ÆäÀÌÁö À̹ÌÁö
PDF
ePub

instructions from the Mexican Government to inform that of the United States that Mexico does not consider itself under obligations to pay any indemnity to Mrs. Baldwin on account of the death of her husband, because he was the victim of a common crime in which the Mexican authorities were in nowise concerned, and because the perpetrators of that crime have been tried and punished, whereby the obligations of the Government of Mexico in this case were fulfilled.

The condition, moreover, of the Mexican treasury, which has been occasioned by the great depreciation in the value of silver, renders any extra payment very difficult.

Nevertheless, in consideration of the reiterated requests which have been made by you, through me, in order that something may be paid to Mrs. Baldwin, the Government of Mexico has decided to offer, as an act of equity, which is not to establish a precedent, or to imply the recognition of any obligation toward Mrs. Baldwin, the payment to the U. S. minister in the City of Mexico of the sum of $3,000 at the expiration of three months, reckoned from the date of the conclusion of the arrangement with the U. S. Government, and the remainder, until the sum of $20,000 shall have been paid to the aforesaid officer, in twelve monthly installments of $1,416.66 each.

The Mexican Government proposes this arrangement, bearing in mind the fact that a similar one was approved in the case of the indemnity of $7,000 that was paid to Deputy Sheriff Shadrack White, who lost the use of one of his arms in an encounter which took place at Eagle Pass, Tex., on the 3d of March, 1888, between Texan police officers and Mexican soldiers who had come to that place, without authority, in pursuit of a deserter.

Be pleased to accept, etc.,

M. ROMERO.

Mr. Romero to Mr. Gresham.

[Translation.[

LEGATION OF MEXICO,

Washington, March 8, 1894. (Received March 9.)

MR. SECRETARY: I have the honor to inclose herewith a copy of a note from Mr. Mariscal, dated City of Mexico, February 27, last, which removes the doubt left by his previous note as to the currency in which the indemnity to Mrs. Baldwin is offered.

Be pleased to accept, etc.,

M. ROMERO.

[Inclosure.-Translation.]

Mr. Mariscal to Mr. Romero.

DEPARTMENT OF FOREIGN AFFAIRS,

Mexico, February 27, 1894.

I have taken note of the contents of your note No. 791, of the 17th instant, with the accompanying copy of your note to Mr. Gresham, relative to the offer of $20,000 on account of the claim of the widow of Baldwin.

In reply I have to say that this amount is in silver, that being the legal currency of Mexico, and that if it were in gold the amount would

be more than doubled, according to the present rate of exchange, which payment it was not his intention to propose, there being no reason whatever for imposing this extraordinary burden in a matter of mere favor and equity.

I renew, etc.,

MARISCAL.

Mr. Gresham to Mr. Romero.

DEPARTMENT OF STATE,
Washington, March 20, 1894.

SIR: In your note of February 17, ultimo, the receipt of which I have the honor to acknowledge, you convey the gratifying information that the Mexican Government, in view of the efforts of the U. S. Government to induce the payment of an indemnity to Mrs. Baldwin, widow of an American citizen murdered at Durango, has decided, as an act of equity and without recognizing any obligation in the case or permitting the act to form a precedent, to offer the sum of $20,000, payable in installments as described.

This offer corresponds with the result reached in our several conferences on the subject.

Permit me, however, to say that it was my distinct understanding, upon which alone I consented to this friendly adjustment, that the offer of the Mexican Government was to pay $20,000 in gold. If the offer is so made, it will be accepted, the payments to be made to the U. S. minister in Mexico in the manner and at the times you indicate, to wit: $3,000 at the expiration of three months from the conclusion of the agreement, and the remainder thereafter in twelve monthly installments of $1,416.66 each, making a total of $19,999.92, payable within fifteen months.

Your reply confirming this understanding will complete the arrangement by exchange of notes, thus assigning the date from which the payments are to be computed.

Accept, etc.,

WALTER Q. GRESHAM.

Mr. Romero to Mr. Gresham.

[Translation.]

