You conclude, Mr. Consul, by expressing an earnest desire that the government of Salvador will not delay in giving the required satisfaction, and stating that, in the event of this not being done as required, you will find yourself under the obligation of giving the necessary orders, so tha her Britannic Majesty's vessels, which are expected on the coast in the course of September next, may carry into effect the strongest coelive measures against the State of Salvador.

Having acquainted the President of the State with the foregoing particulars, he has directed me to reply to you in the following terms:

The President is well aware that the armed vessels of the Pacific can be at the disposal of that consulate, and that the consul will make use of this force in order to compel the State to give the satisfaction which he unjustly exacts from it, and that the most hostile measures will be resorted to-continuing thus the system of aggression and injury which has been adopted, in order to prevent the possibility of a rational and pacific setdement.

The consul designates as deliberate insults and injuries the official remonstrances which have been made, always on account of offensive notes and acts of aggression against the sovereignty of the country, both written and executed by your direction. The supreme government of Salvador could not have remained silent, nor avoided protesting with energy, although it did so without using language calculated to provoke those insults which are always resorted to by the strong against the weak, and to the detriment of justice. As to decorum in the use of language, this should have been preceded by prudence and moderation in your own official conduct, non-interference in the affairs of the country, the exercise of reason, and not of blind and headlong passion, in a matter of such delicacy, together with a show of respect and deference for the country where you exercised your functions. If decorum ought to be preserved, how much more important is it that consular obligations should be performed with moderation and in peace!

These are the complaints which, without attempting to repeat them, inasmuch as they have made their way into a thousand publications, and have been a theme of scandal to the world, until the treaty with North America afforded us relief and protection to our rights, the governments of Central America have brought against the British consul; and it is a reDarkable circumstance that it should be asked now what they are-nay, more, that they should be reputed as disrespectful, when no expressions have been used except the most pertinent, in order to convey a simple idea of the acts of violence perpetrated against this country. And if the consul is allowed to commit such acts, shall it not be permitted to the offended government to denounce them in the language of just complaint? Shall it be deemed proper to blockade and seize upon islands and ports; to exact by forcible means arbitrary sums of money from the public officers of Trujillo, which the latter paid up in order that the place might be evacuated; to take illegal possession of San Juan; to alter the tariff' at pleasure, in violation of the treaty of Cuba; to impose exorbitant duties; to insult, to strike, and even to inflict cruel corporal chastisement upon Central Americans, on the plea of protecting some few savages, and of obtaining certain sums of money not proved to be due by British subjects? And shall we not be allowed, Mr. Consul, to speak of all this in civil though expressive terms, as of a most tyrannical vexation?

The expression "to humble," which the consul has used against this government-employed, as the term is, after his having resorted to means of violence against the rights and integrity of the country-after the performance of so many acts tending to depress and to degrade Central America, such a taunt, to be flung into the face of the government, in order to fill it with dread of future abasement and of the consequences of his rancor, is the greatest outrage that could possibly have been offered to the supreme authority: it is nothing less than an insult and a provoca tion. If such an expression had been employed even by a minister, an ambassador, or a plenipotentiary, in any of the courts of Europe, it would not have been tolerated. Is this because it is an American and a weak government-entitled, on that account, to less consideration and respect on the part of foreign envoys and foreign agents? The right to sue for satisfaction, therefore, belongs evidently much more to this government, whose object has never been to offend Great Britain.

On your return to the interior of Central America, Mr. Consul, forgetting the bounds of your consular functions, and provoking against your self the resentment of a party, you style that party invidious, revolutionary, superficial, usurping, and worthless, and stigmatize as a faction the noble resistance which Central Americans have always made against all attempts to dismember their territory, and the outrages which have been inflicted upon them through abuse of power and the contempt with which their respective governments have been treated. If you provoke the resentment of the sons of the land by the infliction of injuries, how do you expect to stop their opposition through the medium of the press? And in such a case who is the guilty party, he that provokes or those that are provoked? In the insult offered to Central Americans by stigmatizing them as factions, etc., because they have given publicity to the attacks made by the agents of Great Britain, you include the governments of the States, and especially that of Salvador, because they maintain their rights and dem onstrate the justice with which they resist the unfounded claims which are always urging against them. It is this offensive language, and the liberties which you, Mr. Consul, have taken in the course of your official correspondence, that have interfered with that harmony and good understanding so much desired by the governments of the States of Central America, and which, as far as they are concerned, might exist with the government of Great Britain; but it is impossible to remain silent without detriment to the dignity of the government, the effects of your conduct, Mr. Consul, having been fatal, not only to Central America, but even injurious to Great Britain herself, because it compromises her good name in the estimation of civilized nations. Allow me to remark further, Mr. Consul, that you have not sought to comprehend either the results or the extent of application of your expressions, and that in any country of the world a formal retraction would have been required from you. And yet you, who never measure your language-who indulge in such acts of injustice-you are the person who now asks satisfaction for injuries from the government of Salvador, on no other account than because you have a squadron at your disposal, which Central America has not. What satisfaction would the government of her Britannic Majesty demand from that of Central America, or from any other government, if an agent of the lat ter had stigmatized it as a factious government? These proceedings, Mr.

