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it as General Agent." Yet, in his earlier intercourse with President Lopez this title had been constantly used on both sides without objection. The President used it in his letter acknowledging the present of a carriage, and in all the deeds produced here, it will be seen, the same designation was employed. Yet, after the lapse of many months, a solemn decree demanded its formal communication. Mr. Hopkins complied with the decree, but its formal notice was repelled as an intended insult. Meanwhile, a new decree of the 29th of August practically deprived the Americans of all their servants, and, as several of the witnesses testified, they hardly knew how they were to live. It was dangerous for the natives to be on good terms with them. They were unwilling to rent them their dwellings, or furnish them with supplies. They were annoyed in their houses and stoned in the streets. Mr. Hopkins could only protest with earnestness, and refer the case to his own government. For doing this his exequatur was withdrawn. It is due to him to say that in the official paper announcing this withdrawal, no good reason is given for it on the face of the earth. We are not called upon to justify all the consular acts of this officer. It is possible that he had an exaggerated idea of his consular position, and of his official duty to protect the rights and interests of his countrymen. But we have looked in vain through the correspondence in this case for any evidence against him of a serious indiscretion. He is evidently a man of ardent temperament, and from some of his despatches he appears to have been impatient, at what he regarded as a want of sympathy on the part of Captain Page. It is only just to remember, however, that if their judgments differed in the beginning concerning President Lopez and his treatment of this com pany, they were quite harmonious in the end, and Captain Page has placed on record, his opinion upon these subjects, in language quite as strong as any which has ever been used by Mr. Hopkins. The course of this government (he writes officially to the Secretary of the Navy, under date of September 26th, 1854) "towards this company, in my humple opinion, requires some action on the part of our government, not only in the way of reclamation, but, should there come to reside in this country American citizens, their protection from oppression and maltreatment would not be secured to them unless by the presence of a man-of-war." * * * "How long the good relations between this government and myself may continue, it is impossible to say, and will depend upon

its own course. There is a want of dignity and integrity, which will suspend friendly relations by a precarious tenure." Captain Page, therefore, concurred at last with Mr. Hopkins, both in respect to the government of Paraguay, and in respect to its treatment of the company. Nothing, however, could avert the threatened destruction. The work was finally accomplished by the use of military force. On the 28th of August, the cigar factory was closed, under from the government, and more than a hundred laborers expelled therefrom, to whom the company had paid some eight hundred dollars of advanced wages. This is the testimony of Morales, which is confirmed by other witnesses, and by the official papers of Paraguay itself. On the 5th of September, the saw-mill belonging to the company was also stopped, the peones were discharged, and all the property at San Antonio was seized by the government. The directions, for these purposes, were given to Mr. Vasquez, and his official report is among the papers in the case.

The work was now done. Neither factory, nor land, nor house, nor machinery, nor laborers, nor servants, nor associates, nor commercial character, nor official representation with an arbitrary government and a hostile population; no wonder that the Americans felt seriously anxious at their hazardous situation. Yet, strange as it appears, they seem to have found it difficult to get away. Under the rule of Dr. Francia, the system of detaining foreigners in Paraguay was practiced to a very liberal extent. Messrs. Rengger and Longchamp, two Swiss gentlemen, who afterwards published an account of their detention, were thus detained for several years, and Mr. Bonpland, the well-known companion of Baron Humboldt, was only set at liberty after he had been a prisoner for nine years. In the midst of the difficulties which surrounded them, and especially those of procuring a vessel and the necessary permits to embark their goods, the Americans recurred, perhaps, to these cases, and began to dread some serious restraint. They were relieved, however, from any such apprehensions as those, by the presence of Captain Page, in the United States steamer Water Witch, and on board that vessel they were at last safely embarked.

