Lazaro Guajardo to N. B.—I inclose receipts for payments of taxes in Texas after the murder of my shepherds, as is seen, of the same date, and it must be observed that of the three receipts to which I refer, two are given in the name of the citizens Pablo Garza and Antonio Lozano, who were keeping on shares animals belonging to me. I also inclose the certificate of inspection given in Texas, in accordance with the laws of that State, whereby I show that I transported my animals, concerning which circumstance all doubt is removed by the certificate of the payment of passage of my animals, which I also inclose. Date ut supra. LOZANO, July 30, 1874

I, the citizen Lazaro Guajardo, first constitutional alcalde of Apodaca, hereby certify, as far as I can, and as far as the law allows, that the citizen Toribio Lozano, of this town of Aguafria, has presented before me, in the office under my charge, a book of accounts, which I certify to have seen, and which contains his accounts with the hired men in his employ, among them being that of Filomeno Rios, who owes him $140.49; that of Jorge Rodriguez, who owes him $216.13; that of José Ma Reina, who owes him $65.39; that of Leonardo Garza, who owes him $77.20; that of Epifaneo Rios, who owes him $75.17; that of Vicente Garcia, who owes him $67.23; that of Bias Mata, who owes him $43.13; which accounts having been carefully examined are found to have been kept in accordance with law, without any error, up to the 28th of November, 1873, at which time he ceased to keep them on account of the death of the persons in question.

To the Citizen District Judge:

I, Toribio Lozano, a resident of Aguafria, and a Mexican citizen, appear before you, stating that in the year 18611 took my sheep and goats to Texas for the purpose of selling them, because it was difficult to carry on that business here on account of the repeated incursions of the Indians. The southern revolution having broken out while I was in Texas with my animals, it was difficult for me to return. Wherefore, I left my property at the rancho in San Diego, Nueces County, for breeding purposes. Although I did not remain in Texas myself, I left ten or twelve men there, whom I sent from Aguafria, and whom I was obliged to select from among the most honest people that I could find, since I was obliged to confide my property to them, and since I visited the rancho under their charge only once or twice a year.

During this time, with the exception of some deaths among the shepherds, and some destruction of animals caused by the Comanche Indians, I suffered no loss of property until November 28, 1873, when a band of stock-raisers from Dogtown and Stone-bridge, having been organized, attacked seven of my shepherds while engaged in the regular performance of their duties, and hung them, frightening away the rest, who did not return to the scene of the disaster until seven days afterwards. Not to speak of the horrible nature of the outrage committed upon innocent persons, the losses caused me thereby have been enormous, and, as I believe that they are due to culpable negligence on the part of the Texan authorities and those of the United States in the fulfillment of their duties, I propose to furnish evidence thereof in order to ask redress for the same, in due form, through my government.

From the certificate which I inclose, and which was given to me by one of the authorities of San Diego, it appears that my shepherds were killed on the 28th or 29th of November; that their bodies remained suspended from trees until the 5th of the following month, because the authorities and inhabitants of San Diego had fled on account of an incursion of Comanche or other Indians inhabiting the territory of the United States; that Filomeno and Epifaneo Rios, brothers, and Vicente Garcia, Jorge Rodriguez, José Ma Rein a, Leonardo Garza, and Bias Mata were the persons put to death by strangulation, they having been first tied and then hung from a tree; that the perpetrators of the murder of seven honest and peaceful persons were twelve or fourteen men, as appears from the tracks of their horses, which had gone in the direction of the Nueces River from the Chuza ranch, where the crime was committed, information thereof having been given by the citizen Incarnacion G. Garza.

From these proceedings of the jurors of Nueces County, it appears that they confined themselves to stating the fact of the commission of the crime, but that they did nothing in order to discover the criminals, to whom common report points as residents of Dogtown and Stonebridge, and that they did nothing to vindicate an outraged community or to procure redress for the enormous damage done.

If this arose from the fact that the action of the authorities was impeded, while the crime was still recent, by the incursion of the Indians which forced them to flee, the Government of the United States is responsible for all the damage done; because it is its duty to repress those invasions and to make good such damage as may be caused directly or indirectly thereby.

