Morgan to Frederick T. Frelinghuysen, September 4, 1884
No. 260. Mr. H. H. Morgan to Mr. Frelinghuysen.
No. 896.]
Sir: On the receipt of your dispatch No. 603, July 7, 1884, in regard to the case of Howard’ C. Walker, imprisoned at Minatitlan, charged by the Mexican authorities at that place with having stolen wood, Mr. Morgan addressed a dispatch to our consular agent at Coatzacoalcos on the 19th of July, 1884, in which he requested to be informed of the present condition of the case of Mr. Walker.
About the 20th of August last Mr. Albert Langner, consular agent of the United States at Tehuantepec and Salina Cruz, called at the legation and gave to Mr. Morgan a draft of a dispatch which he said had been given to him by Mr. Hoff, our consular agent at Coatzacoalcos, and which had been addressed to Mr. Hoff to Mr. Morgan on the 30th of July last. The original of the dispatch in question, which Mr. Hoff said had been forwarded to the legation, has never been received.
The facts connected with Mr. Walker’s case, as reported by Consular Agent Hoff, appeared to Mr. Morgan to be tantamount to a denial of justice, and he therefore considered it necessary to again call the attention of the Mexican Government to the facts connected with the same and request that the necessary steps should be taken by them to obtain for Mr. Walker a trial, or in default thereof that the bond of $40,000 which had been exacted of him should be annulled and he be set at liberty.
In the note which Mr. Morgan addressed to Señor Fernandez upon the subject you will observe that he ignored the contention of the Mexican Government, as expressed in Señor Fernandez’s note to him of the 28th of May, 1884 (see inclosure 4, in Mr. Morgan’s No. 820, June 2, 1884), that diplomatic intervention would not be admitted in the case of Mr. Walker, as it did not appear from the register of the department for foreign affairs that Walker had been matriculated as a citizen of the United States. In this connection Mr. Morgan complied with the instructions contained in your dispatch, No. 595, June 23, 1884.
I have now to inclose a copy and translation of Señor Fernandez’s reply, received to-day.
The under secretary of state in charge of the department for foreign affairs simply calls my attention to his note to Mr. Morgan of the 28th of May last, in which he informed him “that it did not appear on the register of matriculation that the said Walker was a citizen of the United States, and that this circumstance prevented my (his) accepting the ulterior official intervention of his excellency in the premises.”
I am, &c.,