23G 



DIPLOMATIC CORRESPONDENCE AND FOREIGN RELATIONS. 



This, it seems, should be conclusive of the ques- 

 tion. If General Hovey had been aware that Colonel 

 Farrand was justly liable to arrest, and had wilfully 

 appointed him a bearer of dispatches to screen him 

 therefrom, this would have been sufficient cause of 

 complaint .on the part of the Peruvian Government, 

 and perhaps of censure of its minister by this Gov- 

 ernment. Even this knowledge on the part of the 

 general, however, would not, it is conceived, have 

 impaired the immunity of his courier under the pub- 

 lic law. If alleged delinquencies or pretended claims 

 are trumped up against persons appointed or about 

 to be appointed couriers iu foreign countries to pre- 

 vent them from starting, the immunity guaranteed 

 to them by public law may at any time be annihi- 

 lated by an envious or malicious person. This is a 

 result to be deplored and guarded against by all 



fovernments, tiy the Government of Peru as well as 

 y the Government of the United States. 



SPANISH AMERICA. Commercial Relations 

 with Spanish America. The Secretary of State, 

 in a report, dated July 14, 1870, and addressed 

 to the United States Senate, in reply to their 

 resolution directing the President to institute 

 an inquiry into the present condition of the 

 commercial relations .between the United States 

 and Spanish America, reviews the growth of 

 the United States in population and territory, 

 and its relations both with Europe and South 

 and Central America. After tracing the rise 

 of the republics of South America, and the 

 failure of the Panama Congress, the Secretary 

 of State says : 



It will not be presumptuous after the foregoing 

 sketch to say, with entire consideration for the sov- 

 ereignty and national pride of the Spanish- American 

 republics, that the United States, by the priority of 

 their independence, by the stability of their institu- 

 tions, by the regard of their people for the forms of 

 law, by their resources as a government, by their 

 naval power, by their commercial enterprise, by the 

 attractions which they oifer to European immigra- 

 tion, by the prodigious internal development of their 

 resources and wealth, and by the intellectual life of 

 their population, occupy of necessity a protninent 

 position on this continent which they neither can 

 nor should abdicate, which entitles them to a lead- 

 ing voice, and which imposes upon them duties of 

 right and of honor regarding American questions, 

 whether those questions affect emancipated colonies, 

 or colonies still subject to European dominion. 



After reviewing the causes which have tem- 

 porarily interrupted the commerce of the 

 United States with the West Indies, and espe- 

 cially the Spanish islands, the Secretary says : 



With none of the other Spanish- American states 

 in North and South America are our commercial re- 

 lations what they should be. Our total imports in 

 the year ending June 30, 1869. from these countries, 

 were less than $25,000,000 (or not one-half the 

 amount from Cuba alone), and our exports for the 

 same time to them were only $17,850,313 ; and yet 

 these countries have an aggregate population nearly 

 or quite as great as that of the United States ; they 

 have republican forms of government, and they pro- 

 fess to be. and probably really are, in political sym- 

 pathy with us. * * '* 



It appears that, notwithstanding the greater dis- 

 tance which the commerce has to travel in coming to 

 and from Great Britain, notwithstanding the political 

 sympathy which ought naturally to exist between 

 republics, notwithstanding the American idea which 

 has been so prominently and so constantly put for- 

 ward by the Government of the United States, not- 

 withstanding the acknowledged skill of American 



manufactures, notwithstanding the ready markets 

 which the great cities of the United States afford for 

 the consumption of tropical productions, the inhab- 

 itants of the Spanish-American continent consume 

 of the products of Great Britain more than twice the 

 quantity they take of the products of the United 

 States, and that they sell to us only three-fifths of 

 the amount they sell to Great Britain. * * * 



That their commerce with the United States is not 

 large may be partially explained by the fact that 

 these states have been suoject to many successive 

 revolutions since the failure of the Congress of Pana- 

 ma. These revolutions not only exhaust their re- 

 sources and burden them with debt, but they check 

 immigration, prevent the flow of foreign capital into 

 the country, and stop the enterprise which needs a 

 stable government for its development. * * * 



These suggestions are, however, applicable to the 

 British commerce as well as to our own, and they do 

 not explain why we, with the natural advantages in 

 our favor, fall so far behind. The Isthmus of Pana- 

 ma is the common point where the commerce of the 

 western coasts of Mexico and South America meets. 

 When it arrives there, why should it seek Liverpool 

 and London rather than New York ? 



The political causes which have operated to divert 

 this commerce from us the Secretary of State has en- 

 deavored to explain. A favorable time has now come 

 for removing them for laying the foundation of an 

 American policy which shall bind in closer union the 

 American republics. Let them understand that the 

 United States do not covet their territories ; that our 

 only desire is to see them peaceful, with free and 

 stable governments, increasing in wealth and popu- 

 lation, and developing in the lines in which their 

 own traditions, customs, habits, laws, and modes of 

 thought, will naturally take them. Let them feel 

 that, as in 1826, so now, this Government is ready to 

 aid them to the full extent of its constitutional 

 power in any steps which they may take for their 

 better protection against anarchy. Let them be con- 

 vinced that the United States is prepared, in good 

 faith and without ulterior purposes, to join them in 

 the development of a peaceful American commercial 

 policy, that rfiay in time include this continent and 

 the West-Indian islands. Let this be comprehend- 

 ed, and there will be. no political reason why we may 

 not " secure to the United States that proportionate 

 share of the trade of this continent to which their 

 close relations of geographical contiguity and politi- 

 cal friendship with all the states of America justly 

 entitle them." 



Copies of the report, with a request for in- 

 formation, were sent to the consular and dip- 

 lomatic officers of the United States in South 

 America. The replies of some of these officers 

 have been printed in Executive Document one, 

 third session, Forty-first Congress. They are 

 very interesting and important explanatory 

 statements of the reasons for the present con- 

 dition of commercial intercourse between the 

 United States and Spanish America. 



SPAIN". Good Offices of the United States. 

 Under the head " Diplomatic Correspondence " 

 in the last ANNUAL CYCLOPEDIA, page 222, it 

 is inadvertently stated (with reference to the 

 correspondence relative to the tender of good 

 offices of the United States in the difficulties 

 between Spain and Cuba) that, the tender hav- 

 ing been declined, the note was withdrawn, 

 in conformity with diplomatic usage. The 

 facts in the case are as follows : On the 28th 

 of September, 1869, General Sickles informed 

 Sefior S^ilvela, the Spanish Minister of Foreign 

 Affairs, that "the undersigned, in conformity 





