Nacogdoches. Mexico was weak enough to be startled and offended at this move ment! and Mr. Gorostiza, her Minister in this country, failing to get such satisfaction as he deemed due to the case, demanded his passports, and went home. Now, it was the period here referred to-so critical to Mexico, with an irritating struggle on her hands, with her President a prisoner and an exile-it was this period that was selected at Washington as the most convenient and opportune, to press on the attention of that Power the necessity of her responding promptly and satisfactorily, without any further delay, to the formidable array of complaints and reclamations which we had to prefer against her. By a dispatch of the 20th of July, Mr. Ellis was instructed forthwith to present these complaints and reclamations, and demand reparation for these accumulated wrongs; he was instructed to wait patiently three weeks for an answer, and if at the end of that period "no satisfactory answer" should be received, he was to give formal notice that at the end of a fortnight more, unless such "satisfactory answer" should be received, he would demand his passports! Mr. Ellis course, obeyed his instructions, ng received an answer to his The deemed satisfactory, he his passports, and came home. Mr. Gorostiza took his departure from this country in October, 1836; and Mr. Ellis came home in January, 1837. Thus were the diplomatic relations of the two Governments entirely suspended.

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On the 7th of February, 1837, General Jackson, now thoroughly aroused to the crying injustice of Mexico, sent a special message to Congress, recommending, "that an act be passed authorizing reprisals, and the use of the naval force of the United States by the Executive against Mexico, to enforce them, in the event of a refusal by the Mexican Government to come to an amicable adjustment of the matters in controversy between us, upon another demand thereof, made from on board one of our vessels of war on the coast of Mexico." Doubtless this would have been a powerful diversion-not, of course, so intended! but operating to that effect-in favor of Texas, where the apprehension of further annoyance from Mexico was not yet quite ended. Happily, however, for the peace and honor of the country, Congress did not deem the case quite so urgent as the President had supposed it

to be. No act authorizing reprisals was passed; and the Committee of the Senate recommended to the President to make another demand, in some peaceful form, for justice and satisfaction. This they deemed the more_important, as we chanced to have a Treaty with Mexico, which expressly provided, that "neither of the contracting parties will order or authorize any acts of reprisal, nor declare war against the other, on complaint of injuries or damages, until the said party considering itself offended shall first have presented to the other a statement of such injuries or damages, verified by competent proofs, and demanded justice and satisfaction, and the same shall have been either refused or unreasonably delayed." Confessedly, by the dispatch of Mr. Forsyth to Mr. Ellis, there must have been a failure to verify the cases, or some of them, by competent proofs, when the peremptory demand for satisfaction was made by that Minister.

The result of this business showed that, notwithstanding "the irritating effect of her struggle with Texas," Mexico could be brought to terms of settlement by negotiation, as well as by reprisals, or war; but it required forbearance and patience on our part. Mr. Van Buren dispatched a special messenger to Mexico, soon after entering on the duties of his office, to make a final demand for redress of injuries, with the documentary proofs, as required by our Treaty. The answer was, that "nothing should be left undone that might lead to the most speedy and equitable adjustment of our demands." Soon afterwards Mexico voluntarily renewed diplomatic relations with this country, by sending to our government an Envoy Extraordinary and Minister Plenipotentiary, who "brought with him assurances of a sincere desire, that the pending differences between the two Governments should be terminated in a manner satisfactory to both." This was in 1838. In April, 1839, a convention was concluded between the two powers, and ratified by the respective Governments; a previous convention having been made in September, 1838, which the Mexican Government, for reasons accepted at Washington as satisfactory, had failed to ratify. By this convention of April, 1839, it was agreed, that" all claims of citizens of the United States upon the Mexican Government, statements of which, soliciting the interposition of the Government of the United

States, have been presented to the Department of State, or to the Diplomatic agent of the United States at Mexico, until the signature of this Convention," should be referred to a Board of four Commissioners, two appointed from each country, for final adjustment. An Umpire was to be appointed by the King of Prussia. This Commission was organized in August, 1840, and sat for eighteen months, when its term of service expired by the limitation of the convention.

The recital we have here made shows, that notwithstanding all former delays, and in spite of "the irritating effect of her struggle with Texas," Mexico had at last yielded to our importunate demands for redress of injuries, and that from the autumn of 1840 to the spring of 1842, the examination and adjustment of the claims of our citizens were quietly going on at the capital of our own country, before a Commission constituted by an amicable convention agreed upon between the two powers. Whatever complaints then we have now to make against Mexico, in regard to these claims, must date from and after the spring of 1842, when that Commission was terminated by its own limitation. All former delays all former evasions and equivocations to avoid the settlement of these claims, ceased to be any longer a subject of complaint on our part, when Mexico yielded the point, and came into a voluntary, amicable and satisfactory arrangement in regard to them. If, since the Convention of 1839, and the termination of the Joint Commission in 1842, she has returned to her former line of conduct; if she has delayed and equivocated as she did aforetime; if she has failed, without just reason or excuse, to perform her treaty stipulations in regard to claims already liquidated, and has refused to make provision for other claims not so adjusted, then she has given us new and just cause of offence, and it would not lie in her mouth to complain if we had chosen to take redress, by reprisals, or even war, into our own hands. Let us see exactly what her conduct has been, and what we have to complain of, since the spring of 1842.