Consul, reflect as little honor upon your consulate as they do upon the nation which sent you here.

The dignity of power which the consul is so anxious to uphold in behalf of his nation, and which he avers is incompatible with the lenity he has exercised, is neither to be sustained nor vindicated except by just and moderate deportment, and not by ultraism and the introduction of extraneous subjects, proper only for diplomatic functionaries. As to lenity, the consul has exercised no such virtue in our country: firstly, because it is a quality to be exercised by a superior towards a subject, by a person in authority towards a private individual. The consul exercises no such superiority over the governments of Central America as he pretends to intimate by his language, although he has a large force at his command. Secondly, because the word lenity sounds very strangely as applied to an irascible character, who has always resorted to threats and violence.

Threatening, therefore, in terms which are both humiliating, inordinate, and foreign to your office and character of consul, because Salvador has never recognised you in the capacity of chargé d'affaires, you dictate to this government three conditions to which assent must be given: firstly, that a decree shall be promulgated for executing the convention which was made by the consul and the commissioners of the supreme government, Don Miguel Montoya and Don Juan Antonio Alvarado.

With regard to this demand, the supreme government of Salvador has already explained, both in a note dated April 18, and by its decree of the same date, all that had taken place in regard to this convention, and all that might be done or regulated anew. Mere good sense demonstrates that it could not have been looked upon as definitely concluded, before the supreme government had ascertained whether its instructions on the subject had been complied with or not; that in order to do this, it would have been necessary for the commissioners to have been clothed with special authority, so as to execute the convention without the approbation of the government; and this was neither rational, nor constitutional, nor legitimate, the government having no power to do so without the ratification of the legislative body.

If the consul abandoned the blockade and made sail, it was owing to private reasons, and because he acted on his own account, and that nothing could have entered into the arrangement which was not understood and directed by him, which was very different with the government of Salvador, the latter not being at liberty to overlook what was done by its agents, but being obliged to act, in matters of so much delicacy, in conformity with the constitution of the State.

The chambers were about to meet again; and it would have been the much more remarkable if a subject of this kind, of which, according to our constitution, the legislative body can never pretend ignorance, had not been communicated to them.

The government of Salvador has, moreover, an insurmountable obstacle to contend with, as regards the approval of the convention-an obstacle which is founded in an inviolable compromise entered into with the governments of Honduras and Nicaragua to act in concert and with unanimous accord in all matters relating to foreign intercourse, especially in what affects the honor, the rights, and the integrity of any one section of Central America. This sacred pledge of unity and mutual protection between the States of the Central American families is of vital import

ance to that of Salvador, and this government has received communications sufficiently clear against said convention, or any other which might redound to the discredit, or which purported to infringe upon the least right of Central Americans. The treaty, then, has been condemned by the unanimous opinion of the Central American States, and that of Sal vador would act in violation of its pledges, destroy the protective unity which it has already established with the other States, and act against the policy agreed upon, and against its most cardinal interests, if it were to commit the absurdity of approving the same. Violence, therefore, will have no other effect than to strengthen its cause, and give it firmness to maintain its honor and defend its rights.

