Señor Benitez to Mr. Washburn.
I have the honor to acknowledge the receipt of your excellency’s note of the 14th instant, refusing to dismiss from your hotel Porter Cornelius Bliss, North American citizen, and George Masterman, English subject, the first as belonging to the legation and as being very useful to you in your official duties, and the second as physician of your family, desiring therefore to retain them as long as you remain in Paraguay; and you say that the names of these individuals were presented to this government ministry as belonging to the legation; that in fact Masterman came to reside in your house in the above capacity in September last; that in your note of the 24th February, detained until the 4th of April and sent with another of the same date, this name is included as belonging to the legation; that as no objection was made you considered him as recognized by the government; that the name of Mr. Bliss was also given in both lists as belonging to the legation; that in the note of this ministry of the 22d of February it was stated to you that as Mr. Bliss does not belong to the class of servants he should be confined to the rear of the legation premises in order not to be subject to arrest in going out, which he had scrupulously done during the last three months; that considering these two persons as members of the legation, you cannot enter into any discussion relative to delivering them up or sending them out of your house; that if you should do so, it would be an abdication of all your functions and rights as minister, since if you were to recognize the right of the government to take away any person whom you may consider a member of the legation you would have to cede it in respect to all, and thus might be left not only without a servant, but also without wife, child, or secretary; that according to my humble reasoning of the 11th instant, from the moment that I should allege that they are accused, your excellency has no other resource than to deliver them up.
You say that it is with regret, such as you have rarely experienced in all your life, that after so long a residence in Paraguay, where you have experienced so much kindness and courtesy from both government and people, and to which you have endeavored to respond in a manner which has almost caused a war between your country and the enemies of mine, and which is still hourly threatened, it should yet appear that you have lost that confidence and respect of this government which you still enjoyed to a high degree until recently, as is amply proved as well by [Page 743] official correspondence as by the columns of the official paper; but that through having received in the legation persons who do not belong to it, or through having remained in the city after its evacuation, or for some other unknown cause, it seems to you that you are regarded so differently that you say you cannot see how you can be of any utility to your government, nor to that of Paraguay, nor to any individual in it, by longer remaining here; that you had hoped to remain until the end of the war, and not say good-bye to the Paraguayan people, which has sustained a war with a bravery and abnegation which must render it one of the most notable in the pages of history, and give to its illustrious magistrate and commander of its armies one of the most conspicuous places in the annals of war, in which you had hoped that your name would have a place as honorable as you could make it, leaving the country in the enjoyment of peace and prosperity so nobly acquired by its valor and abnegation; but that now you see yourself obliged to abandon this hope, and that the course which you had thought it a duty to follow appears to have been so opposed to the views of this government that you do not see that you longer can be of any use. And you conclude by saying that for this reason you have the honor to ask passports for all the persons comprising that legation, and that as soon as circumstances may permit, facilities may be given to you such as belong to the character of an accredited minister, in order to leave the country.
In fact, Mr. Minister, along with your note of the 4th of April there was delivered another, under date of February 24th, in which appears George Masterman, apothecary, dismissed by this government from its service, without specification of his quality in the legation; and being already aware that you had obtained his complete liberty in order to perform a certain service, I did not hasten to have his character specified, nor to refuse to recognize him. I confided that although having antecedents very little honorable, you would cause him to comport himself well in your hotel, and that the case now presented would not have offered. Besides, there was no objection, since I have considered Masterman as continuing in the service for which he had been put at liberty, and it will be very painful to my government that on account of a gracious concession on its part in favor of and for the service of a minister of a friendly nation, he should have gained access to the hotel of your embassy to become criminal with impunity, pretending to shield himself with the immunities so justly respected in the representatives of nations. I cherish the hope that you will not see in this a recognition by my government of Masterman as a member of the legation of the United States, with immunities.
Mr. Porter Cornelius Bliss arrived in the country for the second time two months after the breaking out of the war with Brazil, and solicited a contract for a literary labor with the government, and it was conceded to him. From that time he remained in its service and pay. This ministry has seen with surprise that its contracted servant, without having fulfilled his promises, and with pecuniary liabilities on account of this same service, and without previous notice, was enlisted by you as a servant.
