46 



Doc. No. 76. 



Honduras and Nicaragua have submitted no questions with Mosquito 

 to the knowledge of her Britannic Majesty's government — neither the 

 rights nor interests of these States admit of their doing so. According to 

 your note^ hereinbefore referred to, her Britannic Majesty is the protector 

 of the Mosquitos, and consequently wants the impartiality which alone 

 can give a semblance of justice to her opinion in favor of the aforesaid 

 tribe, especially as the assumed questions respecting territory have been 

 moved by British subjects alone; therefore, the opinion of the British 

 government which you announce cannot be considered as a resolution in 

 the said questions with the Mosquitos, and much less as a rule which 

 might serve them for fixing, either de jure or de facto j fixeu imaginary ter- 

 ritorial limits from Cape Gracias a Dios, along the northern coast of these 

 States, to the northern branch of the river San Juan of Nicaragua, as 

 you say in your communication of the 15th of November^ 1842, referring* 

 to a doubtful report of the council of Jamaica. 



Neither is it to be conceived, in the face of the principles of universal 

 justice, that it could in any w^ay be reputed an aggression on the part of 

 Nicaragua upon those Central American savages, called Mosquitos, the 

 conservation of the rights of property, and possession of this State in the 

 coast of the north and port of San Juan. On the contrary, Nicaragua 

 will receive as such aggression^ hostility, and war- on the part of the 

 British government, any occupation which, under its protection, the Mos- 

 quitos may effect on any part of the port of San Juan. Nicaragua will 

 disallow it, resist and repel it, with the force of justice and with all her 

 strength, until, if necessary, she disappears completely from the face of 

 the earth, before she consents that a mixed race, between the most splen- 

 did civilization and the most obscure barbarism, should snatch away a 

 property which, according to the great demarcations of nature, sanctioned 

 by laws, international right, and immemorial possession, belongs to her 

 in the port of San Juan and on the coast called Mosquito. 



Thus my government solemnly protests. It will denounce the spolia- 

 tion with which it is menaced before all the just governments of civilized 

 nations; and the world will see how the ambition of a few English sub- 

 jects darkens the enlightened mind of the cabinet of her Britannic Majes- 

 ty, to the point of making it agree that the august Queen Victoria should 

 appear at the side of a despicable savage. 



Such are the views which my government has directed me to transmit 

 to yoU; sir, in answer to your letter of the 10th of September last; and, in 

 doing SO; 



I have; (fcc; 



SEBASTIAN SALINAS. 