With regard to the second demand, the government has already explained the strong reasons by which it is actuated in not recognising Mr. idigoras, either as vice consul or as consular agent. The commission which the consul conferred upon Mr. Idigoras, in a private letter, for ef fecting the arrangement of the 8th of December, 1848, was of a private character and ad hoc, and not an official appointment for the discharge of all the duties which would have devolved upon him in virtue of an exequatur from the government, which he did not obtain nor could have obtained. The soverereignty and independence of a country confer upon the government of Salvador, as they do upon all the independent gov ernments of the earth, whether great or small, the inalienable right either to admit or not the public functionaries or agents of other nations. With out this right, the nation which should assume the privilege of imposing upon it its agents or functionaries, would hold it completely under its own control and influence, and become absolute director of all the interior affairs of the country. If it be taken into consideration, moreover, that this is a question of imposing upon Salvador a British agent who is a subject of the State, who has been employed and is actually employed by said State, and that with all this the government is required to relieve that person of the office which he is exercising, it will be seen that such demands, besides being at variance with the spirit of the law of nations, are aggressive and degrading to the sovereignty of the country, and would be calculated to introduce foreign intervention and foreign authority over its subjects, and embarrass the government in the discharge of its princi pal duties. This would give England a colonial right over Salvador, which certainly the consul cannot pretend she has, and which I leave it to his own good sense to decide whether the most degraded of governments would allow to be assumed. Besides all this, the office of criminal judge which Mr. Idigoras exercises is not an appointment of the gov ernment, as the consul assumes in his communication, but an appoint ment made by the owners of real estate property in the place, in whom the power is vested, because Mr. Idigoras is a landholder; consequently it is not in the power of the government to relieve him, as the consul sup poses.

In regard to the requirements made in the third demand, my government begs to refer to the explanations which have already been given. Your notes contain expressions of an injurious and calumnious character against the supreme government of Salvador, and against the party which you suppose it to be encouraged and influenced by. The acts and orders. issued by the consul have been in themselves so hostile towards the three States, that it is a matter of astonishment, after such offences and provo

cations, to see the party which has inflicted mortal injuries upon the country and its respective governments, demanding satisfaction for the language used in the complaints and representations that have been made. in relation to such offences. When the compromises contained in the treaty between England and North America shall have been carried out; when the territories, islands, and ports of Central America shall have been restored to that country; when hostilities shall no longer be waged. against the latter, and friendly relations shall again be established, then the consul will no longer find, either in official communications or in official journals, those complaints which have been called forth by his former acts, which the government has been compelled to make in earnest but decorous language, and about which the consul has manifested so much sensitiveness. For the rest, if the compact entered into by England with North America has put an end to hostilities, and provides for a pacific adjustinent of the questions pending between Englishmen and Central Americatis, it is extremely annoying and improper that complaints and demands for reparation about a matter which has been set at rest should again be revived. As to what concerns the adjustment of the amounts claimed, this can be settled in a conference. My government wonders that, after talking about a pacific adjustment, as the consul did in his note, last but one, he should now, without any provocation what. ever, address so unmerited and so threatening a communication.

The supreme government of Salvador sees very well that the consu' is not disposed to listen to reason, nor to be swayed by any consideration of justice; that he is possessed of sufficient force to carry out new aggressions, and to commit new acts of violence; and that in pursuing his usual course of conduct against Salvador he is stimulated by, and is acting in subserviency to, the interests of the party which is in the ascendant in Guatemala, whose cause he has always sustained. If the consul makes any hostile demonstration, and threatens poor, helpless, and defenceless Salvador with all the forces at his disposal, the latter can only oppose argu ments of reason and of justice. Its cause is the cause of independent America. It involves the honor and the dignity of just, though weak governments. It may perhaps be overpowered by force, but it shall not degrade itself by making concessions extorted from it by violence. The voice of its justice may yet find an echo among the great nations of the earth; for it is persuaded that civilization, and the honest convictions of the people, are favorable to and will protect its cause. Even the govern· ment of Great Britain itself will, when better informed as to all the facts, award the justice that is due to it. My government, then, protests in all due form, and before all nations, against the blockade with which it is threatened; and if such threat should be carried into effect, against every dictate of justice, it will hold the consul responsible for all the losses and injuries which may be inflicted upon the State, and from this moment it declares itself utterly unable, in such an event, to make the payments which have already been agreed upon and stipulated to be made in satis. faction of the very demands presented by the consul, such payments depending upon the revenue of the port which he threatens to blockade.

In the mean while, the supreme government of Salvador, desirous to be judged impartially, and wishing to bring the matter to a peaceful termination, begs to propose to the British consulate the arbitration or interposition of the government of the United States, or of any United States