George H. Williamson to Señor Licenciado Don A. Zuniga, March 23, 1875

Mr. Williamson to Mr. Zuniga.

Sir: I have the pleasure of acknowledging the receipt of the two notes of your excellency dated yesterday, the 22d instant, relating to the settlement of the question which unhappily arose between the United States and Honduras, because of the outrage committed upon the United States consulate at Omoa on or about the 9th of July, A. D. 1873.

Your excellency states both of the notes have been addressed to me in accordance with the terms of the protocol signed by us on the 22d instant. One of them is an apology, and the other purports to explain in extenso, the constitutional and legal obstacles that have prevented your excellency’s government from acceding to the third article of the demand for satisfaction for the outrage above referred to. The latter is accompanied by a copy of a decree of general amnesty passed by the Congress of Honduras at its session of 1875.

Copies of the notes and decree, together with the protocol, will be forwarded to my Government by the first mail.

Before replying further to your excellency’s notes, I take occasion to reiterate to you in this formal manner my confident belief the protocol will be approved.

Your excellency will be pleased to understand and rest assured that the Government of the United States has no disposition to interfere in the domestic affairs of Honduras, and to dictate whether any of her citizens shall be punished without legal trial for an insult to the flag of the United States and a flagrant violation of the treaty between the United States and Honduras. Yet it may learn with regret that any constitutional or legal difficulties exist which may prevent your excellency’s government from taking steps to insure itself against the recurrence of such an outrage, and its consequences, should the same official ever again unhappily command the forces of Honduras.

Your excellency is also assured that my Government, desirous of maintaining the peaceful relations which have always happily subsisted between the United States and Honduras, will gravely weigh the constitutional and legal difficulties your excellency has presented, and, it is hoped, may reach the conclusion that its honor has been fully vindicated. The Government of the United States, being a government of law, in which the safety of the state and the liberty of the citizen are considered in danger if arbitrary and unconstitutional acts are permitted, cannot be presumed to have asked the government of a sister republic to set at defiance its own constitution and laws; but may have justly expected your excellency’s government to have initiated the necessary judicial proceedings to satisfy its legitimate demand.

It is not permitted me to omit the observation that my Government is not to be considered in the light of a prosecutor of the person who happened to be in command at the time the outrage was committed. He is, perhaps, unknown in the United States, except as the person whose name was rendered conspicuous by the outrage upon the consulate at Omoa in July, 1873, and other notorious events of that period. It might have been supposed that the government of Honduras would, of its motion, prosecute to the full extent of the law an official who had done so much to imperil the peaceful relations of the country he professed to serve, and to discredit at home and abroad the uniform he wore.

In view of such possible considerations, it may be a matter of surprise to my Government to learn the fact (for the first time communicated in your excellency’s note of yesterday) that this official has been embraced in the bill of amnesty passed by the Congress while the demand for satisfaction was still pending.

I beg leave to express my just appreciation of the difficulties with which your excellency’s government has found itself surrounded, and also to add the expression of the hope that this question has been settled definitively upon terms equally satisfactory to the United States and Honduras.

Renewing to your excellency the assurance of my high consideration, I have the honor to subscribe myself, your excellency’s obedient servant,