Page:United States Statutes at Large Volume 18 Part 2c.djvu/509

 502 PUBLIC TREATIES. May 2e,1s4e. PROTOCOL. Protocol. In the city of Queretaro, on the twenty-sixth of the month of May, eighteen hundred and forty-eight, at a conference between their excellencies Nathan Clifford and Ambrose H. Sevier, Commissioners of the U. S. of A., with full powers from their Government to make to the Mexican Republic suitable explanations in regard to the amendments which the Senate and Government of the said United States have made in the treaty of peace, friendship, limits, and definitive settlement between the two Republics, signed in Guadalupe Hidalgo, on the second day of February of the present year; and His Excellency Don Luis de la Rosa, Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Republic of Mexico; it was agreed, after adequate conversation, respecting the changes alluded to, to record in the present protocol the following explanations, which their aforesaid excellencies the Commissioners gave in the name of their Government and in fulfillment of the commission conferred upon them near the Mexican Republic: Declaration of lst. The American Government by suppressing the 1Xth article of American Comms- thu tmuty of Guadalupe Hidalgo and substituting the Hld article of °"°°°"' the treaty of Louisiana, did not intend to diminish in any way what was agreed upon by the aforesaid article Hth in favor of the inhabitants of [Reference to the territories ceded by Mexico. lts understanding is that all of that {'°"?*° _}?,- 8**3 agreement is contained in the 3d article of the treaty of Louisiana. In $8%% ,,233 S""' consequence all the privileges and guarantees, civil, political, and re- 'ligious, which would have been possessed by the inhabitants of the ceded territories, if the 1Xth article of the·treaty had been retained, will be enjoyed by them, without any difference, under the article which has been substituted. [Reference to 2d. The American Govemment by suppressing the Xth article of the Artrolo X.] treaty of Guadalupe did not in any way intend to annul the grants of lands made by Mexico in the ceded territories. These grants, notwithstanding the suppression of the article of the treaty, preserve the legal value which they may possess, and the grantees may cause their legitimate [titles] to be acknowledged before the American tribunals. Conformably to the law of the United States, legitimate titles to every description of property, personal and real, existing in the ceded territories are those which were legitimate titles under the Mexican law in California and New Mexico up to the 13th of May, 1846, and in Texas up to the 2d March, 1836. [Rufmm, to 3d. The Government of the United States, by suppressing the conclud- Article XII-] ing paragraph of article Xllth of the treaty, did not intend to deprive the Mexican Republic of the free and unrestrained faculty of ceding, conveying, or transferring at any time (as it may judge best) the sum of the twelve millions of dollars which the same Government of the U. States is to deliver in the places designated by the amended article. Deo1amti_on of And these explanations having been accepted by the Minister of For- M°’¤°’*¤ M¤¤¤¤*·°1‘· eign Affairs of the Mexican Republic, he declared, in name of his Gov- - ernment, that with the understanding conveyed by them the same Government would proceed to ratify the treaty of Guadalupe, as modiued by the Senate and Government of the U. States. In testimony of which, their Excellencies, the aforesaid Commissioners and the Minister have signed and sealed, in quintuplicate, the present protocol. sam,. A. H. SEVIER. SEAL. NATHAN CLIFFORD. sun. LUIS DE LA ROSA.