have been exacted of them, contrary to all law. These acts of outrage and oppression, with the numerous other complaines which have been made, from time to time, and which still remain unredressed, have painfully impressed upon the mind of the President of the United States that the great moderation and forbearance which he has, on all occasions, practised towards Mexico, and the friendly and benevolent motives which have led to it, have not been properly appreciated; and he now feels himself constrained, by a high sense of duty, to ask of the Mexican Government such reparation as these accumulated wrongs may, on inquiry, be found to require. The undersigned is also instructed to make known to your excellency, that it is expected that any damage which may have been sustained by citizens of the United States, in consequence of the recent embargo at Vera Cruz, Tampico, and other Mexican ports on the gulf, will be repaired, pursuant to the stipulations of the treaty. The private claims, generally, of citizens of the United States, to a vast amount, arising out of flagrant violations of the laws of nations, have been made, by my predecessors, the subject of repeated and unavailing applications to this Government for adjustment. After these unexpected procrastinations in rendering justice to those who had been invited into the ports of the republic, under the most solemn guaranties of protection, it cannot be a matter of surprise that the United States should ask that their claims may be investigated, and acknowledged, if found to be correct. Every principle of international law, and of equity, requires that remuneration should be granted to the sufferers, who have been thus reduced to ruin and beggary by the unauthorized acts of men who have violated the laws and usages which regulate and control the commercial inter.course between all civilized nations. Such remuneration is due to that high sense of honor and justice which the undersigned confidently believes will ever animate the Mexican Government in maintaining those friendly relations which so happily exist between the two republics: and, permit him to add, it is due to the honor, the interests, and the rights of his own country. Many of the cases not enumerated, as well as those now particularly referred to, marked, as they are, by the strongest evidence of cruelty and injustice, cannot be made a matter of
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