LEGATION OF MEXICO,

Washington, March 21, 1894. (Received March 21.)

MR. SECRETARY: I have the honor to acknowledge the receipt of your note of yesterday, in which you state to me, with reference to the note I wrote to you on the 17th of February last, whereby I communicated to you the determination of the Government of Mexico to give, by way of equity, to Mrs. Baldwin the sum of $20,000 in the installments expressed in that note, that you understood from our previous conversations on this matter that this sum was to be paid in gold, and that on such terms the offer would be accepted by the Government of the United States.

I have the honor to state to you in reply that the Government of Mexico authorized me to offer to that of the United States the sum of $20,000 in gold, payable out of the fund which is in deposit and which

belongs to the La Abra and Weil claims, in the event of the Court of Claims of the United States, before which the respective awards are pending, declaring that this fund belongs to the Government of Mexico and is to be returned to it in conformity to the provisions of the act of December 28, 1892.

I communicated this offer to you in the interview which we had in the Department of State on the 6th of June, 1893; but, the condition fixed by the Government of Mexico not having appeared acceptable to you, I made the necessary negotiations in this relation, and in the end the Government of Mexico authorized me to make to you the offer which I conveyed in my note of the 17th of last February.

Not being authorized to alter the terms of that offer, I now transmit your note to the Mexican Government, in order that in view thereof it may decide as it deems proper; but nevertheless I believe I can say to you forthwith that if the offer of $20,000 payable from the fund in question should be deemed by the Government of the United States preferable to the last submitted offer, I am sure that the Government of Mexico will abide by it.

Be pleased to accept, etc.,

Mr. Uhl to Mr. Romero.

M. ROMERO.

DEPARTMENT OF STATE,
Washington, March 27, 1894.

SIR: I have the honor to acknowledge the receipt of your note of the 21st instant, touching the manner of payment of the sum of $20,000 to Mrs. Baldwin by the Mexican Government, as a voluntary and equitable indemnity for the death of her husband at the hands of bandits in Mexico.

I do not understand that the offered gratuitous payment from the possible return of the retained Weil and La Abra moneys under the awaited decision of the Court of Claims has at any time been entertained by this Government. As I have heretofore informed you, that proposition is merely a contingent offer of something your Government may never receive.

Accept, etc.,

EDWIN F. UHL,

Acting Secretary.

Mr. Romero to Mr. Gresham.

[Translation.]

LEGATION OF MEXICO,

Washington, March 28, 1894. (Received March 29.)

MR. SECRETARY: I have had the honor to receive your note of yesterday in which, while acknowledging the receipt of mine of the 21st, relating to the payment of an indemnity which the Government of Mexico on equity tendered to Mrs. Baldwin for the death of her husband in Mexico, you state that the Government of the United States has never taken into consideration the proposal to pay $20,000 out of the fund appertaining to the La Abra and Weil claims in the event of the Court of Claims of the United States deciding that it should be turned over to Mexico.

When I made this proposal to you under instructions of the Govern ment of Mexico, you declared to me that the Government of the United

States could not take it into consideration for the reasons stated in your note, and several others which seemed to me well founded. I so informed the Government of Mexico, recommending there and then that the condition set for this payment be withdrawn, and thence arose your impression that the Government of Mexico would pay the $20,000 in gold coin of the United States, without the above-stated condition. The straitened condition of the Mexican treasury, chiefly due to the depreciation of silver, has not permitted the Government of Mexico to offer a payment in gold of the $20,000 if it were made from its ordinary funds, and its last proposal, as you know, is to pay $20,000 in Mexican currency.

Accept, etc.,

M. ROMERO.

Mr. Romero to Mr. Gresham.

[Translation.]

LEGATION OF MEXICO,

Washington, April 21, 1894. (Received April 21.) MR. SECRETARY: I have the honor to hand you, with reference to my note of March 28 last, being a reply to yours of the preceding day on the subject of the indemnity offered out of equity by the Government of Mexico to Mrs. James M. Baldwin, a copy of a note from Señor Mariscal, secretary of foreign relations of the United States of Mexico, dated in the City of Mexico the 10th instant, by which the terms of the proposition made in the matter by the Government of Mexico to that of the United States of America are explained.

