Mr. Fish to Mr. Torbert
Sir: Your dispatches, Nos. 32 and 34, of the 19th and 20th ultimo respectively, have been received. In reply to your inquiry as to the extent of the obligation assumed by this Government in the fourteenth article of its treaty with Honduras of 1864, relative to the guarantee of a railway across that republic, I have to state that it has always been understood here that that obligation does not attach until the completion of that work. The guarantee was given as a consideration for certain advantages which, as they cannot be enjoyed until the road shall have been finished, this Government cannot until then properly be called upon to repel an invasion of the route from abroad.
I am, &c.,