portion of Texas, where the most perfect order does not prevail, all criminals should be punished to the full extent of the law; it was not, however, unreasonable to ask that the authorities should show some zeal in discovering the perpetrators of a crime which had caused so great scandal and alarm. Nothing, however, was done for that purpose, or even to save appearances. No witnesses were examined and no investigation was made, although there was an abundance of circumstantial evidence in the place where the crime was committed, in those adjoining, and in the village to which the murderers had gone, as appeared from their tracks or those of their horses.
The system of legislation which prevails in the whole country, as you are pleased to observe, does not permit a person to be arrested without a sworn statement made against him by a credible witness; and in the present case it is probable that those immediately injured did not present such evidence against any particular person. The laws of this country, however, are too enlightened not to accept as sufficient the action of injured parties in the investigation of grave crimes. In this instance the injured parties, the families of the murdered men, resided in a foreign country, as did also the owner of the estate, who only went for a moment to Texas to learn the nature of the disaster, and who fled in dismay when he found how matters stood. It was the duty of the authorities to investigate a fact so well known, which had been published and commented upon by the newspapers, and they would have been more zealous if they had really desired to punish the murderers, so as to avoid at least the charge of culpable weakness or connivance with the criminals. Nevertheless, weeks and months passed and nothing was done. The Mexican consuls presented respectful complaints, and still nothing was done until the governor replied in an unsatisfactory manner that the best way for Mexican stock-men and shepherds to secure their own safety was not to reside in that portion of the country.
It is not my intention, Mr. Secretary, to trouble you with long reflections on this subject. What I have stated will suffice to show the ground of the request with which, in the name of my government, I concluded my previous note in support of the claims of Toribio Lozano and of the families of the seven murdered shepherds. I might quote in support thereof the authority of some writer on international law, or of some precedent in a similar case, in order to show the responsibility of a government in cases of denial of justice; it does not, however, seem necessary to me to make such quotations at present, which must certainly be sufficiently well known to you. I feel confident, moreover, that the Government of the United States will become convinced of the justice with which it is asked to redress an injury caused by culpable negligence on the part of the authorities of Texas.
I avail, &c.,