Please accept, etc.,

M. ROMERO.

[Inclosure.-Translation.]

No. 888.]

Mr. Mariscal to Mr. Romero.

DEPARTMENT OF FOREIGN RELATIONS,
Mexico, April 10, 1894.

I have received your note, No. 965, of March 28, with the accompanying copies of the last notes exchanged with the Department of State, in regard to the mode of payment by the Mexican Government of $20,000 to Mrs. Baldwin for her husband's death, and have noted its contents. In reply, I have to inform you that the determination to pay $20,000 in Mexican currency is confirmed in the terms expressed in the note of this Department, No. 621, of the 29th of January last.

I renew, etc.,

MARISCAL.

Mr. Romero to Mr. Gresham.

[Translation.]

LEGATION OF MEXICO,

White Plains, N. Y., August 14, 1894. (Received August 15.) MR. SECRETARY: I have the honor to inform you, referring to our previous correspondence on the subject, that I duly reported to my Government our conversation of the 28th of June last, in the course of

which, and in view of the way in which you understood the offers made by the Mexican Government to indemnify, by way of equity, Mrs. Baldwin for the death of her husband, who was murdered by bandits in the State of Durango, Mexico, and as an act of personal deference to you, I inquired of you whether the U. S. Government would be satisfied if the indemnity of $20,000 in gold, to which reference has been made, should be paid in one installment of $3,000, payable at the time of concluding the arrangement on the subject, and the remaining $17,000 in monthly installments of $1,000 each, and you were pleased to tell me that you would accept that way of making the payment.

I have to-day received a dispatch from Mr. Mariscal, secretary of foreign relations of the United States of Mexico, dated City of Mexico, August 13, 1894, a copy of which I herewith inclose, whereby he informs me that my Government has accepted that arrangement, and that, without waiting for me to propose it to you in writing, he has carried it out himself, having sent, that very day to the U. S. minister in Mexico a draft, numbered 63119, of the National Bank of Mexico on Messrs. Müller, Schall & Co., of New York, to the order of the treasurer general of the federation, and indorsed by that officer to your order, for the sum of $3,000 in gold, being the amount of the first installment. I presume that Mr. Gray has advised you of the receipt of this draft. Be pleased to accept, etc., M. ROMERO.

[Inclosure.-Translation.]

Mr. Mariscal to Mr. Romero.

No. 94.]

DEPARTMENT OF FOREIGN RELATIONS,
City of Mexico, August 3, 1894.

With a view to the settlement of the large and much-debated claim presented against the Government of Mexico by the widow of Leon McLeod Baldwin, an American citizen, and supported by the U. S. Government, on account of the aforesaid foreigner's having been murdered by a party of bandits led by Heracho Bernal, Mr. Gresham, Secretary of State of the United States, proposed, through you, that a moderate indemnity should be granted to the claimant by Mexico, as a matter of simple equity, this act not to imply a recognition that in the case in question the Mexican Government was, strictly speaking, responsible, so that the proposed arrangement could not be cited as a precedent in future cases of a similar nature.

The President thought proper to accede to the wishes of the U. S. Government, which were reiterated with special insistence by the Secretary of State; and, after a long correspondence, held with the view of fixing the amount of the indemnity, you, still mediating in this case, proposed as an equitable arrangement, subject to the approval of the Government of Mexico, the payment of $20,000 in gold, $3,000 of which were to be paid to the U. S. minister in Mexico at the time when the arrangement should be approved and the remaining $17,000 in seventeen monthly installments of $1,000 each.

Although the consideration of the high premium of gold over our ordinary silver money occasioned some delay in the settlement of this matter, the President, in view of the reiterated solicitations addressed to him by you, has decided that the arrangement referred to shall be accepted; and, in order to effect this, he has instructed the treasurergeneral of the federation to send to this department a number of bills

« ÀÌÀü°è¼Ó »