No. 103.
Mr. Williamson to Mr. Fish.
United
States Legation in Central America,
Guatemala, January 9, 1875.
(Received Feb. 12.)
No. 291.]
Sir: I have the honor to inclose you a letter from
Consul Duke addressed to me, also copy of his letter addressed to the
captain of the
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Arizona, printed
copy of the protesta of Mrs. Pena, and translation of
the same, and copy of my letter in reply to Mr. Duke.
The man Peña is an unhappy wretch, who, having been arrested in Costa Rica by
the minions of Guardia, either by compulsion or voluntarily, for a bribe of
four hundred dollars, confessed that he had been hired by President
Gonzales, of Salvador, and by Don Joaquin Fernandez to assassinate Guardia.
As soon as the confession was made, Guardia had his likeness taken, and the
printed or written confession pasted on the back. He then sent the man Peña,
under charge of two officers, by the steamer Mohongo to La Libertad, in
Salvador, As soon as he was on shore at La Libertad, and assured of his
personal safety, he declared the previous confession was extorted from him
under threats of death and a promise of a reward of four hundred dollars by
Guardia. He was then, it is said, turned over to the courts of Salvador to
be dealt with accordingly.
The protest and rumor say the courts had ordered him to be returned to Costa
Rica under the charge of the same officers that brought him. It is presumed,
if this was intended, the protest and Mr. Duke’s action may have prevented
its execution.
The affair has created, I learn, great bitterness of feeling on the part of
Gonzales toward Guardia, and numerous rumors of war are afloat.
I do not apprehend any danger of war at present.
I have, &c.,
[Inclosure 1 in No. 291.]
Mr. Duke to Mr.
Williamson.
Consulate of the United States at San
Salvador,
December 31,
1875.
Sir: This consulate, on the eve of the 29th
instant, filed a protest from Mrs. Julia Martinez, (as printed, copy
inclosed,) complaining of an outrage having been committed by Captain
Douglass on an American steamship, the Mohongo, he having brought her
son, Lieut. Col. J. Ma. Peña, as a prisoner (conveying at the same time,
as his guard for safe-keeping on board, two Costa Rican officers) from
the port of Punta Arenas, Costa Rica. She also, at the same time,
protests against her son’s being sent back to Punta Arenas in an
American vessel, she having been informed that the court of Salvador
pretends returning him as a prisoner under the same guard that brought
him (here) to La Libertad on the 22d instant, and asking me to instruct
the captain of the steamen Arizona, now expected at the port of La
Libertad, on its trip to Panama, that once on board of said steamer to
allow him to disembark at any neutral port that he may think proper; and
judging that the petition is well founded in said protest, to the effect
I sent a dispatch to the captain of the American steamship Arizona,
informing him that should Lieut. Col. J. Ma. Pena be sent on board, that
once there to consider him as on American soil, and at liberty to
disembark wherever he pleases. I have inclosed you a copy of my dispatch
sent to the captain of the Arizona.
By all that has been told me by passengers by the same steamer that
landed at La Libertad and arrived here, they say that it was publicly
talked of on board when they left Punta Arenas that the person of J. M.
Peña was being carried to La Libertad as a prisoner, and that at every
port after they left Punta Arenas, which they stopped at, he (Pena) was
locked up in one of the state-rooms as a prisoner by the two officers
sent by the government of Costa Rica, and permitted by Captain Douglass
and officers of the Mohongo. It appears that they allowed their vessel
to serve as a prison for the government of Costa Rica.
I have informed the Department at Washington of what I have done, and
hope it will approve, as well as yourself, of the steps I have taken, so
that a similar outrage is not committed or allowed by this consulate as
by that of Costa Rica.
I am, sir, your obedient servant,
J. MAURICE DUKE.
United States
Consul.
Hon. George Williamson,
American Minister to Central America,
Guatemala.
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[Inclosure 2 in No. 291.]
Mr. Duke to the
captain of the Arizona.
Consulate of the United States at San
Salvador,
December 30,
1875.