The Joint Commission, with and without the aid of the Umpire, made, during their sitting, final awards in favor of American citizens to the amount of something more than two millions of dollars. The number of cases, in all, was very great; and "all the cases of

claims," say the American Commissioners, "prepared for the final action of the Board, so far as depended upon it, were disposed of, except three." Three or four other cases were presented, but not in a state for the Board to act upon. Of the three excepted cases, two of them being claims, on paper, to the aggregate amount of more than two and a half millions, came to the Board only on the last day of its session! These parties could have been in no great hurry for their money. They were claims of several years' standing, and the President, in his annual Message, takes care to make the most of them. What is really due on them nobody can tell. Claims on Governments always loom up large on paper. In the cases examined and decided by the Commission and Umpire, the claimants demanded in the aggregate, $6,439,723 19; and the amount finally awarded, as justly due in these cases, was $2,026,139 68, or less than one-third of the amount claimed. By the same rule, the claims in the three, or six or seven cases, not acted on by the Board, and amounting on paper, all told, to three millions and a third, would seem to be worth about a million. The bulk of the two heaviest of these for damages on land contras Republic of Mexico.

was

the

Besides the final awards by tommission and Umpire, there were claims acted on by the Board, as presented, to near two millions, and in which the American Commissioners were ready to allow about one-half the amount claimed, while the Mexican Commissioners allowed nothing. These were left undecided by the Umpire, because, owing solely to the delay of the parties in preparing and presenting them for a hearing, they came into his hands too late for decision. All, except one, were received by him only six days before the Commission ceased to exist. What the award of the Umpire would have been in these cases, of course we cannot know. In the cases in which he did act, his allowance was in the ratio of about two-thirds of the amount which the American Commissioners would have allowed, while it exceeded by many times the sum which the Mexican Commissioners were willing to concede. On the whole, we may conclude, that when the Joint Commission terminated its labors, besides the two millions and twenty-six thousand dollars actually and finally awarded, there remained an amount of a million and three-quar

ters, or perhaps two millions more, justly due to American citizens from the Mexican Government, and for the adjustment of which, as well as for the payment of the amount awarded by the Commission and Umpire, she was bound to make suitable provision. In the spring of 1842, she owed to American citizens a liquidated debt of $2,026,139 68, and a further sum of probably two millions, possibly three or four, which was not, but ought to be liquidated. We will see what has been done with this debt and these claims. Early in the spring of 1842, the Hon. W. Thompson, a gallant, generous and high-minded gentleman of South Carolina, went to Mexico as our Minister Plenipotentiary. Let us hear what he has to say, in the first place, about this liquidated debt of two millions, adjudicated by the Joint Commission.

"The Mexican Government had, by the terms of the convention which established that Commission, the alternative of paying the awards either in coin, or in their own Treasury Notes, at their option. The market was already flooded with this depreciated Government paper, and new emissions were daily made. The market value of these Treasury Notes was about thirty cents on the dollar, and if this additional two millions had been thrown on the market, they would have depreciated still more. The owners of these claims knew this, and were anxious to make some other arrangement. The awards were not sent to me until October. 1 demanded the money; but it was a mere form, for every one knew that the Government neither had the money nor the means of raising it, and coercion was out of the question, as they would have availed themselves of the alternative of the treaty and given the Treasury Notes, which would only have been changing the evidence of the debt, and to a less advantageous form. In a week, however, I made a new convention with the Government."

And what was this new convention? Why, Mexico agreed to pay this liquidated debt in coin, paying the interest up to the 30th of April, 1843, and the principal and interest in five years from that date, in tri-monthly installments, with the advantage also and saving to the creditors, of export and transportation duties, freight, insurance and commissions, which under the former convention would have fallen on them at the cost of eighteen or twenty per cent. on all they should have

received. But though Mexico agreed to pay this indebtedness, she has not paid it, except in part. It is certainly true, what Mr. Thompson says; “the claimants have received fifteen per cent. of the principal of their debt, and about nineteen per cent. of interest, which is twice as much as the market value of the whole of the claims when I [he] went to Mexico, which was less than twenty cents on the dollar." This is very well to show that the claimants are better off to to-day than they were the day they got their awards, even if they should never receive the next farthing on their demands; but they are entitled under the new Convention, voluntarily entered into by Mexico for their relief from the certain losses to which they were subject under the former, to the whole amount of their awards; and sooner or later, in one way or another, Mexico must pay the uttermost farthing. "All the installments" says Mr. Thompson, "which fell due whilst I remained in Mexico, were paid." The President says, "the three first”—by which he means the first three-" installments have been paid." Two other installments, those of April and July, 1844, are claimed to have been paid by Mexico, though the subject, Mr. Polk informs us, is involved in much mystery. Why the payment of the remaining portions of these indemnities has been suspended, remains to be explained. We shall advert to this point directly.