The same may be said in the case of those authorities which, either through negligence or complicity, do not fulfill their duties, and both circumstances have conspired to aid the escape of the criminals, who are protected, not by secrecy or doubt as to who they were, but by the fear which they inspire on account of their wealth, their numbers, and, above all, by the influence which they acquire over authorities that are guilty, through collusion with the criminals, of the crime for which they inflict punishment. This crime is the skinning of cattle for the purpose of selling their hides. This has been committed in Texas for many years, and has increased to an alarming extent, which can only be explained by the bad faith of the authorities, in regard to which much might be said. I need not take this trouble, however, in view of the testimony taken last year by the committee of investigation, when the bad conduct of the stockmen was fully shown, as vas also their criminality, and that of the authorities themselves, who in many ways encouraged the evil, which was in reality the cause of the murder of my shepherds, and which forced me to sell my property in Texas at a great sacrifice, I losing at the same time a considerable portion of my property on account of the abandonment of my animals, which the authorities of San Diego were unable to prevent, by reason of the incursion of the Indians which took place at that time.

Even if the investigations to which I have referred had not been held, the mere perusal of the Texas newspapers would remove any doubt on this head, and would firmly establish the justice of my claim for indemnity from the American Government. Irrecusable testimony, which will be furnished in due time, will also confirm this; for there are citizens in San Francisco de Apodaca who were working at Stonebridge, Tex., when my shepherds were murdered, and they state that one or two days previously a band of American stock-raisers was organized there, whom they believe to have committed the said murders; because, as soon as they had returned, the report that they had done so began to circulate.

Complaints were also made to the government of Texas and that of the United States by an American citizen of San Diego, who asked for protection on account of the demoralization which existed there, and stated that the outrages which were occurring there, through the negligence of the authorities, who, far from repressing, encouraged the commission of the crime of skinning cattle by the licenses which they issued for the purchase of bides, the traffic in which was scandalous;

The authorities being powerless to correct the evil, information lodged against those who had committed the murders did not stimulate them to perform their duty by fully investigating the facts, nor even to take such precautions as would have guaranteed security to those who, in such a state of things, saw their lives and property at stake.

As regards my property, as soon as I learned the facts hy the telegram, which I inclose, I set out from Aguafria for San Diego, Tex., accompanied by twelve men, whom I took to act as my escort and to collect the dispersed remnant of my animals. In that great disaster, as I have already said, the authorities did not collect my animals, nor did they prevent the loss resulting from the abandonment of all my animals in the country in consequence of the murder of my shepherds.

Another butchery of Mexicans, which took place at the very time that I arrived at my rancho, caused me to understand the gravity of the state of things there prevailing, and of the lack of protection; because those murdered were not thieves, but Mexican land-owners of well-known respectability. This caused me to form the design of abandoning those regions, selling my property at any price that I might be able to obtain. I was confirmed in this purpose by two circumstances which came to my knowledge, one of which was that the magistrate of San Diego abandoned his residence through fear, and that he did not return to it until he could do so accompanied by a detachment of troops, which employed their time in everything but the detection and apprehension of the criminals, who, as was well known, were the stock-raisers of Stone-bridge and San Diego; the other was the information that was received (and which I consider reliable) of a movement on the part of all the Texan stock-raisers, in case certain measures were carried out which had been resolved upon at Corpus Christi, for the purpose of preventing those outrages, which frustrated even the hope of improvement in that sad condition of affairs.

My losses have not been caused by the dispersion of my animals alone, but by the expense incurred in collecting them, and by the necessity I was under of selling them at a great sacrifice, feeling certain, as I did, that if I should take them to Mexico the loss would be certain, as the result proves in the case of that portion which I was unable to sell.

The reality of the losses and injuries suffered is made evident by the statement of the facts, but I demonstrate it by the documents which I herewith transmit, and the testimony of the witnesses whom I shall present for examination by means of the inclosed questions which I refer to, all the facts upon which I propose to base my own claim and those of the families of the murdered shepherds. I therefore beg you to be pleased duly to examine the case, and to cause the depositions of the witnesses to be drawn up in due form, and then to transmit the original of the same to me, that I may address the citizen minister of foreign relations, since they form only an informatio ad perpetuam, which should remain in my possession that I may hereafter, at any time, be able to take such steps as my interests may require. I ask only justice.