Alvaro Covarrubias to The Envoy Extraordinary, February 17, 1866

Mr. Covarrubias to Mr. Nelson.

Sir: I have the honor to reply to the note of the 12th instant, whereby your excellency was pleased to offer to my government, in compliance with the instructions of your own, the arbitration of the United States, in order to arrive at a pacific solution in the war at present waged by Chili against Spain. The assurances in this respect which your excellency is pleased to give me of the friendly solicitude with which the government of the United States has followed the vicissitudes of the present conflict, augment the high value of an offer which my government cordially esteems.

Nevertheless, you yourself have already perceived one of the obstacles which would prevent the immediate acceptance of a mode of solution which, however has always been considered by my government as most in conformity with civilization and humanity, and which has never ceased to obtain its sympathies. As your excellency very well observes, the treaty of alliance, offensive and defensive, between Chili and Peru would not permit my government to decide in regard to your excellency’s proposition without previously consulting the government of that sister republic. However, since your excellency is pleased to comprehend Peru in the offer of arbitration, this obstacle may be very transitory. This is not the case in regard to the obstacle presented by the good offices which have been tendered to the republic by the cabinets of London and Paris, by means of their diplomatic agents resident in Santiago, with a view of arriving at a solution analogous to that sought by your excellency. The conferences to which this effort for a settlement have given rise are yet pending, and until some result is reached therefrom no proposition could be taken into consideration the acceptance of which would be incompatible with the prosecution of the efforts of those cabinets.

Should the obstacles to which I allude disappear, the government of the republic would be much pleased to find itself then in a position which would leave it free to co-operate for a successful result to the pacific views of the United States, seconded by your excellency with a zeal and interest as generous as they are flattering to Chili.

In recognizing this, and in thanking your excellency therefor, I hasten to reiterate to you the expression of my sentiments of high consideration and particular esteem with which I am your excellency’s most obedient servant,