PAULDING Flag-Officer, commanding home squadron to Isaac Toucey, December 15, 1857

No. 142.]

Sir: My letter of the 12th (11th) instant informed the Department that I had broken up the camp of General Walker, at Punta Arenas, disarmed his lawless followers, and sent them to Norfolk in the Saratoga. The general came here with me, and will take passage in one of the steamers for New York, where he will present himself to the marshal of the district.

[626] The Department being in possession of all the facts in relation to Walker’s escape, with his followers, from the United States, *as well as the letters of Captain Chatard and Walker to me after he landed at Point Arenas, the merits of the whole question will, I presume, be fully comprehended.

I could not regard Walker and his followers in any other light than as outlaws who had escaped from the vigilance of the officers of the Government, and left our shores for the purpose of rapine and murder, and I saw no other way to vindicate the law and redeem the honor of our country than by disarming and sending them home. In doing so I am sensible of the responsibility that I have incurred, and confidently look to the Government for my justification.

Regarded in its true light, the case appears to me a clear one, the points few and strong.

[627] Walker came to Point Arenas from the United States, having, in violation of law, set on foot a military organization to make war upon a people with whom we are at peace. He landed there with armed men and munitions of war in defiance of the guns of a ship of war placed there to prevent his landing.

With nothing to show that he acted by *authority, he formed a camp, hoisted the Nicaraguan flag, called it the “headquarters of the army of Nicaragua,” and signed himself the commander-in-chief.

With this pretension he claimed the right of a lawful general over all persons and things within sight of his flag. Without right or authority he landed fifty men at the mouth of the river Colorado, seized the fort of Castillo, on the San Juan; captured steamers, and the goods of me chants in transit to the interior; killed men, and made prisoners of the peaceful inhabitants, sending to the harbor San Juan del Norte some thirty or forty men, women, and children in the steamer Morgan.

In doing these things without the show of authority they were guilty of rapine and murder, and must be regarded as outlaws and pirates. They can have no claim to be regraded in any other light.

Humanity, as well as law and justice and national honor, demanded the dispersion of these lawless men.

[628] The remnant of the miserable beings who surrendered at Rivas were conveyed in this ship last summer to New York, and their sufferings are yet fresh in the memory of all *on board.

Besides the sufferings that would necessarily be inflicted upon an innocent and unoffending people, these lawless followers of General Walker, misguided and deceived into a career of crime, would doubtless have perished in Central America, or their mutilated and festering bodies have been brought back to their friends at the expense of their country.

For the above reasons, which appear to my mind quite sufficient, I have disarmed and sent to the United States General William Walker and his outlawed and piratical followers for trial, or for whatever action the Government in its wisdom may think proper to pursue.

Captain Ommanny, of Her Britannic Majesty’s ship Brunswick, offered to co-operate with me in removing the party from Point Arenas, but as they were my countrymen, I deemed it proper to decline the participation of a foreign flag.

I am, sir, yours. &c., &c.,