Doc. No. 75. 



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treat with Mr. Christie in his character of consular agent on the Mosquito 

 shore, supposing that this incident will affect the susceptibihty of tiie 

 ministry which your excellency so worthily serves. 



If the Globe was an unauthorized paper, or void of credit, and the 

 writer of the letter was not a persr>n of importance, and well acquainted 

 with the affairs that are alluded to in it, I would not take the least notice 

 of it, or its contents: indifference and silence would be the line of con- 

 duct I would follow, fearless of any mistake. But the Globe is not a 

 paper destitute of credit; its editors are not of those who indiscriminately 

 lay their hands on anything to fill up the columns of their journal, with- 

 out examination or criterion. They are men of sound judgment; and 

 their circumspection offers a sufficient guaranty for what they publish, 

 and therefore their authority enjoys a great reputation in the British 

 public. 



These are the motives which force me to call the attention of your ex- 

 cellency to the points above mentioned, not only to demand an explana- 

 tion, as convenient, but also to give in the name of the State of Nicaragua 

 in all that concerns it; because, encharged as I am to maintain relations 

 of friendship and good understanding with her Majesty's government, it 

 would not be consistent with my duty, were I to remain silent under the 

 present circumstances. 



I will now pass to manifest to your excellency the object I have pro- 

 posed to myself. In the first place, was Mr. Christie authorized, or not, 

 by your excellency, to fix the boundary spoken of? On this point, 

 thougk on the one hand I have well founded motives to believe that your 

 excellency has not given him such orders, being pending the arrange- 

 ment of the question respecting Mosquito and its territorial limits, 1 find 

 myself, on the other, in the necessity of knowing the final determination 

 of her Majesty's government relatively to the same limits, which were 

 never fixed in the ultimatum which the late Mr. Walker conmumicated 

 to my government, nor in the armistice of the 7th of March of last year — 

 Captain Loch having refused to do it, though it was proposed to him by 

 the commission sent to treat with him by the aforesaid government. I am 

 inclined to think that if Mr. Christie has taken such a step, it will be 

 reproved by her Majesty's government as an attempt against the interna- 

 tional laws, not only because it is a subject which must be left to be 

 settled after the conclusion of the arrangement now pending, but because 

 the fourth article of the said armistice of the 7th of March forbids the 

 extension of the limits towards the interior of the country, as Nicaragua 

 only obliged itself not to establish custom-houses in the vicinity of San 

 Juan; proving by that that the precarious possession given \o Great Brit- 

 ain was, in the estimation of the contracting parties, limited to the area 

 of the port. Nor could it be otherwise, as the State of Nicaragua have 

 never had the intention of abandoning the possession of the port; and if 

 they have now done so^ it is to put it provisionally under the keeping of 

 her Majesty's government, trusting to their loyalty, and with the hope 

 that justice would at last be made by respecting their rights to it. Thus 

 it was explained to your excellency by the Minister for Foreign Affairs of 

 Nicaragua in his despatch of the 13th of the same month of March, in- 

 serted in the collection of documents published by order of your excel- 

 lency under the title of'' Correspondence respecting the Mosquito terri- 

 tory." 



