McKELLAR, United States Vice-Consul to Thomas O. Osborn, March 27, 1879

Mr. McKellar to Mr. Osborn.

Sir: I have the honor of laying before your excellency the following statement of facts which have recently taken place relative to certain acts on the part of the United States consul at Callao, Peru, to which I desire to direct your most serious attention in view of the delicate and unpleasant position in which the difference of opinion between that functionary and myself, and his acts consequent thereupon, have placed this consulate.

Not alone has it originated a grave public scandal, but, as I shall have the honor of manifesting to your excellency, has caused considerable pecuniary damage to an American citizen resident here.

The steamer Itata, formerly belonging to the South American Steamship Company, was sold on the 27th day of February last past to Henry L. Stevens, esq., a citizen of the United States resident in this port. Mr. Stevens furnished this consulate with proof of his purchase, of the bona fide nature of the transaction, and that the property had passed to him absolutely and without reserve. Being desirous of placing his lawful property under the protection of the authority and nag of the United States, he desired that the bill of sale might be recorded in this office, and the original delivered to him with the usual certificate indorsed thereon.

The proof being in the highest degree satisfactory, and I, deeming the purchase fair, acceded to his request and recorded the bill of sale, and indorsed the desired certificate.

Upon the departure of the Itata, she was duly cleared by this consulate and the port authorities, and sailed on her voyage north, stopping at Coquimbo, Caldera, and Iquique, where her documents were received, and the vessel duly cleared by the United States consul and port authorities of those ports. Arriving at Callao, her captain deposited his papers with the United States consul there, who received them without remark. His subsequent acts will be best told by his own communication to the captain, dated 14th instant, a copy of which, marked A, I herewith inclose. Captain Lautrup obeyed the order therein contained to haul down the American flag, and took back his papers. As the consul had informed him that he did not “officially recognize her as an American vessel,” and he “must decline to clear her, or to issue any papers to her whatsoever,” Captain Lautrup had no other resource than to obtain a sea-letter or “passavante” from the Chilian consul-general there, protest in due form against the minister and consul of the United States at Callao, and leave thence under the flag; of Chili.

I have the honor to inclose herewith a translation of the protest, which is dated 15th instant, and duly certified by the Chilian consul-general at that port, which translation is marked B.

I have already in my communication to your excellency of the 22d instant, stated fully my opinion of the action had in this matter by this consulate, and some of the reasons which induced me to form that opinion. I take this opportunity of adding some recent examples, which, I respectfully suggest, will corroborate and strengthen the views I therein expressed.

The former Peruvian steamer Sofia, which, sold and transferred to an American citizen, has been sailing in and out of Callao and other ports along the coast for more than a year past, wearing the American flag, without any objection on the part of the United States consul, minister, or admiral, or the various port authorities.

The steamer Honduras, built in Liverpool, England, in 1871, arrived in Valparaiso in August of that year, went hence to Panama, where she took the American flag—being owned by the Panama Railroad Company—and has ever since been actively engaged in traffic between the ports of the Pacific coast of Central America and Panama. And, moreover, she is marked on the record of American and foreign shipping as an American vessel under the number 875. The steamer Independence was purchased at Valparaiso by an American citizen, and took the American flag February 7, 1877, and the steamer Cargador, purchased by an American citizen, took the American flag April 24, 1877. This was during the consulate of D. J. Williamson, esq., who also was chargé d’ affaires during the absence of the Hon. C. A. Logan, your excellency’s predecessor.

Both the last named vessels, furnished with the documents usual in purchases by this consulate, left Valparaiso, displaying the American flag, for Panama, calling at Callao, while either the present incumbent, or his late father, the Hon. Philip S. Clayton, was consul there. They passed the consulate, were regularly entered in and cleared thence without objection on the part of that office or of the port authorities, and proceeded thence to Panama, where they are at present still under the American flag.

My opinion of the duties of an American consular-office in similar cases, having been formed upon the reasons heretofore detailed to your excellency in my above recited communication, and not having been whimsically or inconsiderately adopted, is still unchanged. Should a vessel in the position of the Itata arrive at this port, such is my conscientious conviction of those duties that I should not hesitate to dispatch her.

Furthermore, there are one or two vessels similarly circumstanced, i. e., owned by American citizens and wearing American colors for the last thirteen or fourteen years on this coast, which have been regularly entered and cleared at this consulate both by my predecessors and myself.