Sir: This consulate having been informed, by a
protest filed in it yesterday, that the court of Salvador contemplates
returning to Punta Arenas, Costa Rica, on board the steamer Arizona,
that you command, as a prisoner, Lieut. Col. José Maria Pena, an outrage
having already been perpetrated by the captain of the American steamer
Mohongo, his having brought him from Punta Arenas as a prisoner, having
been escorted to insure his safe delivery from the last-named port to La
Libertad by two Costa Rican officers, and my not wishing a similar
repetition to occur, should the said J. Ma. Peña, as a prisoner, be sent
on board your vessel, you will consider him, once under the American
flag, to be on American soil, and free to disembark where he pleases. It
is not to be imagined that a vessel carrying the American flag can serve
either the government of Costa Rica or Salvador as a prison for their
citizens, even if there should exist a treaty of extradition between
Costa Rica and Salvador, of which, however, there is none.
In due course I will inform the American minister at Guatemala, as also
the Department of State at Washington.
I am, sir, your obedient servant,
J. MAURICE DUKE,
United States
Consul.
[Inclosure 3 in No.
291.—Translation.]
Protest of Mrs. Peña.
For the information of the people of Salvador, and of the rest of Central
America, is printed the following document, that has merited from the
honorable consul of North America a decisive action worthy of his
respectable character and that of the first republic of the continent.
Honor to probity; applause to the protectors of right!
Mr. Consul of the United States, I, Julia Martinez de Peña, native of the
Republic or Salvador, widow, and citizen of Cojutepeque, respectfully
come before you to make the following protest: The supreme power of
Costa Rica has just sent to this country, in the character of prisoner,
on board the steamer Mohongo, my legitimate son, Lieut. Cok José Maria
Pena, who has come guarded by two Costa Rican officials, who are now in
the port of La Libertad.
The reason assigned for this proceeding, as unusual as disgraceful,
appears to be a declaration made known by my above-mentioned son in the
republic where he was made prisoner, in virtue of which he appears as
confessing himself guilty of the black crime of an attempt at
assassination against the person of General Thomas Guardia, President of
a people where violence, tyranny, and immorality are now found
established in the government.
It is also said that, according to this strange declaration, the Lieut.
Col. Pena appears as the accuser of the supreme chief of his country,
Marshal Santiago Gonzalez, accusing him of complicity in the unholy
attempt of which I am going to speak with all the bitterness and
indignation of a mother who sees the being whom she nourished in her
bosom a victim of fear and infamous fraud, the sad consequences of which
I will not dwell upon under the weight of my grief.
Permit me, Mr. Consul, to say here, in reference to the principal object
of this writing, that I protest with all my power against this
iniquitous scheme on the part of the government of Costa Rica to cover
with odium the government of Salvador, destroying at the same time the
honor and lawful expectations of the son that I conceived, in the
present case as innocent as unfortunate.
It is sufficient, Mr. Consul, to consider in the light of public opinion
the confession to which I refer, to see in it the fruits of a state of
madness, or rather of a horrible imprisonment, in which the expectation
of torture or of death is capable of tearing from the man the confession
that may be desired, although it should be his own infamy, although it
should be an eternal disgrace to him who in an unhallowed hour has had
the sad necessity of uttering a falsehood, yielding to human weakness,
tortured by the ministers of evil, who make torture an element of
government.
The history of the world is full of similar iniquities, in which brute
force is used by man to proclaim his own degradation, and the slander
that tyrants need to cowardly work out evil from their timid
adversaries. The immoral government of Costa Rica
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has had the sad satisfaction of doing
this, as is proved by the explanations he has spontaneously given since
he finds himself free from the control of the authors of his present
misfortune.
Having seen thus the act in question, I do not; understand, Mr. Consul,
how the captain of the steamer Mohongo, Mr. Douglass, has been able to
cover with the flag of the stars of liberty a victim of tyranny,
trampling under foot international law and natural rights, inviolable in
every territory where they have not been transgressed. And as the ships
of the American Union are, and ought to be, considered as an integral
part of the territory of that great nation, it can be well protested
against the blamable condescension of the captain of the Mohongo, who
has acted the part of jailer to my son, and I protest solemnly, with all
the energy which wounded feelings and rights give, reserving to myself
the right to reclaim at a proper time reparation for the injuries and
damages that such unauthorized conduct may bring upon Lieut. Col. José
Maria Pena, the object of the very strange proceedings that I have just
mentioned, and which right and morals reprove and condemn.
