and Panama, and in reply you are referred to the cabled instructions of October 4 and 23, as defining the department's attitude on the subject. I am, sir, your obedient servant, HUNTINGTON WILSON (For Mr. Knox). Minister Northcott to the Secretary of State. [Telegram.] BOGOTA, January 5, 1910. January 5, 5 p. m.1 Colombian minister for foreign affairs requested me verbally to ask my Government if United States and Panama would agree to submit question of separation of Panama from Colombia to vote of citizens of Panama. Terms of settlement of all questions according to the result of vote to be previously agreed upon by the three Governments. The interests of the United States in Canal Zone in no event to be affected. Colombian Government claims it is impossible to secure ratification of Root-Cortez treaties without thereby causing [revolution?]. I believe this is true as public opinion now stands, and that the present proposition is made with the expectation of vote being for separation, but with the hope that a vote of Panama will so far satisfy Colombian people as to allow ratification of some satisfactory treaties. No. 53.] NORTHCOTT. Minister Northcott to the Secretary of State. AMERICAN LEGATION, Bogota, February 18, 1910. SIR: On the 5th of January last I had the honor to send you the following code cable:2 Since then, on every occasion that I have seen him, Dr. Calderón, the Colombian minister for foreign affairs, has inquired anxiously of me as to what reply I have received. Not having received your instructions up to this time, I have so told him, but I should like very much, if it meets with your approval, to be cabled upon receipt of this, if no directions have as yet been sent, what reply to make. I have the honor to be, sir, Your obedient servant, ELLIOTT NORTHCOTT. 1 MEMORANDUM ADDED IN THE DEPARTMENT OF STATE.-Referring to Mr. Northcott's communication of the Colombian request that the question of a separation of Panama from Colombia be submitted to a plebiscite vote, you will find in Foreign Relations for 1903, p. 333 et seq., that the several municipalities of Panama unanimously approved the ratification of the canal treaty by the Provisional Government of Panama. The people of Panama also elected, afterwards, representatives to a congress of the Republic by almost unanimous votes. These two acts were as completely a ratification of the separation from Colombia as the election of republican chambers in France in 1871 was à ratification of the downfall of Napoleon and the creation of a Republic. 2 Printed ante. Acting Secretary Wilson to American Legation at Bogota. [Telegram.] DEPARTMENT OF STATE, Washington, March 24, 1910. Answering your dispatch No. 53 and your January 5, 5 p. m., you are informed that the attitude of the department as outlined in its telegram of June 11, 1909, remains unchanged. WILSON. No. 81.] Minister Northcott to the Secretary of State. AMERICAN LEGATION, Bogota, May 13, 1910. SIR: I have the honor to report that on Wednesday last, May 11, while calling on the Colombian minister for foreign affairs, in company with Secretary Frazier, the minister handed me a note, dated December 20, 1909, dealing with the tripartite treaties. The minister stated at the time that he had held the note hoping that something would come of his suggestion as to a plebiscite, but that he now thought it best to deliver it. Copy of note referred to and translation, together with my reply thereto, are inclosed, marked Nos. 1, 2, and 3. I have the honor to be, sir, Your obedient servant, ELLIOTT NORTHCOTT. [Inclosure 1 in No. 81-translation.] FOREIGN OFFICE, Bogota, December 20, 1909. MR. MINISTER: Referring to the esteemed note which your excellency addressed to me on the 26th of October last regarding the views of the Government of the United States upon the treaties of January 9 last, it is my duty to allude to the friendly sentiments which have suggested to the Government of Colombia the idea of omitting the treaties of Washington rather than to ask of the Colombian Congress an approval which in all probability would be refused. The Government of Colombia does not consider it an opportune moment to explain to your excellency the motives of the obligations incurred in the treaties in behalf of this Republic, but in view of the declarations made to the Cabinet in Washington from 1903 until last year, in relation to the events which in 1903 determined the independence of the Isthmus of Panama and of the solemn agreements binding the two Republics, they (the Government of Colombia) believe it necessary to state that the true purpose of these treaties is, in their opinion, to define the legal relations which have arisen between the three contracting parties as a result of the events above referred to: that is to say, the monetary advances to Colombia, stipulated in the treaties of the 9th of January, did not have and can not have the character of favors but of compensation or indemnity for acts which. in their judgment, have inflicted prejudice and caused injury to their duly acquired rights. Without reproducing at present the extensive and weighty arguments of various kinds, with which Colombia has supported her demands before the Government of the United States, I believe it nevertheless to be my duty to remind your excellency that the character which must be given to negotiations through which an agreement may be reached upon pending questions is not a matter of the first importance to the Government of Colombia so long as the honor and vital interests of the contracting parties are not compromised. In the meantime I beg your excellency will accept the manifestations contained in this dispatch as an expression of the sincere desire which animates the Government of Colombia to facilitate