Other portions of this important document will be presented to you in
subsequent dispatches, and as soon as the report reaches me in pamphlet form
it shall be transmitted to you.
[Inclosure in No.
23.—Translation.]
Extract from the report of the Chilian minister of
foreign relations.
the mission of messrs. trescot and
logan.
The attention which was due to the exterior policy lately displayed by
the United States has been without doubt a principal part in the labors
of this department. Confiding in the traditions of the Government of
Washington and of all its successes, Chili could never suppose that that
Republic might make diplomatic difficulties, which would bring to us new
and deplorable complications in the war of the Pacific. If late acts
signalized a momentary danger in the attitude of the American Cabinet,
others elevated and generous very soon dispelled them.
Our international relations with that country may be divided into three
distinct phases, which may be referred to the time of existence of the
actual administration. The first comprehends the direct action of the
Government of Chili with the representatives of the United States on the
Pacific from the 18th of September, 1881, to the period when Mr. W.
Henry Trescot, special envoy extraordinary and minister plenipotentiary
of the Washington Cabinet, left Callao. The second embraces the labors
of our minister plenipotentiary in the United States from his arrival in
that country to the date on which he was accredited with the same
character to the cabinet of London. The third embraces the occurrences
which had taken place in the United States and in the Pacific, from the
departure of Mr. Trescot until the present date.
The first part of these questions is historical and detailed in the
written memorandum which my honorable predecessor has left upon the
subject. The second is contained in the detailed memorial of our
diplomatic agent in Washington. Both documents are attached as annexes
to the present memorial. For that which relates to the third phase of
what may be considered our relations with the United States, I can only
give to Congress the brief statement of the present condition of these
negotiations, which, being still pending, I am permitted to reveal for
the moment.
As to the questions initiated by Mr. William Henry Trescot, questions
which terminated in the well-known protocol of the 11th of February of
the present year and signed in Viña-del-Mar, it was believed that the
United States would definitely terminate all future intervention in the
contest of the Pacific.
In fact the official note under the date of the 14th of February last,
which the before-mentioned Mr. Trescot addressed to this department,
said that “although the Government of the United States desired to lend
its impartial and friendly aid in those negotiations which might be able
to conduce to a peace satisfactory to both belligerents, it could not
offer its good offices in the conditions proposed.”
“I have instructions,” added that diplomat, “to ask if the Government of
Chili is disposed to make any modifications to these conditions, and in
such case what they will be.”
As was indispensable, the Government, which had just stated in a solemn
document what were the unavoidable conditions to the adjustment of
peace, could not and should not accept even in hypothesis the
possibility of modifying them in the sense of lessening her demands.
Giving this situation, there was directed to the American diplomat the
official note of the 24th of February last, in which answer was given to
his interrogatories that the Government of Chili would maintain the
conditions of peace contained in the protocol of Viña-del-Mar.
The negotiations thus closed, it was not to be expected, I repeat, that
the Government of the United States would insist in its generous
purposes to interpose itself between the contending countries and
attempt a peace for which upon two occasions, during the course of the
war, it had made ineffectual attempts to realize this end.
However, the Government soon learned that it had made a mistake in this
respect. Repeated communications from our minister in Washington
informed him that the new Cabinet which directed the policy of that
country, in conformity with the noble traditions of the past and the
elevated sentiments of the American people, proposed
[Page 84]
to reiterate the interposition of its good
offices, provided always, that being spontaneously accepted by the
contesting countries, they might conduce to a termination of the
war.
And it would not be, however, upon this occasion, through the clamor of a
special and extraordinary mission, that the new American Cabinet
promised to use its disinterested efforts in the gift of peace. It
confided this duty to the usual representative which the United States
have constantly maintained among us, cultivating and strengthening the
bonds of friendship which have always united the two peoples. And still
further, as a show of delicate deference towards Chili, the new American
Cabinet elected for the discharge of this duty a distinguished diplomat,
which, by his long-standing familiarity with our country and by the many
attachments which he has among us, was of itself alone a proof, in
advance, of the sincere intentions which would govern the new movements
which he was charged to initiate.
This has in reality occurred. Scarcely recognized in his official
character, the Hon. Cornelius A. Logan, present minister plenipotentiary
and envoy extraordinary of the United States to Chili, addressed to this
department the official note of the 9th of September ultimo, which is
attached to the documents annexed to this memorial.
No effort upon my part whatever is necessary to enable the Congress to
penetrate the perfect cordiality of sentiment, and the handsome
observance of forms, which this note reveals and shows for itself.
The situation, embarrassed as it was by the last offer of the United
States, after the exchange of declarations contained in the notes of the
14th and 24th of February last, was skillfully and decorously saved in
the document referred to. Without maintaining, upon the part of the
United States, the declaration formulated in its name by the Hon. Mr.
Trescot that it could not accept the terms of the protocol of
Viña-del-Mar as a basis upon which to tender its good offices, neither
did it insist that Chili should commence by retiring from its position,
through the lessening of demands, which would alter the nature of that
basis.
Far from making demands of this kind, which would have placed us in one
of those difficulties of form that in diplomacy possesses the sad
characteristic of being insoluble, the note of the 9th of September has
reopened the negotiations by offering to present to Chili new ideas and new positions, which would be able
to bring to a definite and satisfactory termination the pending
difficulties with our enemies of the Pacific.
The Government felt that it could not do less than receive with sincere
thanks the new and signal testimonial of American fraternity which the
Government of Washington thus showed in insisting for the third time
upon lending its aid and its friendly and disinterested co-operation in
terminating the already prolonged and disastrous difficulty which the
pertinacity of our enemies maintains unsolved up to to-day.
The official note which, under the same date, 19th of September, was
addressed in answer to the Hon. Mr. Logan, will also be found among the
annexes to this memorial.
From the date of the exchange of communications to which I refer, the
undersigned has been in constant and almost daily communication with the
honorable American diplomatist, seeking between us with the most perfect
harmony of feeling the manner of solving the conflict in a form
reciprocally decorous for the people compromised in, the quarrel,
consulting and considering at the same time the unavoidable necessities
and exigencies of the situation created by the war.
In some moments the prospect of a possible agreement for fixing the basis
of peace has flattered the mediator, and with much reason. But the
conditions, somewhat anomalous, under which he has had to follow the
negotiation, the lack of a Peruvian Government, which, personally, with
moral authority, and well qualified to represent the sentiments and the
true aspirations of his country, and the impossibility which the
Government has encountered from the same cause of discussing directly
propositions of peace with some person whom it might have been able
easily to recognize for the moment as the legitimate head of Peru, have
rendered without fruit the zealous and persistent efforts which the
mediator has used up to this time in order to accomplish that
purpose.
Notwithstanding this, this method of indirect negotiation cannot be
considered absolutely and definitely abandoned. The Government cherishes
the conviction that when the true public sentiment of our enemies has
shaken off the stupor which, up to this time, has enveloped them in
fallacious dreams, and their legitimate and imperative necessities for
the adjustment of peace shall make themselves felt, the sentiment shall
find expression through some one of the various leaders who, with titles
more or less alike, pretend to be the genuine representatives of Peru.
The sincere desire for peace, of which Chili has been giving repeated
and constant testimony since the conference of Arica, corresponds to-day
to a necessity of our enemies which cannot be postponed; and it is to be
hoped that before it will disappear in a short time the resistance that
the public men or the political leaders of Peru and Bolivia have opposed
to it. Whether this resistance be through a mistaken notion of the
demands of patriotism or a spirit banding together in resistance, and to
imaginary wrongs which up to this time has unfortunately trampled under
foot the true and supreme interests of those countries.
