Cushin Alejandro Castro to To his Excellency Señor Don George Williamson, December 25, 1877

Mr. Castro to Mr. Williamson.

Sir: With the aversion of all republican hearts to a dictatorial régime and with the eagerness inspired by civilization and fraternity, the worthy general Don Tom as Guardia was no sooner seated the present time, in the Presidential chair of this Republic than he hastened to take—retrenching greatly his own power—measures providing for the welfare, interior and exterior, of the nation.

With regard to the first, he called to his side known apostles of public liberties, unshackled the press, decreed amnesty, called together a constituent assembly, raised in the meantime a grand national council, to whom he abdicated the faculty of emitting general laws, and initiated, among others, the guarantee, in which is displayed the glory of the country, religious liberty, and in which appears, crowning the grand principles of democracy, the most philanthropic and splendid, the absolute inviolability of human life.

With regard to the second, he ordered communicated by circular to all the cabinets with whom that of Costa Rica was in relations, the cause of his recent exaltation to power, and directed to all the rulers of friendly nations in due form the customary autograph letter.

He was happy to fulfill this duty in the extent in which it was possible for him with the Presidents of the sister republics here, and particularly with the President of Guatemala, with whom, as Envoy Extraordinary and Minister Plenipotentiary of the Republic of Costa Rica, he had adjusted during the year anterior a treaty of peace, friendship, and alliance, the exchange of which he promised to effect. Yet that President did not think well to respond to such courteous and friendly advances. What broke more than two months of surprising silence was a dispatch from the honorable Señor Secretary of Foreign Relations, Dr. Don Lorenzo Montufar, in which, to the irregularity of addressing the undersigned not in his official character but in his private condition, was added, in compliance with instructions of the Señor General President of Guatemala, that of affirming that his Government could not recognize the Government of Costa Rica while at its head was found General Don Tomas Guardia.

A measure so much in discord with Diplomatic practices was based on the supposed charge that, having stipulated in article sixth of the treaty which General Guardia, as Minister Plenipotentiary, signed in Guatemala, of not permitting in the territories of the contracting parties the entrance of new members of the Company of Jesus, and that the Government of Costa Rica would embrace every opportunity to expel the four Jesuits existing within limits of its country, the same General Guardia, far from complying with this clause, was in particular correspondence with the Jesuits; he called and introduced them into the country, and had placed under the obscuring power of the said company the youth of Costa Rica. He based it also on the idea that these acts induced him to believe that there would be repeated the equally imaginary ones, that General Guardia during his former administration, plotted the downfall of the Government of Guatemala, supported its enemies, and made considerable payments to obtain its downfall.

The first foundation disappears by only noting that the treaty, the lack of execution of which is charged, had not even been exchanged, and consequently not become a law, of the contracting Republics; as would have been necessary for it to become obligatory. These faults of exchange and execution can be imputed to the respective Governments, but never to the Diplomatic Minister, whose mission had terminated without reaching such acts. Notwithstanding this, General Guardia always worked, using his influence and personal relations—the only action he had—in regard to the article VI of the treaty so much in sympathy with his own opinions; and there are many documents to demonstrate this, while the accusations to the contrary are not strengthened by the aid of a single proof.

The truth requires that the proper thing may be said in regard to the inferential acts on which the erroneous belief was founded, that the actual President of Costa Rica could have plotted the fall of the Government of Guatemala. The acts alluded to, without any proof that makes them in the smallest degree admissible, cannot be raised to a subject of discussion, nor reach among qualifying epithets one more gentle than that of being unfounded.

I leave them in this place not without the surprise that, even upon the hypothesis that a better place would have suited them, they could be used by the government of Guatemala as a pretext to refuse recognition to the government of General Guardia, when they were not taken into account at his acceptance as minister to treat with, and even remain near the government to which he was accredited, satisfying it by his personal and diplomatic deportment.

The skill of the distinguished Dr. Montufar, from whom it could not be concealed that a dispatch directed, not to the Secretary of Foreign Relations, but to Dr. Don José Ma. Castro, can have no effect nor signification, induced me to think that his omission of the rules, which in such cases are rigorous, was owing to an involuntary error, and I decided to answer the aforesaid dispatch. The general President of Costa Rica also had motives of the same nature for believing that the unusual non-acknowledgment of his government on the part of that of Guatemala was nothing but a pretext for the termination of official relations. The dignity and decorum of his high Magistracy prescribed the acceptance of that measure, and in effect he put it in execution by a decree of the 19th of the present month, thus leaving closed from that date the (supra dichas) official relations between this republic and that of Guatemala.

Such is now the state of affairs between both countries, established by the President of the latter, without sufficient cause, without looking to the bonds of fraternity that bind the two countries, without considering how greatly will be darkened the good name of Central America by the discord of its integral parts.

With the regret that such sudden changes wrest from the lovers of the Central American Union, and in compliance with instructions that I have received from his Excellency the President of this republic, I direct you this communication.

On complying with the indicated duty I am happy to subscribe myself

Your obedient servant,