I will promptly forward to you any information the Mexican Government may
furnish.
[Inclosure in No. 6.]
Mr. Bragg to Mr.
Mariscal.
Legation of the United States,
Mexico
,
March 9,
1888.
Sir: I have the honor to advise your excellency
of a recent dispatch from my Government, expressing increased solicitude
for the personal safety of Oliver Woods (Don Bull), an American citizen
residing at Ventanas, State of Durango. This man was the [Page 1144] subject of a note to your excellency
under date of February 18 last from Mr. Connery, chargé d’affaires of
this legation at that time, and in reply to which your excellency was
pleased to respond, conveying the gratifying intelligence of
instructions from your excellency’s Government to the governors of the
States of Sinaloa and Durango respectively, as follows:
“I have just received your note.* * * I at once communicated with the
governors of the States of Sinaloa and Durango, requesting by telegraph
that in case the said Woods had been apprehended, they should take care
that he be tried under all the guaranties granted to the accused by the
constitution and the laws,” and also the reply thereto from the governor
of Sinaloa, as follows: “I will bear in mind the request you are pleased
to make to the effect that, in case the American, Oliver Woods, is
arrested, he may be tried under all the guaranties which the
constitution and the laws grant. I have so advised the prefects of
Cosalá and San Ignacio, where the pursuit is prosecuted of the dispersed
remnants of Bernal’s band.”
But this legation is without information as to the action taken by the
governor of Durango in response to the instruction.
The advices now received inform me that Mr. Woods was
arrested on the 6th day of January, 1888, at
Ventanas, Durango, and taken into custody by the military; that
application was made to the power having him in custody for his
retention and trial in the State of Durango, which was refused, the
refusal being accompanied by the declaration that the prisoner would be
conducted to the city of Mexico for trial; and upon the same day (as it
was given out) the prisoner started under military guard for this city,
and since which time no information has been received by my Government,
or at this legation, of his whereabouts. Mr. Woods is represented as
being an old gentleman of exceptionally good character, and of a quiet
and inoffensive disposition.
The charge upon which he was arrested is supposed to be “complicity with
the bandit Bernal in the various murders committed and outrages
perpetrated by him and his band of brigands,” a charge so much at
variance with the course of the whole life of Mr. Woods, and so
repugnant to his character, that its truth seems highly improbable, to
say the least.
My Government has no desire to shield him from the fullest punishment for
his crime, if he be guilty, and only interests itself to the end that
his trial be as speedily had as may be consistent with a full
opportunity given him to produce such evidence as he may have to
establish his innocence of the grave charge made against him, if he be
in fact innocent and that he have humane treatment pending his being in
custody and trial, all of which my Government is assured he will receive
upon the direction of your excellency’s attention to the case.
I am directed to express to your excellency that the increased anxiety of
my Government in this case does not arise from any fear or distrust of
the action of the Federal Government of Mexico, but measurably from the
lack of response (so far as my Government is advised) by the governor of
the State oi” Durango to the instructions given as seated in your
excellency’s note hereinbefore referred to, and from the total lack of
information as to what has been done with the accused since his arrest
and departure from his home, in close custody, on the 6th of January,
1888, as hereinbefore stated.
And it is only to prevent the possibility of any misadventure befalling
Mr. Woods before his trial that I am directed by my Government to inform
your excellency of its increased apprehension, lest some evil shall have
befallen him in the long time that has elapsed since his arrest; and its
earnest desire that it may be advised, so speedily as may be consistent
with your excellency’s public duties, of all the information now in the
possession of your excellency’s Government touching the facts of this
case, including the location and status of the prisoner.
With full confidence and trust that this application will be favorably
considered and promptly acted upon by your excellency, I have the honor
to reiterate, etc.,
