[Inclosure in No. 31.]
Mr. Buck to Mr.
Urrsetia.
Legation of the United States,
Lima, September 16, 1885.
No. 9.]Sir: Under date of July 6,1878, in his No.
91, Mr. Gibbs, at that time United States minister to Peru,
presented to the minister of foreign relations the claims of certain
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of his countrymen
who had served Peru as members of the Hydrographic Commission to
survey the River Amazon and its tributaries.
On the 17th of the succeeding January, 1879, the minister of foreign
relations, Señor Don M. Yrigoyen, in his No. 3 to Mr. Gibbs,
acknowledged the justness of the claim, and stated that the
President, through the minister of war, had ordered the consignees
of guano in the United States, Messrs. Hobson, Hurtado & Co., to
pay claimants the sum of $11,447.63, and stated that the minister of
the treasury had given his order for fulfillment. I regret to inform
you that a recent dispatch from the Secretary of State at Washington
advises me that the order for payment was not carried out, as was
said, for want of funds.
It is further made to appear to the Secretary of State that the said
claims are still unpaid. In commenting upon it he states:
“The failure of Peru to furnish the funds required for the
liquidation of the claims was, perhaps, one of the conditions of the
late war; while the attitude of the claimants meantime, who
refrained from pressing the claims, has certainly been commendable.
It is true, as observed in No. 84 of the 31st of October, 1877, that
the claims arise out of contracts, but nevertheless contracts made
by these gentlemen with the Government of Peru, which that
Government has recognized and ordered payment on account of.
“I have submitted the correspondence in the case to the law officer
of the Department, whose comments on the diplomatic sanction
afforded these claims and the singular hardship which their
nonpayment involves, I concur in. You will therefore use the good
offices of the legation to obtain that fair and just settlement
which is no less due to the character of Peru as a law-abiding and
high-spirited state than it is to these considerate claimants.”
I accordingly ask your excellency’s attention to this claim, as it is
not one about the justice of which there appears any question, but
as it originated in contract, the amounts were settled and agreed
to, and payment of the same has been ordered by the Government of
Peru.
I trust the prompt carrying out of that order now in satisfying the
claimants, after many years of patient waiting, will only seem both
just and reasonable.
I seize, etc.,