We have seen that there were claims they were eighteen in number-which failed of decision by the Umpire, for want of time; and there were some other cases -seven according to Mr. Thompsonwhich were not considered by the Commissioners, also principally for want of time. The question is, how did Mexico conduct herself in regard to these claims? We will let Mr. Thompson tell the story:

"I was anxious to have made provision for the settlement of these cases at the time that I negotiated the Convention of January, 1843, but my Government thought otherwise. In November, however, of that year, I received instructions to negotiate another convention for the settlement of these claims.

I succeeded, but with difficulty, in obtaining every concession which I had been instructed to ask, and on some points more, with the single exception of the place of meeting of the new Commission, which I agreed should be Mexico instead of Washington."

Unhappily, this treaty was not ratified by the United States, except with amendments. It was insisted that the Commission should sit in this country and not in Mexico. The treaty has never been ratified at all by Mexico. We think there can be no doubt that a great error was committed, very much to the prejudice of the claimants, when our Government insisted on changing the terms of this convention as to the place where the Commission should sit. By yielding this point, our negotiator had secured a capital advantage-which was that he should name the Umpire. This was of the very highest importance. Experience had shown that, as in all such cases, the American and Mexican Commissioners were pretty sure to disagree on every claim, and the Umpire would in effect be the sole judge in every instance, it was worth half the real value of every claim to name the Umpire, and this our Minister secured by yielding the place of meeting to Mexico. And this was all the more important, as the convention had stipulated that the eighteen cases above referred to were not to be reëxamined by the Commissioners at all, but handed over at once to the Umpire for his decision. Nor was there any very imperative or just reason, in principle or convenience, why the Commission should sit in Washington rather than Mexico. The Commission was to settle claims of Mexican citizens on our Government, as well as claims of our citizens on the Mexican Government; and had it been otherwise, there is nothing very new in the rule that the claimant, whether citi zen or foreigner, should prosecute his demand in the country where it arose. It happened, too, here, that nearly all the six or seven claims of our citizens which alone were to be submitted to the Commissioners for examination, depended on documentary proofs which were in the public archives of Mexico. There is every reason for saying that, if this convention had been promptly ratified by us just as it was made, it would have been ratified by Mexico, and at least the eighteen cases above mentioned would have been long since settled by the Umpire. There would have been some chance, too, for the settlement of the remaining cases, before our relations with Mexico had been perplexed, and diplomatic intercourse suspended by the intervention of the question of Annexa tion. How far we are right in throwing

the whole blame on Mexico that these claims-the eighteen and the seven cases have not been adjusted and settled, let the American public, in all candor, judge. The fact, certainly, as it is charged on our part, remains undisputed, that Mexico has failed to pay the greater part of the indemnity to which she was bound by the treaty of January, 1843, and that she has made no attempt or offer to provide for the settlement of the remainder of the claims which American citizens have on her, since the failure of the Convention negotiated by Mr. Thompson for that purpose. How much or how little excuse she has for all this, the country and the world must judge from the facts and the circumstances of the case.

The history of the Annexation of Texas to the United States-about the merits of which we have not a word to say in this place is too recent not to be familiar, at least in its leading events, to all intelligent readers. One effect of that measure, at least, is perfectly well understood; and that is, that it caused the sus pension of all diplomatic relations between Mexico and the United States. General Almonte, the Mexican Minister, withdrew from this country, and the Mexican Government refused to have any further diplomatic intercourse with Mr. Shannon, our Minister in that country. Our Government was aware, from the beginning, that so far at least Mexico would go to show her resentment, and how much farther remained to be seen. From the beginning she declared that she should regard Annexation as an act of hostility to her, and all her language breathed of war. A state of war, though of late without active hostilities, existed between her and Texas; and she seemed to suppose, not very unnaturally, that if we chose to put ourselves in the place of Texas, we should place ourselves in a state of war with her.

A serious movement towards Annexation was begun in the winter of 1843-4, resulting in the treaty which was concluded by Mr. Tyler with the Republic of Texas on the 12th of April, 1844. This treaty was rejected by the Senate; but it effectually disturbed and broke up the friendly relations of the two Governments; and the project was by no means abandoned. It was evident that the measure was to be consummated at an early day, and Mexico so understood it. From that hour she counted us as her enemy-waiting only for the con