Page:Life and Select Literary Remains of Sam Houston of Texas (1884).djvu/475

 Our Gulf and Pacific squadrons would be ample for the protection of her commerce in those quarters, and without subjecting us to additional outlays, I've thousand reliable regular troops, properly garrisoned and distributed, would insure the establishment and preservation of internal order; and the adoption of a good police system would eventuate in bringing to justice, and effectually subduing, the rapacious and blood-thirst;y bandits who infest her highways. Hence it is clear that we have it in our power to improve the condition of Mexico immeasurably; to breathe the breath of new life into her nostrils; and without incurring the risk of a dollar. What a salutary change would this be, not only for both countries, but for the world at large!

Faithless to her engagements, Mexico has been for a long time but a little better than a national outlaw. She is powerful for the commission of wrongs, but powerless for their redress. Our Department of State is the repository for the grievances of our citizens by her high-handed deeds; but nothing more than a repository, since the securing of indemnities for outrages has become a somewhat obsolete idea. Those grievances are doubtless magnified in a pecuniary point of view, as grievances ever are where a government is responsible; but still there should be an authority in Mexico with which they may be adjusted and provided for, as ascertained to be valid. The claimants might select one commissioner for their examination, Mexico another; and, in case of disagreement, the two an umpire. So with the inhabitants of other countries, who have experienced wrongs at her hands which have not been redressed. With respect to her funded debt, it amounts to about fifty-five million dollars, and is chiefly owned in England and on the Continent. It was consolidated in 1846, by a convention between the Government of Mexico and a committee of the bondholders, by which it was to bear five per cent, coupon interest. The war in which Mexico became involved with the United States so enfeebled her that she was unable to provide the interest, or a single dividend of it, until some time along in 1850, when she sent a commissioner to London to represent the state of her finances, and to make a new proposal to her creditors. This proposal was to the end that she would pay out of the California indemnity money the interest in arrears, and pledge one-fourth of the custom-house receipts on imports as well as exports for the payment of the future interest of the debt, provided the bondholders would agree to diminish the rate of interest from five to three per cent. To this, after some hesitation, they consented. Since then, such is the faithlessness with which she has acted, and such the subterfuges that she has had to resort to in order to sustain her sickly existence, that she has appropriated to herself nearly all the customs dues received; having remitted only a sufficient amount to pay four of the semi-annual three per cent, interest dividends which have since matured. With this arrangement, to which Mexico is bound, we could not interfere, as her protector, unless with the assent of the bondholders. It might, however, probably be modified to their own and her advantage. The assumption of it by this Government, as a consequence of the protectorate, is too idle a supposition to be entertained. Great Britain could not expect more from us in the premises than to see that the portion of the revenue from the customs stipulated for was regularly placed at the disposal of those bondholders when collected. This would in ail likelihood defray the interest as it accrued, besides creating a sinking fund for the absorption, in a few years, ol the principal, and thus extricate the hand of our unfortunate neighbor from the