Page:Difficulties Between Mexico and Guatemala.djvu/59

 Meanwhile, Mr. Romero had resolved to desist from the purchase of the lands forming the coffee plantation, but his agent in Mexico had already made payment of the price to the government, and an official title had been issued to him in August, 1874, by which the Mexican Government became the guarantee that the lands were really Mexican territory.. The possession of this document gave him an unquestionable right to Mexican protection, but he nevertheless resolved not to solicit such intervention, and to leave the territorial question to be decided by a treaty of limits. Consequently, he did not make any demand for diplomatic redress, nor even address any complaint on the subject to the Mexican newspapers. From other sources, however, those papers received information on the subject, and the members of Congress from Chiapas spontaneously addressed a joint complaint on the subject to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. These publications and the complaint in question were wrongly attributed by President Barrios to direct efforts on the part of Mr. Romero, and caused great indignation on his part. In revenge, he caused to be written a letter from Guatemala to the Mexican journal the "Monitor," in which the destruction of the coffee plantation was described as a very small affair, and Mr. Romero was represented as a heartless speculator in international dissensions. In reply to this letter Mr. Romero, for the first time, addressed to the "Monitor" his own version of the facts, taking care, however, not to inculpate General Barrios, to whom he sent a copy At the, same time, he complained to General Barrios by letter, of the attacks made upon him in the press and received a reply in which the President of Guatemala explicitly denied all knowledge thereof, and