Mr. Egan to Mr. Blaine.
Santiago, July 16, 1891. (Received September 26.)
Sir: I beg to refer to the gross inventions and exaggerations which have appeared in the press of the United States describing imaginary cruelties and atrocities on the part of both of the parties to the civil war which at present so unhappily afflicts this country, and to state for your information that since the beginning of the present month the Government has set at liberty and sent to Iquique, the headquarters of the revolution, without any conditions whatsoever, eighty-seven political prisoners, and four others will leave by the next mail steamers for Montevideo leaving now in the Government prisons only fourteen or fifteen prisoners, all military men, charged with, or suspected of, attempting to tamper with the loyalty of the army. All of these gentlemen, all men of good position, were treated while in prison—as are also the military prisoners still retained—with every consideration. They have had an entire wing of the prison given up to them, with well-ventilated and perfectly clean cells, free intercommunication, permission to receive their friends with very slight restrictions and to receive from outside almost anything in the way of furniture and luxuries which their friends desired to send them, and many of them were allowed to keep their servants. For some months they were supplied with food at the expense of a committee of friends from a French restaurant, the most excellent in the city, and when the committee stopped this supply the Government had the food supplied from another caterer at an expense of about $40 gold per month for each prisoner.
Many reports reached here of the cruel treatment of Government officers who are prisoners in the north in the hands of the revolutionists, and the Government requested me to use my good offices to procure ah amelioration of their condition, which I did; but on investigation those reports, as well as the others, turned out to be entirely unfounded.
I have, etc.,