an agreement which may satisfy every legitimate right and every consideration of honor involved in the differences existing between the two States. ELLIOTT NORTHCOTT, Esq., (Signed) CARLOS CALDERÓN. Envoy Extraordinary and Minister Plenipotentiary No. 41.] [Copy to accompany dispatch No. 81.] MAY 12, 1910. YOUR EXCELLENCY: I have the honor to acknowledge the receipt of your excellency's esteemed note of December 20, 1909, which your excellency was good enough to hand to me personally yesterday. In reply I beg to say that I have noted your excellency's sentiments in regard to the treaties of Washington and that I will duly transmit them to my Government. I avail myself of this opportunity to reiterate to your excellency the assurance of my most distinguished consideration. Doctor CARLOS CALDERÓN. (Signed) Minister for Foreign Affairs, etc. ELLIOTT NORTHCOTT. PART IV-b. PAPERS SUBMITTED RELATING TO THE HAY-CONCHA NEGOTIATIONS. LIST OF CORRESPONDENCE RELATING TO THE HAY-CONCHA NEGOTIATIONS IN 1902. From Colombian legation, March 31, 1902. (Not included. 611, 57th Cong., 1st sess.) Printed in H. Doc. From same, March 31, 1902. (Not included. Printed in H. Doc. 611, 57th Cong., 1st sess.) To same, April 5, 1902. From same, April 8, 1902. To same, April 18, 1902. From same, April 18, 1902. (Not included. Printed in H. Doc. 611, 57th Cong., 1st sess.) To same, April 21, 1902. (Not included. Printed in H. Doc. 611, 57th Coug., 1st sess.) From same, April 23, 1902. (Not included. Printed in H. Doc. 611, 57th Cong., 1st sess.) To same, July 18, 1902. From same, July 19, 1902. To same, July 21, 1902. From same, September 22, 1902. From same, October 26, 1902. To same, October 28, 1902. From same, November 11, 1902. From same, November 11, 1902. To same, November 18, 1902. No. 4.] Señor José VICENTE CONCHA, etc. DEPARTMENT OF STATE, Washington, April 5, 1902. SIR: I have the honor to acknowledge the receipt of your note of the 31st ultimo, expressing certain of the conditions under which Colombia is willing to grant to the United States the right to construct the Panama Canal. I have the honor to say in reply that, as I have orally stated to you, this important matter is having earnest consideration. Accept, etc., [Copy-Translation.] JOHN HAY. LEGATION OF COLOMBIA, Washington, D. C., April 8, 1902. Mr. SECRETARY: By express orders of my Government I have the honor to address your excellency for the purpose of entering a statement and a protest in regard to the projected canal between the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans, over what has been styled the Nicaragua route, in so far as the said project may affect the sovereign rights of Colombia in the event of its including, as is to be presumed, territory that the Republic of Colombia has always held to be her own; and I particularly address your excellency by reason of the present pendency in legislative houses of the United States of a bill authorizing your Government to acquire the necessary zone and to carry on the above-mentioned work in territory that may, in part, come within the foregoing description. The Government that I represent, adhering to its traditional and constant position on this point, desires to reaffirm its rights, as it has done in the course of the last century, and to recite again the grounds upon which it rests this affirmation by giving a succinct statement of its titles and a history of the antecedents of the question. Colombia Mosquitia, which lies in the Province of Veragua as far as Cape Gracia a Dios, always was, after the year 1509, integral part of the "Reino de Tierra firme" (Isthmus of Panama), then of the vice royalty of Santa Fe or New Granada, with occasional and transitory dependency on the captancies of Cuba and Guatemala, until the 20th of November, 1803, when a royal order, dated in San Lorenzo, finally restored part of the Mosquito Coast to the vice royalty. Evidence of this is found in the capitulations for the conquest and colonization of the Province of Veragua and in Laws IV and IX of the Indies. Throughout the colonial administration, from 1803 and on, the Government of the vice royalty constantly exercised jurisdiction over that territory as proved, among other documents, by the blockade decreed by the general of the Army of Spain in 1815, when Cape Gracias a Dios is described as the extreme point of the coast of the "Nuevo Reyno." In the first years of the independence the Government of New Granada exercised jurisdiction over the Mosquito Coast, as evidenced by its decrees of April 19 and November 22, 1822. In 1823, by reason of the occupation of the mouths of the San Juan River and adjacent rivers of the San Andres Archipelago by a Chilean privateer, Colombia made representations in vindication of her rights to the Republic of Chile, which disavowed the acts of the privateer. In 1824 the Vice President of New Granada issued a decree declaring "illegal any enterprise for the purpose of colonizing any point on the Mosquito Coast between Cape Gracias a Dios and the Chagres River." In 1825 the legations of Colombia to England and to Central America protested against the concession, without the assent of Colombia, for the construction of a canal that should come in contact with the Colombian Mosquito Coast. In 1826 the Congress of Colombia passed the law, No. 6a, of May 1, enacting provisions regarding Mosquito natives. In 1833 the Government of New Granada issued and published a circular relative to commerce on the Darien and Mosquito Coasts. In 1838, when the opening of an interoceanic canal by the way of the San Juan River and Lake Nicaragua was under consideration, under the auspices of Hille the King of the Netherlands, the executive power made the pertinent protest, and on the following |