The Papers of Mirabeau Buonaparte Lamar, Volume IV, part 2

228

TEXAS STATE LIBRARY

No. 2785 1859 Aug. 30, [M. B. LAMAR, WASHINGTON, D. C.] TO P. [ZELEDON, MANAGUA, NICARAGUA] 09 Washington

Ausgust 30th 1859.

My dear Don Pedro.

I have just concluded a long letter to President Martinez and one to General Jerez ; 70 and I am quite too fatigued to attt>mpt another; especially a long one. Nevertheless I cannot permit the op- portunity to escape of saying a few words to an old friend whom I have so many reasons to respect and love. The objectionable Article in our Treaty in relation to the enforcement of the neutrality laws, over which we fought so hard, is at length stricken out by the unanimous con- sent of your Government. This is well done. That article was most cer- tanly unjust & insulting to my Govt.; and I always believed that it was insisted upon as a sine qua non, rather as a matter of pride & vic- tory than from any than of [sic] any positive utility to Nicaragua, shrude- ly suspect that you were not far from the same opinion suspicious [sic] that you yourself were somewhat enclined to the same opinion yourself. Indeed my good old friend, I haw enough of vanity in myself and con- fidence in you, to believe that if the difficulties and disagreements be- tween of our countries had been left to our adjudication and adjust- ment before they became so entangled & complicated, we would have settled them all - transits, treaties and reclamations - without the slightest difficulty & to the satisfaction of all parties, except the rapa- cious vulturs that were seeking to prey upon the bowels of your coun- try. There were at the beginning no serious obstacles to overcome; no causes of discontent or quarrel which did not admit of ready explana- tion and of prompt removal. But when the Bellys, Barwells - the Vanderbits and Websters, and such like unprincipled interlopers, com- menced their diabolical operations in the country poor Nicaragua be- came bewildered by their evil counsels and pernicious influence and plunged precipitately into many blunders, and keept plunging on from blunder to blunder until her affairs arrived to such a state of confusion that it seemed impossible for the devil himself to disentangle them. No. 2786 1859 Aug. 30, M. B. LAMAR, [WASHINGTO:N, D. C.] TO P. [ZELEDON, MANAGUA, NICARAGUA]7 1 Washington August 30th 1859 ::\Iy dear Don Pedro [The first twenty-eight lines of this document are merely a duplica- tion of the first part of the preceding document J . I shall look upon the ratification of that treaty by my govern-

'

..A. Df. '"No. 2784. "Copy.

Powered by