H Morgan to Frederick T. Frelinghuysen, June 17, 1882

No. 213. Mr. Morgan to Mr. Frelinghuysen.

Sir: Your dispatch No. 189, November 10, 1881, was received by me on the 2d December. In it I was instructed to call the attention of the Mexican Government to the case of Mr. Thomas R. Gartrell, and his wife, Nellie j. Gartrell, who were murdered while traveling, near the city of Durango, and to request that it take the competent measures for the arrest of the offender, his prosecution and punishment.

These instructions I complied with in a note which I addressed to Señor Mariscal, on the 3d December, a copy whereof I inclose.

Señor Mariscal not having made any reply to this note, I, on the 10th instant, addressed him another note upon the subject. A copy of this note I inclose.

I have to-day received Señor Mariscal’s reply. A translation I inclose.

You will observe that Señor Mariscal, while furnishing information as to what has been done in the case, as far as he knows, states that if the purpose of my notes is limited to bringing to the knowledge of the Mexican Government the commission of a crime, with the view of having the perpetrators thereof punished, he is pleased to have attended to my request, but that if the purpose is to lay the omen of a claim, as has been done in other cases, he has been instructed to say, at once, that diplomatic intervention cannot possibly be admitted, both because the case does not warrant it, and because the matriculation record of the foreign office does not show that Mr. and Mrs. Gartrell were citizens of the United States.

I am, sir, &c.,