Acevedo to Authentic. The adjutant-general’s seeretary, ROBINSON MALDONADO M, April 20, 1885

Reply of General Acevedo to the consuls’ protest.

Messrs. D. López Penha, Jr., Consul-General of the Netherlands; August Strunz, Consul of Austria Hungary, &c.:

The citizen general-in-chief of the Atlantic army has commanded me concerning the memorial dated the 17th instant, which the Messrs. consuls of the Netherlands and of France delivered in person into the hands of one of the officers of my department, with the recommendation that it he given to me. Said citizen general has communicated to me instructions to resolve thus:

The memorial says the object of the present note is that “by decree No. 173 of the 10th of February last, published in the Official Gazette of the nation, No. 6309, the 12th of the same month, the national executive power directs that the payment of import duties made to individuals who have no legitimate official character not only does not exempt the importers from the obligations contracted by them or their agents in favor of the national treasure, but will furnish a reason for adding to the debt 50 per cent, of the amount of the importation duties illegally paid.”

That decree of the Government of Mr. Nuñez causes the protest of the Messrs. consuls, in guarding the rights of their countrymen, who have been compelled by the constitutional forces to pay duties incurred and owed on written obligations. Said protest is also extended to any further cases of force to make effective payments of a similar character.

Former laws already annulled, and other acts of a legislative character yet in force, as the decree cited, prohibit absolutely the voluntary payments made to persons not invested with an official character to receive duties or imposts; but the same laws have been expressed in other terms in the sense that the compulsion produces indiscriminately the irresponsibility not only in respect to the tribute but also in respect to the treasurers or collectors having an official character.

This doctrine is in accordance with the natural law, and is recognized as a principle of universal legislation. The civilized nations have established in their civil code as a legal exception to freedom from the responsibility, execution or omission of acts or obligatory contracts, the intervention of greater force when that is exercised particularly against the debtor.

If it be that the protest refers to the exigency mentioned, the payment of duties treated of in the well-known decree, No. 173, the representative of the constitutional forces in the Atlantic states accepts the protest in order that in any event he may furnish a suitable proposition to which the Messrs. consuls may agree.

I am, &c.,