Mr. Soteldo to Mr. Bayard.
Washington, April 2, 1885. (Received April 3.)
Most Excellent Sir: I have the honor to submit to your excellency’s consideration an abstract of our interview of this day, which was held in pursuance of your excellency’s note of the 25th ultimo, and of my reply of the 31st, which I wrote on my return from New York, as soon as I received your aforesaid note.
I called at the Department of State before 12 o’clock (because I had learned that the Cabinet was to meet at that hour) for the purpose of having an hour appointed. After a brief explanation of my failure to receive notice of the appointment in time, and of my two days’ absence in New York, we agreed to meet at 2 o’clock in the afternoon, and did so meet.
Your excellency began by urging the necessity of fixing the amount of the indemnity to be paid to Mr. Wheelock, according to the agreement made. This, you said, was all that remained to be done; that you had read everything bearing upon the case, the papers containing which you showed me.
I replied by agreeing to the necessity of concluding the final arrangement in question, remarking that I had proposed $2,000, for the reason stated in my communications, and that subsequently, when I visited the Department of State in pursuance of the appointment made with me by your excellency’s predecessor, although I was punctual, not with standing the receipt of the communication which contained it, with the difference of the distance only, I was received, after waiting a long time, by Mr. Davis, who at length promised to let me know whether the $5,000 would be accepted or not, I having offered that amount as the maximum, and having told him that I was not authorized to increase my previous offer any more; but as Mr. Baker, the minister of the United States at Caracas, officially reported to his Government [Page 931] that Mr. Amengual, as minister of foreign relations, had told him that our Government was willing to pay the claimant $5,000, I did not doubt Mr. Baker’s veracity, nor did I doubt that my Government would fulfill any promise that it had made; that I had been kept waiting for the answer of the Secretary of State, which, after all, had not been given me, and that my offer could not then be increased.
Your excellency told me that you could not possibly accept $5,000 or any similar amount, notwithstanding your earnest desire to settle the question in the manner most satisfactory to both countries, because $10,000 had been offered to the claimant in the name of our Government, which sum had been refused, and that you thought that you could make but a very small reduction on the minimum fixed by your predecessor.
I told your excellency, in reply, that no offer of $10,000 had been made to Mr. Wheelock; that he had called on me in New York, requesting me to hear what he had to say, and that I had told him that I could treat with no one but your excellency in relation to his claim; that he had urged me to read a letter from the Department of State, whereby he was informed that an immediate request was expected from me for an interview relative to the instructions which, according to Mr. Baker, had been communicated to me, by my Government for the settlement of his claim. I told him that as long as he should continue to dream of large sums, which Venezuela would never pay, a settlement would be absolutely impossible, inasmuch as Venezuela was under no obligations whatever to indemnify a person who had not had recourse her courts, which alone had power to redress grievances similar to his.
Your excellency told me that the only thing that we had to do was to fix the amount of the indemnity, and proposed to me, with a view to settling the matter, that my Government should pay $10,000. I said that it was absolutely impossible for me to agree to that, because the instructions which I had received since I had made my offer to Mr. Davis limited me to $5,000, and that the dollar in Yenezuela was understood to be equivalent to about 74 or 75 cents in United States money, as was shown by the consular certificates in Venezuelan ports on invoices of shipments from Venezuela.
Your excellency at length proposed that we should reduce the $10,000 to ten thousand Venezuelan dollars, thereby reducing the amount to $7,500, and finally to $7,400, provided that the payment should be made strictly in cash.
I told your excellency that I would exceed my limits by $1,000, feeling satisfied that my Government would approve this, solely for the sake of pleasing your excellency and the present worthy administration, but that I required time, it being impossible, under the circumstances, to pay the amount in less than two installments, payable in bills of exchange at sixty days’ sight; that my Government would send the first in three months for $3,000, and that it would send the remainder three months afterwards, likewise sending a bill of exchange at sixty days for $3,000, and thereby making good its payment of $6,000.
Your excellency finally agreed to these terms, accepting, with its explanations, my aforesaid proposition, and saying that you would express your acceptance thereof in writing as soon as possible, so that I might inform my Government without unnecessary delay.
Hoping that the foregoing statement will meet your excellency’s approval, I have, &c.,