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Doc. No. 75. 



her Majesty has no other object in view than to see other States and nations 

 at peace with themselves and with their neighbors, and in the full enjoy- 

 ment of free institutions and a flourishing trade. 



I have the honor to remain your most obedient, humble servant, 



FREDERICK CHATFlELD, 



Consul General in Central America, 



To the Secretary General 



(yf thfi Supreme Government of the State of Nicaragua. 



British Consulate General, 



Leon, November 15, 1842. 



To the Principal Secretary of the Supreme Government of the State of 



Nicaragua: 



Sir: The answer which you have been directed by the supreme gov- 

 ernment of Nicaragua to return to my communication of the 24th ultimo 

 has been received, and I now propose to reply to those points which seem 

 to demand immediate notice. I shall, however, careluUy abstain from 

 making any assertion that is not susceptible of the closest scrutiny, and 

 avoid the use of all expressions which can in any way be looked upon as 

 either irrelevant or indecorous in a correspondence of this character. The 

 grounds upon which the supreme government of Nicaragua rests its preten- 

 sions to a territorial right to the left coast of the river San Juan del Norte is 

 not a question for me to discuss. I shall therefore limit my remarks to the 

 two principal points about which the government of Nicaragua is desirous 

 to obtain information. 



Firstly. What is the nature of the alliance between Great Britain and 

 the Mosquito nation ? 



Secondly. Upon what foundation does her Majesty's government base 

 its opinion that the south side of the port of San Juan del Norte is Mos- 

 quito and not Nicaragua territoiy ? 



The answer which I intend to give to these interrogatories will, I be- 

 hove, remove all doubts as to the correctness of the views presented in 

 my note of the 24th ultimo, and satisfy your government that the opinion 

 of her Majesty's ministers in maintaining that the State of Nicaragua has 

 no just cause to claim compensation for what took place at San Juan in 

 the month of August, 1841, is proper and consistent. The first direct 

 communication between the English and the Mosquito Indians appears 

 to have taken place some time before 1670, when a British settlement was 

 already in existence on the Mosquito coast as a dependency of Jamaica, 

 and the most friendly and intimate relations were established between 

 the latter and the neighboring Indians. In the course of this year, the 

 rights of Great Britain to that coast were secured by a treaty with Spain, 

 which was signed in Madrid on the eighteenth day of July, 1670. In 

 the year 1687, or thereabouts, while the Unke of Albermarle was governor 

 of Jamaica, the Mosquito Indians made a formal cession of their territory 

 to the King of England, from whom the Indian King received his com- 

 mission as a gift, under the broad seal of that island. Since that period, 

 it iiaa been customary for the King's governors, on their accession to 



