GENERAL DESCRIPTIOX OF THE COUXTnV. 61 



and leaving out of view the conaulcration involved in scctiring a mil way route to the Pacific, 



it was a line -which must sooner or later have been abandoned. No traveller could pass, nor 

 could a despatch be sent^ from a military post on the Rio Bravo to one on the Glla without 

 passing through ]\rexlcan territory, 



I again called the subject to the attention of the government in a letter dated f'an "Diciro, 

 April, 1850, which has been already given, in the hope that the United State?? eomrais- 

 sioner might succeed in torturing tho treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo to embrace a practicable 

 route. That letter, however, received no attention, and I am now of the opinion that the Mex- 



# 



ican commissioner was so imprep«<^d with the importan^^ of the advantage to liis government 

 of making a boundary whicli wouhl not onlyexeliulo the railway route, hut wliioli would cut off 



ICA 



to 



brace the railway and wagon route would have been abort ire. 



OS a creat mistake to suppose, *w 



that tho line prnjcctt 1 and 



1 on 



claimed by the United Stat* - surveyor, in opp'^^itiou to that agreed to by Mr. Bartlctt, gav 

 United States this route. Subsequent surveys have (iitlrcly J^u8tain*'<l what I have st^t* 

 this subject in the letter to the Secretary of tho Interior, dated Fort Dunc^m, which will he 



found in the first chapter of this report. 



The report of Lieut. Parke, who made the recent survey for th^ railway route over this portion 



of 



as 



communication 



* 



the best route by which to descend to the Gila from the table-lands west of the Rio Bravo. I 

 went so far only as to indicate it as a practicable route. Lieut. Parke gives it the preference 

 above all others; and the most prominent of the reasons he assigns, is the important Avct that 

 this route affords water in abundance, and traverses valleys capable of continuous settlement. 



It is no part of my business to criticise the blunders made in the treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, 

 or to defend the provisions of the treaty of December, ISuO ; but it is undeniable that the last 

 treaty has secured to us what before did not exist 

 tary establishments on the Rio Bravo and those on the Gila; and what is more important, it has 

 secured what the surveys made under the orders of the War P apartment demonstrate to be the 

 most feasible if not the only practicable route for a railway to the Pacific. But the importance 

 of these considerations is very little when compared to the important pecuniary consideration 

 secured by the same treaty, in the revocation of the 11th article of the treaty of Guadalupe 

 Hidalgo. That article made it incumbent on the United States to keep the Indians living within 

 our own territory from committing depredations on the Mexicans, and, by implication, imposed 

 on the United States the obligation of indemnity for all loiied resulting from failure to carry 

 out the provisions of the treaty. 



No amount of force could have kept the Indians from crossing the line to commit depredations, 

 and I think that one hundred millions of dollars would not repay the damages they have inflicted. 

 Whole sections of country have been depopulated, and the stock driven off and killed; and in 

 entire States the ranches have been deserted and the people driven into the towns. 



It is true, all this has not been done since the war, an 1 would form no just claim against 

 the United States ; but those conversant with the history of Mexican claims against the United 

 States will at once admit that the United States would have been fortunate if she could have 

 escaped with paying real claims for depredations, whether committed before or after the war. I 



