De Long to José de la Riva-Agüero, February 18, 1873

Mr. De Long to Mr. J. de la Riva Aguero.

Sir: I have the honor to acknowledge the receipt by last mail of two dispatche from you, dated respectively November 8, 1872, and November 21, 1872, both relating to the dispatch of our legation from Peru to Japan, and referring to the Maria Luz business.

After carefully perusing them, I concluded that you must desire that I should indicate the views you entertained in relation to the Maria Luz matter, and the nature of the instructions relative to that subject which your embassy would come with.

Thinking it best to give your ideas in your own language, rather than attempt to set them forth myself, I took your note of the 21st of November with me to the foreign office, and advised the minister that I had received two dispatches from Peru; that I was aware that extravagant reports had been spread, and obtained some credence, to the effect that Peru proposed to inaugurate hostilities, which belief I thought it my duty to give him an early opportunity to deny, and at the same time I felt it to be also a duty to let him know that an adjustment of the Maria Luz affair was one of the matters of business with which he would have to deal with this legation; therefore, although not so directed to do by the government of Peru, yet I felt that your government could have no objection to my reading to him two passages occurring in your latest dispatch, which I accordingly did.

The phrases which I read to him are those in which you say: “I allude to the shortly-expected arrival at your port of the Peruvian legation, which was ready to leave when the news of the Maria Luz affair reached here,” and the following:

“The main object of the said legation is to enter into relations of amity and compass treaties of commerce and navigation with China and Japan. Their mission is absolutely one of peace, and they bear the most equitable instructions in view of a friendly settlement of the difficulty which lately arose in Yokohama.”

For which act of politeness the minister thanked me, but expressed no other sentiment.

I sometimes fear that you may not be pleased with my action in having done this, but I assumed the responsibility in order to quiet serious apprehensions that were arising in the minds of the Japanese; to keep this Government from becoming biased and imbittered in advance against your legation, and at the same time to allow them to know that this matter was one of the things they should propose to arrange.

I sincerely hope I made no mistake by this action.

I thank your excellency for your many kind and flattering assurances.

If my action has been of any benefit to your government or to yourself I feel amply repaid for any trouble it has caused me by the knowledge that I have been enabled, to some slight extent, to knit still closer the ties of friendship which bind my Government to your own, and I assure your excellency of my ready willingness to still further exert myself in the furtherance of establishing amicable relations between Peru and Japan.

I have, &c.,