270 
APPENDIX. 
taking, and in accordance with that which I made in the first part of 
Article 4 of the decree of the 1st March, 1842, since then committed to 
writing, I appointed and provided with every necessary means the Com- 
missioners who investigated the locality, without sparing either labor or 
expense, which latter amounts already to a considerable sum. The re- 
sults of this investigation are perfectly satisfactory, as your Excellency 
will see in the accompanying copy of the note which the Secretary of 
the Commission addressed to me privately from the Venta de Chicapa 
on the 11th January last. The possibility of opening the projected com- 
munication is by these proceedings ascertained, a fact which cannot but 
be highly gratifying to the Supreme Government, so deeply interested 
in the execution of a work of the greatest importance to the aggrandize- 
ment of the Republic. My first engagement is, therefore, fulfilled. To 
fulfil the second, which must begin by marking out and opening the line 
of communication, levelling the ground, giving a different course to riv- 
ers, lakes, and creeks, and performing whatever is needful to realize the 
undertaking, the Supreme Government ought without delay to direct the 
civil authorities to place at my disposal the lands through which the road 
must pass, from the bar of San Francisco in the south to that of the 
Coatzacoalcos in the north, as well as of the uncultivated or unclaimed 
lands mentioned in the 5th Article of the said decree. This last clause 
is essential to the realization of the third part of the 4th Article, since, 
without being able to commence immediate operations on hills, plains, 
and rivers, it will be impossible to fulfil the second part of my duties rel- 
ative to the execution of the works. 
The Supreme Government has seen the zeal with which I have at- 
tended to my engagements in the very fact of the investigations for which 
eighteen months were allowed having been performed in nine, notwith- 
standing the difficulties and drawbacks which the Commission had to 
encounter. It is the same spirit of activity and solicitude that urges me 
to make the above demand, especially as if, from want of the necessary 
orders, the Commission be needlessly detained a month longer, my ex- 
penses will be materially increased. According, then, to the above state- 
ment, and to the claims which my agreement gives me, I beg that the 
Supreme Government may be pleased to issue orders to put me in pos- 
session of the territory through which the works must be carried on, as 
well as for the fulfilment of the 7th Article of the above-mentioned de- 
cree of the 1st of March. I must, besides, call the attention of the Su- 
preme Government to the circumstance that various portions of land on 
both shores of the River Coatzacoalcos, through which the line of com- 