Having been favored by Mr. Stevens with the telegrams sent here by Captain Lautrup from Callao, informing him of the action of the consul in the matter, I at once addressed a letter to that officer, dated 15th instant, the object of which will fully appear by reference to the copy thereof herein inclosed and marked C, to which I have yet to await an answer.

But, sir, the mail of the 25th instant brings me copies of the South Pacific Times (Vol. VII, Nos. 134 and 135), a paper published at Callao in the English language, containing a communication from a certain Henry S. Wetmore, of that place, relative to the steamer Itata, apparently in answer to an editorial interrogatory put in consequence of the insertion of a communication signed “A disenchanted Yankee,” in No. 134 of March 13, 1879. I send herewith the two newspapers to which I refer.

It will, I imagine, require but little critical sagacity to enable any one to preceive that the letter, the answer, and the editorial comments therein contained in both papers are ail inspired by the identical Henry S. Wetmore, who takes it upon himself to pronounce his opinion ex cathedra upon this point. Be this as it may, the letter of this Wetmore has been translated and so published in the Callao public newspapers, and repeated yesterday by the Mercurio, the paper having the largest and most influential circulation in Chili.

It appears that this letter is published in the Callao newspapers as emanating from the United States consul, and as such misstatement has not been contradicted by him, so far as I know, I may be excused if I accept it as containing an exposition of that gentleman’s opinion upon the matters therein definitely pronounced upon.

The tenor of the remarks and of the letters above referred to have given me serious apprehensions that the American consul in Callao has unwittingly been made an instrument, in an attempt to carry out a deep laid conspiracy for depriving an American citizen of his lawfully acquired ownership of the Itata, and probably that of the other steamers which were about to follow her to Callao; for I am far from being at all inclined to consider him as being instigated by any other motive than his sincere desire to fulfill his views of public duty in the premises.

But in this direct opposition of our conflicting opinions as to our duty as United States consuls in such cases, and in view of the serious consequences which will unquestionably arise therefrom unless the question be promptly settled by the proper department at Washington, I have the honor to lay the entire subject before your excellency, that you may be pleased to transmit the same to the government for instructions in that behalf.

The only feeling which actuates me at present is a deep regret that Mr. Stevens should have been subjected to considerable pecuniary loss, as finding that in the opinion of the consul and minister of the United States his vessels are, in Callao at least, not permitted to be recognized as American ships, has disposed of them to a British subject, who has placed them under the protection of the flag of that nation. So that the present difficulty is at an end, for the present, at least, and nothing remains to avoid such for the future, save a declaration of the Department of State as to the means by which an American citizen, being solely and wholly owner of a foreign-built vessel by bona fide purchase can publicly claim the protection of his government and flag, if it is forbidden him to display that flag upon the vessel.

While upon this subject, I may as well state to your excellency that Captain Lautrup himself has just made declaration that during the years 1866 and 1867 he was in command of a vessel called the Adelida, purchased by an American citizen in Sydney, New South Wales, who placed her under the American flag. Furnished with the bill of sale and other usual consular papers, he sailed with her under that flag to Batavia. Singapore, Calcutta, and thence back to Sydney, where the vessel was sold.

He has also exhibited to me the certificates of the deposit and delivery of the bill of sale and papers of the said vessel by the various consuls-generals, consuls, and vice-consuls of the United States at those ports. And all this without let, hmderaiice, or even question therein arising on the part of any consular or port authority whatever.

Referring to that portion of the dispatch wherein I allude to Henry S. Wetmore, who, as I hate every reason to believe, is the instigator, if not the originator, of the conspiracy to which I have heretofore made reference, I have just discovered that my predecessor, D. J. Williamson, esq., who knew him well, both while here and in Peru, expressed his opinion of him in no flattering terms in his dispatch to Hon. Wm. Hunter, Second Assistant Secretary of State, dated Valparaiso, October 14, 1875, No. 49, when he closed a long explanation with reference to the rent of the consulate in Callao with the following strong but just language, referring to the same individual:

“I regret that Mr. Thomas has so lowered himself to eulogize this man Wetmore, who states that he is the owner of property in five of the States of the Union. He may be the owner of property as he states; I think that his property, if known, would consist of a dice-box and a pack of cards. Gambling has been his principal business in Callao, as it was in Savannah, Ga., and other southern cities before he came to South America.”

I have, &c.