But it is also the case, Mr. Consul, that, in the councils of the
Salvadoran chancery, it is believed convenient, and by all means
necessary, to return my son to the country whence he was brought to this
in such a predicament; and I entertain the sad conviction that if such a
thing happens he will be sacrificed by those who have wished to make him
an instrument of their perverse designs.
If such a misfortune should be realized, it will be only with the
co-operation of some of the North American captains and ships that touch
in the ports of Central America, and in so deplorable an event the blood
of my son, the blood of this Salvadoran, who suffers without just cause
the penalties and insults that the satanic machinations, foreign to his
heart and to the loyal government of Salvador, wish to inflict upon
him—this blood, I say, will not fall without rising to Heaven, calling
for reparation from the magnanimous people of North America, whom you,
Mr. Consul, so worthily represent in this land, thirsting for justice
and liberty.
If such a misfortune should happen, there will not be wanting voices bold
and generous that may say to the world, “The flag of the nation that in
each one of its stars symbolizes a star of justice and liberty; the flag
of a nation that has hallowed the rights of man, elevating itself by
this to higher altitude in the scale of humanity, has served in one
portion of the American continent, in the bosom of democracy, to cover
an injustice, a cruelty, an abominable crime.”
With such information, and not finding here the diplomatic minister of
the United States, I address myself to you formally, begging that you
will be pleased to notify the captain of the steamer that is to bear my
son from the shores of his country to other foreign ones, that in the
very moment he may be placed upon board he ought to be considered as in
full and perfect liberty, and with the undeniable right of landing in
any neutral port it may suit him. If it is not so, I protest
immediately, as the gravity of the case demands; and so I also protest
against the conduct of the captain of the steamer Mohongo again and
again, making the North American Union responsible before God, before
civilized men, and before all humanity for the sacrifice or the
afflictions that my son, Lieut. Col. José Maria Peña, may suffer, and
for the injuries and misfortunes that will weigh upon his harassed
family, depending now upon the equity with which the agents of a great
people may act.
JULIA MARIA DE PEÑA.
San
Salvador, December 29,
1874.
[Inclosure 5 in No. 291.]
Mr. Williamson to
Mr. Duke.
United
States Legation in Central America,
Guatemala, January 8, 1875.
Sir: Your dispatch dated the 31st ultimo,
containing a printed copy of what is called the “protesta” of Mrs. Julia
Martinez de Pena, and also a manuscript copy of your letter to the
captain of the Arizona, has been received.
I am of the opinion that it is highly discreditable for an American
vessel to be used as a temporary prison or conveyance for the
transportation of prisoners from one country to another, unless the
prisoner conveyed is being lawfully returned under extradition treaties
from the country in which he has sought refuge to that in which he
committed the crime of which he has been, in due form of law,
accused.
The man who is called in the protest Lieutenant-Colonel Pena is shown by
the statements in that document to be so infamous that he is entitled to
no sympathy, but yet his infamy does not alter the principle or its
application.
You will allow me to say, in all kindness, that in my judgment it would
have been better for you to have stated to Mrs. Peña that there is no
provision of law authorizing
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the protests of foreigners in such cases to be received and filed in an
American consulate, and that an American consul has no authority to
order or instruct American captains or ship-owners, but can only advise
and request, except as prescribed by law.
Your well-known intimacy with President Gonzalez lessens the apprehension
that your action in receiving and filing such a paper as the “protesta,”
and giving such instructions as you did to the captain of the Arizona,
may be highly unacceptable, if not offensive, to the government of
Salvador. All the papers, together with a copy of this letter, will be
forwarded to the Secretary of State.
I am, sir, your obedient servant,
J. Maurice Duke, Esq.,
United States Consul at San Salvador.
