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442 and the United States require more than a passing notice, and I shall consequently enter somewhat more into details regarding them.

Soon after the ratification of the Guadalupe treaty in 1848, mutual complaints began to arise on the part of Mexican and United States citizens against the respective authorities, on account of injuries to their persons or property. When the Gadsden treaty, in 1854, released the United States government from the obligations contained in the eleventh article by which that government solemnly agreed to restrain by force Indian incursions into Mexico from United States territory, the complaints of Mexican citizens increased, owing to the incessant depredations committed on the frontier by Indians and lawless desperadoes, who crossed the border from the neighboring republic. Still more numerous and more urgently pressed were the claims made against Mexico by United States citizens, many of whom had suffered severe grievances during the troublous times of that nation. Such a multitude of claims against the Mexican government, demanding compensation for forced loans, for losses incurred by military operations, for appropriation of private property, and for compulsory military service, was laid before Secretary Seward, that he proposed, in March 1867, to Romero, the Mexican minister at Washington, that in order to avoid difficulties which might lead to a rupture, a treaty should be made, by which United States citizens should be exempted from forced loans or contributions of any kind, and from military service. Romero reported the matter to his government The result was a convention entered into by the two governments in 1868, by which it was agreed that a mixed commission, composed of two members respectively representing the two nations, should be appointed to