It was then that, knowing that Mr. Bliss was also of no small utility to you, it was permitted that he should remain in Asuncion with you, but not in the quality of servant, which was not recognized in him; and it was then inexplicable for this government that Mr. Bliss, being received in the best society—that which you yourself cultivate—he should show such abnegation as to engage as your servant. I wish to hope that this [Page 744] account cannot be alleged as a recognition of immunities for the person demanded.
When you spoke of but three months of scrupulous fulfillment of the conditions imposed, you doubtless overlooked other months in which Bliss lived outside of the legation, to which he only came after the imprisonment of Mr. James Manlove, also enrolled as a servant of the legation of your excellency at the same time with Bliss, enjoying the same social treatment, and to-day also on trial for the same crime.
Leaving aside the circumstances under which these two individuals have arrived in the country, does not your excellency find something irregular and not easy to be explained in this conduct? But as you refuse to enter into any discussion relative to the giving up or the dismissal of these individuals, I will leave aside all that I might say, appealing to the justice of your excellency with the simple narrative of facts which I have just made, and the information that Masterman and Bliss are important members of a combination which, by agreement with the enemy, was to have broken out shortly in the country for the overthrow of its government, and the extermination of the army which combats for its existence, which information will undoubtedly suffice to cause the minister of the United States of America to expel such infamous criminals from his hotel.
This declaration, made after that which I had the honor to set forth in my note of the 11th instant, when you asked for a specific statement of the charges against the culprit Leite Pereira, and after what I have said above, is certainly not the discharging of a duty, but a friendly information, that the intruders in your legation have sheltered themselves there, abusing the good faith and generosity of your excellency, in order afterwards to abuse criminally its immunities.
I would have wished to spare you so great an annoyance, but the reminder which you make of your long stay in Paraguay, the apprehension with which you seem to be possessed of having lost the confidence of my government, the fear expressed of being no longer useful, neither to the government of the United States nor to that of Paraguay, nor to any individual in it, along with the doctrine that by permitting the trial of George Masterman and Porter C. Bliss you would have to yield all privileges, and might be left without a servant, without wife, without child, or without secretary, are the causes which have decided me to it.
I cannot understand the opposition which you find between your conduct and the views attributed to my government, and still less can I understand the reason of the fear that the name of your excellency will fail to occupy an honorable place in the history of our war, though indeed I presume it will be painful for you as it is for me to find in the hotel of your excellency criminals of such a character.
Certainly my government did not regard as an act of cordial friendship the permanence of your excellency in Asuncion for an indefinite time, with such a number of refugees, and without apparent motive, after its entire evacuation; but with frank friendship it has manifested its regret, and if you did not find it convenient to accede to the desires of the government, this circumstance has not sufficed to cause a withdrawal of confidence.
A proof of this is found in the fact that this ministry made no complaint except when it became my duty to accuse you of lack of respect to my note of June 28th, in thinking it your duty to refuse the delivery of the culprit Leite Pereira, then recently arrived for shelter in your hotel.
A rapid review of all the correspondence of this ministry, and of the columns of the newspaper which your excellency cites, will suffice to [Page 745] destroy the idea of lack of that confidence and respect on the part of my government which it has taken pleasure in demonstrating towards the representative of the American Union and his worthy family, who for the first time broke the blockade.
Strengthening thus my note of the 13th concerning the dismissal of G. Masterman and Porter Cornelius Bliss, to be delivered up or sent away, I am persuaded that you, thus informed, will hasten to expel from the hotel of your legation those who, bathing the national soil with fratricidal blood, pretend to undermine the just title to the sympathy of your excellency which the abnegation and great sacrifices of my country have acquired, as well as those which the singular and conspicuous services which its supreme magistrate and general-in-chief of its armies, Marshal Lopez, has conquered in this struggle.
As your excellency is pleased to base upon the fears already mentioned the painful situation in which you find yourself, of having to renounce your desires of not leaving Paraguay until the conclusion of the war, and your consequent request for your passports, I shall await to know if I have not been fortunate enough to have dissipated them, and shall afterwards ask the orders of his excellency the Marshal President of the republic respecting the said passports and facilities.
Having offered you in my note of the 12th instant that the Mistresses Thomas and Eden would be advised that they may return to the house of your excellency, it is now my duty to mention that having informed them of this concession they have replied that they would by no means return, perhaps because you yourself have not spoken to them, and for whatever may occur I inform you that concession still remains in force.
I improve this occasion to renew to your excellency the assurance of my distinguished consideration and esteem.
His Excellency Charles A. Washburn, Minister Resident of the United States.