Protest of Mrs. Peña., December 29, 1874

Protest of Mrs. Peña.

For the information of the people of Salvador, and of the rest of Central America, is printed the following document, that has merited from the honorable consul of North America a decisive action worthy of his respectable character and that of the first republic of the continent. Honor to probity; applause to the protectors of right!

Mr. Consul of the United States, I, Julia Martinez de Peña, native of the Republic or Salvador, widow, and citizen of Cojutepeque, respectfully come before you to make the following protest: The supreme power of Costa Rica has just sent to this country, in the character of prisoner, on board the steamer Mohongo, my legitimate son, Lieut. Cok José Maria Pena, who has come guarded by two Costa Rican officials, who are now in the port of La Libertad.

The reason assigned for this proceeding, as unusual as disgraceful, appears to be a declaration made known by my above-mentioned son in the republic where he was made prisoner, in virtue of which he appears as confessing himself guilty of the black crime of an attempt at assassination against the person of General Thomas Guardia, President of a people where violence, tyranny, and immorality are now found established in the government.

It is also said that, according to this strange declaration, the Lieut. Col. Pena appears as the accuser of the supreme chief of his country, Marshal Santiago Gonzalez, accusing him of complicity in the unholy attempt of which I am going to speak with all the bitterness and indignation of a mother who sees the being whom she nourished in her bosom a victim of fear and infamous fraud, the sad consequences of which I will not dwell upon under the weight of my grief.

Permit me, Mr. Consul, to say here, in reference to the principal object of this writing, that I protest with all my power against this iniquitous scheme on the part of the government of Costa Rica to cover with odium the government of Salvador, destroying at the same time the honor and lawful expectations of the son that I conceived, in the present case as innocent as unfortunate.

It is sufficient, Mr. Consul, to consider in the light of public opinion the confession to which I refer, to see in it the fruits of a state of madness, or rather of a horrible imprisonment, in which the expectation of torture or of death is capable of tearing from the man the confession that may be desired, although it should be his own infamy, although it should be an eternal disgrace to him who in an unhallowed hour has had the sad necessity of uttering a falsehood, yielding to human weakness, tortured by the ministers of evil, who make torture an element of government.

The history of the world is full of similar iniquities, in which brute force is used by man to proclaim his own degradation, and the slander that tyrants need to cowardly work out evil from their timid adversaries. The immoral government of Costa Rica has had the sad satisfaction of doing this, as is proved by the explanations he has spontaneously given since he finds himself free from the control of the authors of his present misfortune.

Having seen thus the act in question, I do not; understand, Mr. Consul, how the captain of the steamer Mohongo, Mr. Douglass, has been able to cover with the flag of the stars of liberty a victim of tyranny, trampling under foot international law and natural rights, inviolable in every territory where they have not been transgressed. And as the ships of the American Union are, and ought to be, considered as an integral part of the territory of that great nation, it can be well protested against the blamable condescension of the captain of the Mohongo, who has acted the part of jailer to my son, and I protest solemnly, with all the energy which wounded feelings and rights give, reserving to myself the right to reclaim at a proper time reparation for the injuries and damages that such unauthorized conduct may bring upon Lieut. Col. José Maria Pena, the object of the very strange proceedings that I have just mentioned, and which right and morals reprove and condemn.

But it is also the case, Mr. Consul, that, in the councils of the Salvadoran chancery, it is believed convenient, and by all means necessary, to return my son to the country whence he was brought to this in such a predicament; and I entertain the sad conviction that if such a thing happens he will be sacrificed by those who have wished to make him an instrument of their perverse designs.

If such a misfortune should be realized, it will be only with the co-operation of some of the North American captains and ships that touch in the ports of Central America, and in so deplorable an event the blood of my son, the blood of this Salvadoran, who suffers without just cause the penalties and insults that the satanic machinations, foreign to his heart and to the loyal government of Salvador, wish to inflict upon him—this blood, I say, will not fall without rising to Heaven, calling for reparation from the magnanimous people of North America, whom you, Mr. Consul, so worthily represent in this land, thirsting for justice and liberty.

If such a misfortune should happen, there will not be wanting voices bold and generous that may say to the world, “The flag of the nation that in each one of its stars symbolizes a star of justice and liberty; the flag of a nation that has hallowed the rights of man, elevating itself by this to higher altitude in the scale of humanity, has served in one portion of the American continent, in the bosom of democracy, to cover an injustice, a cruelty, an abominable crime.”

With such information, and not finding here the diplomatic minister of the United States, I address myself to you formally, begging that you will be pleased to notify the captain of the steamer that is to bear my son from the shores of his country to other foreign ones, that in the very moment he may be placed upon board he ought to be considered as in full and perfect liberty, and with the undeniable right of landing in any neutral port it may suit him. If it is not so, I protest immediately, as the gravity of the case demands; and so I also protest against the conduct of the captain of the steamer Mohongo again and again, making the North American Union responsible before God, before civilized men, and before all humanity for the sacrifice or the afflictions that my son, Lieut. Col. José Maria Peña, may suffer, and for the injuries and misfortunes that will weigh upon his harassed family, depending now upon the equity with which the agents of a great people may act.