REISTRA, Secretary to J. M. Lafragua, December 9, 1874

The governor of Jalisco to Mr. Lafragua.

To the Citizen Minister of Foreign Affairs, Mexico:

In reply to the official communication of the section of America of your department, which, under date of the 26th of November last, it was pleased to direct to this government, inserting therein part of one from the minister of the United States in Mexico, relative to the complaint which the Pacific Theological Seminary of Oakland, California, had sent up to the American Government, on account of the insecurity of the Messrs. Watkins and Morgan, as also that the assassination at Ahualulco de Mercado has remained unpunished, I have the honor to state to your excellency, that on the part of this government all suitable and efficacious measures have been ordered for the apprehension and punishment of the murderers of Mr. Stephens. In numbers 21 and 27 of the official paper, which I inclose to you, there appears what were its measures and their result. This government thinks that it has done what its duty demanded of it for the punishment of the criminals. As your department will see from the “expediente” published in that periodical, the government, since April last, denied the pardon and commanded the penalty of death to be executed upon the condemned authors of the murder, but the court of the district ordered the execution to be suspended, on the 24th of the same April, which order the government obeyed, as was its duty. Since that date these criminals have been at the disposition of federal justice in virtue of an “amparo” which they asked, without, up to the present, the matter being settled.

If the criminals have not suffered the punishment to which they have been condemned, it is not through the fault or delay of the government of the State, which can do nothing more in the matter, as, since April, it has been under the jurisdiction of the federal tribunals, as in former communications has been stated to your department.

As soon as this government received the present “excitative” that it should take such efficient measures as would give to Messrs. Watkins and Morgan the security which the laws guarantee to them, I addressed to them the communication marked No. 1, to which the one marked No. 2 is a reply.

By these communications your department will see that there have never been wanting to those citizens the guarantees which the laws of the republic grant them, and that always this government has caused these guarantees to be given, even in the midst of the excitement which the events of Ahualulco de Mercado caused, the executive having then afforded the Protestants of the State the special protection which the circumstances for preventing criminal attempts like that at Ahualulco might make necessary. From the foregoing, your department will see that Messrs. Watkins and Morgan, as well as all citizens who adhere to the evangelical, or any other worship, live in Jalisco with full guarantees, and that those who profess a religion different from the dominant one in the country have no ground for complaint against this government.

Independence and liberty.