Doc. No. 73. 



within the same port, in place of rendering the administrative right of 

 this supreme government doubtful, serves to confirm it. 



I repeat, that to allege an opinion in favor of this right of the Mosquitos 

 to a part of the port of San Juan is not a legal declaration, such as would 

 have preceded the act of violence committed by the superintendent of 

 Belize, and have authorized him to act with an armed force upon a terri- 

 tory possessed by Nicaragua openly before the world, and to remove its 

 administrator. 



It is a principle universally recognised, that the functionaries of every 

 country are subordinate exclusively to the inspection, judgment, and 

 . proceedings of their respective governments; and consequently the slight- 

 est usurpation of these rights by any officer of any other nation is an 

 attack upon the sovereignty of the other, and a horrible crime. 



In vain has the superintendent said, what you state in your communi- 

 cation, that the powers and property of British subjects v/ere in danger, 

 when he himself, in his report of the 1 5th of August of last year, specifies 

 ^ no one act showing any serious risks to which they were exposed, nor 

 accompanies it by any proof of the delinquency said to have been com- 

 mitted by Colonel Q^uijano, as you may see by the incontestable docu- 

 ments which the comtiiissioner Zeledon is charged to present to you, 

 and which you will please to return to me. 



But, if the snperintendeat had possessed any proofs of any offensive 

 act towards the loreigners residing at the said port, and therefore subject 

 to the laws of this State, in case he was authorized to represent them, he 

 should have addressed his complaint, with the proofs, to this supreme 

 government for its determination. The compensation which you con- 

 sider just, on the supposition that Mr. George Bell and other Englishmen 

 were detained-, in retaliation for the proceedings of the superintendent of 

 Belize, in the last year, at Acoyapa, by the authorities of that place, is of 

 itself inadmissible, as the only reason of their detention was their having 

 f^ntered in an illicit and secret manner by the Rio Mico to Catagua, a port 

 not opened for intercourse.; and all that was done by the authorities of 

 that place, in consequence of this infraction of the laws prohibiting com- 

 merce in that way, was to keep them in custody until a resolution could 

 be taken on a petition which they addressed through the eastern prefec- 

 ture. The executive replied that they should retire to ports open to foreign 

 commerce ; and so far from their having suffered any injury from the^ 

 said authorities, no obstacle at all was placed in the way of their imme- 

 diate return, though they had coniiiiitted a punishable delinqaency. 

 This Avill convince you fully that there was no such confinement, much 

 less that the death of either of those persons was occasioned by such 

 punishment. 



This point beiag settled, I obs3rve that you also say that the pretended 

 Mosquito State is under the alliance and protection of her Britannic Ma- 

 jesty. You know that an alliance is counteracted by a treaty, and that 

 the protection to be afforded to an ally cannot exceed the limits of justice. 

 Now at what time, between what sovereigns, by what agents,^ at what 

 place, was concluded a compact of this strict alliance between the British 

 government and the pretended Mosquito King? To what courts in the 

 world has this compact been commanicated? What copies of it have 

 been sent to the cabinets of Central America? None. Nor do you say 

 that it has been communicated to the national government. 



