254 



Doc. No. 75. 



As to the second pointy if it is true that Mr. Christie is makiiig ar- 

 rangements with the governor of Jamaica for the transportation of 

 convicts to San Juan, it seems to me that her Majesty's government 

 slioiild, by an act of justice, and on behalf of the friendly relations now 

 existing between the two countries^ forbid such a thing to take place until 

 after the final termination of the question, as consistent with the statu quo 

 adopted by Major Sparks at the time he was governor of San Juan, the ob- 

 servance of which I have demanded of your excellency in my letters of 

 the 9th of February last and of the 5th instant, the last of which has 

 not yet been answered. The transportation of convicts could not be 

 made even after the conclusion of the question, without stipulating first 

 with Nicaragua the basis on which the garrison shall be organized, be- 

 cause such an establishment would be prejudicial to the country, intro- 

 ducing within its confines, instead of industrious and useful men, as are 

 required for a new society, vice and immorality, represented by the crimi- 

 nals who have by their crimes deserved punishment, and are expelled 

 with ignominy from their mother country. The establishment of such 

 men in San Juan would nowise be convenient to Nicaragua, nor could 

 it be, in my opinion, ordered to be made before the termination of the 

 arrangenient, without offending the rights of that State, making appear 

 her Majesty's government as judge and party in the question after hav- 

 ing proposed friendly means to arrange it. 



The same must I say to your excellency respecting the police force. 

 The territory of San Juan is a part of Nicaragua until now, by the rea- 

 sons I have before manifested; that territory is not known yet to whom 

 it will definitively appertain; and the introduction of a foreign force 

 when it ought to remain neutral, no matter what its object may be, would 

 be considered as a violation of the armistice of the Tth of March, and as 

 an act of hostility towards a friendl)/- State, and above all against the in- 

 tentions of her Majesty's government, which are pacific and friendly 

 towards Nicaragua, as your excellency has deigned to assure me. 



The agents of her Majesty's government, on whose reports they have 

 rested to sustain that the Mosquito tribes are apt to form a nation, and 

 the proceedings that are now going on at San Juan, afford the most in- 

 contestable arguments against their own assertions; because if those 

 tribes and their chief are really capable of governing themselves, and of 

 administrating their own affairs, with what right has Mr. Christie, in 

 his character of consul general, interfered in the delineation of the 

 limits in question, and in making arrangements with the governor of 

 Jamaica for the transportation of convicts to San Juan, and in sending 

 religious missions, (to San Juan,) which are only sent to catechise men 

 who in a savage state wander in the v/oods and deserts, flying from social 

 life, and plunged in the errors and vices of idolatry? If her Majesty's 

 government fix a proper attention to these facts, they will find, I doubt 

 not, that the government of Nicaragua have had reasons to sustain that 

 the Mosquito Indians not only are incapable of forming a nation, but 

 that they cannot even form a people, because they have no authorities, 

 no customs, and no religion — indispensable circumstances, according to 

 the law of nations, to admit in the great society of nations the people 

 that aspire to occupy a place therein. 



With relation to the Moravian mission which is soon to arrive at San 

 Juan, solicited by the late Mr. Walker, I will only say that the govern- 



