Mr. Fish to Mr. Torbert
Sir: Your dispatch, No. 49, of the 4th ultimo has been received. The communication which accompanied it, addressed to you by the president, Medina, of Honduras, is certainly of an extraordinary character. Its purpose seems to have been to hold you personally responsible for an assumed delinquency of your Government in failing to comply with the stipulation on our part to maintain the neutrality of the railway across Honduras. Supposing the obligation to exist as claimed by President Medina, it is obvious that it could not be carried into effect without the exertion of a physical force, which it was ridiculous to have supposed that you could personally wield, and unreasonable to suppose that you had at command. It is deemed unnecessary to repeat the views which have heretofore been expressed in regard to the obligation of the United States under the treaty. That may, however, be summarily stated as a bargain to protect the railway, when completed, against occupation or obstruction, not only by a foreign power, but of Honduras itself, and to abstain ourselves from such occupation or obstruction. This, and this only, we conceive to be the true meaning of the phrase “neutrality,” used in the treaty, an expression which certainly is not so free from ambiguity as to require no explanation. Any construction which may be offered, however, must comport with reason and probability. The construction claimed by Honduras would require the United States to protect the road against all intruders from its inception to its conclusion. No such construction is warranted by the words of the instrument.
It is deemed expedient that you should ascertain what other governments may have guaranteed the railway, and on what terms, so that, if necessary, we may have an understanding with that government as to the fulfillment of our several obligations.
I am, sir, &c.,