The narrative we have given is drawn wholly from the evidence. It contains nothing but what we believe to be true, and many details, similar to those mentioned, might safely be added to it. Of this character, for example, is the degradation imposed upon the witness Morales, who was

compelled, he says, at peril of his life, to carry the sign of the company from the cigar factory to the office of police, followed all the way by a Paraguayan soldier. We have stated enough, however, to show the aggravated wrong of which we complain, beyond, it appears to us, the shadow of a doubt. It is easy for Paraguay to blame Hopkins. It is easy for President Lopez to make denials. It may not be impossible, here and there, to find slight discrepancy of evidence, or a single inaccuracy of date, though we confess we do not know where they are. But the great facts, after all, remain, and no human ingenuity can possibly explain them away. No wonder that Captain Page, in view of them, urged upon his government the most strenuous measures. No won der that Mr. Hopkins and his associates were indignant at their wrongs. No wonder that the company appealed promptly to the executive and Congress of their country. No wonder, either, that the appeal was answered, and the use of force authorized. There is enough in the plain history of the case to account for and justify all these appeals and all this earnest action. If ever a government committed an aggravated outrage upon American citizens, such an outrage was committed by the government of Paraguay upon this company.

By the series of events which we have narrated, the company had been broken up, and had been driven away. No one believes that it could have sought this fate. It had gone too far, and risked too much to retire voluntarily from a field which it had found more promising even than it first expected. It had yielded only to a hard necessity. A similar necessity broke up soon after the French colony in "the Chaco," which had come out and established itself under the guaranty of a solemn contract. "Such was the treatment of these foreigners by President Lopez, [writes Captain Page in his volume, page 284,] that before the expiration of one year they broke up, and many of them escaped, not by the river, for the vigilance of its chain of guardians is not easily eluded, but through the Chaco, preferring to run the gauntlet of Indians, jaguars, and starvation, to living under such oppression."

But it is enough for us to refer to the testimony in our own case. The difficulties which Paraguay has had with other powers, its alleged disregard of treaties and contracts in other cases, and the manner in which it attempted to justify its attack upon the Water Witch, by a fabricated map of the river, we do not care to dwell upon. We only press

upon those honorable commissioners the aggravated character of the wrongs done to this company; and, in consideration of these wrongs, we appeal to them for redress.

We come now to the real question in the case. We come to the question of damages. The aggravated wrong being established, the wrongdoer is, of course, bound to make indemnity, and this honorable commission is to determine the amount. Upon what principles shall this determination be made?

In the first plcce, it can hardly be denied that the company is entitled to compensation for the actual and bona fide expenditures, which have been made fruitless from the wrongful acts of Paraguay. On this point, we are justified in remarking that the exhibits of the company have been singularly full, and frank, and explicit. Its books, and its vouchers, and its cashiers, and its agents, have all been produced before the commissioners, and submitted to the most careful examination. Whatever else may be determined, there can be no doubt at all as to the amount and objects of the company's expenditure. Nothing has been kept back, and nothing has been exaggerated or distorted. This amount, it belongs to the government of Paraguay to make good. It is the actual cost of establishing ourselves in that country. What the property left there may have been worth, or what the property we purchased there was worth in other hands, furnishes no safe criterion whatever for the estimate of damages. Every necessary step which we took to carry the expedition into effect is just as much a part of its cost as the purchase money we paid for land in San Antonio, or for the cigar factory in Asuncion. It was impossible to go without vessels; it was impossible to go without agents; it was impossible to go without machinery. The vessels were purchased and repaired, the laborers were hired, and the machinery was sent out. The necessary expenses incurred for these purposes go directly to swell the cost of the expedition, and when President Lopez broke up the company and compelled it to retire, in respect to cost, he must be held as having taken its place. Having seized the position, he must pay what the position cost. Having taken our property and broken up our business, he has no right now to plead in extenuation the cheap land or the cheap buildings in a country under his own control. The books, and papers, and witnesses, show that what we paid for our purchases in Paraguay was a very inconsiderable part of our aggregate expenditure. We were not na

tives of Paraguay, but had to go there, and had to take there all the materials necessary to the development of our plans.

The expenses, in going and returning on an errand unjus tifiably made fruitless by another, even in the absence of any actual wrong, have frequently been held allowable by the courts. Thus, where an agreement had been made to let certain premises as a tavern stand, and the plaintiff had removed his family to take possession, which was refused, it was held that the plaintiff was entitled to recover, not only the value of his lease, but also his expenses in removing his family and furniture. (Sedgwick on the Measure of Damages, page 86; Dreggs vs. Dwight, 17 Wend., 71.) So, where there was a breach of an agreement to let the plaintiff have the use of certain mills for six months, for ten pounds, it appeared that the mills were worth only twenty pounds per annum, and yet damages were given to £500, by reason of the stock laid in by the plaintiff; and, "per curiam, the jury may well find such damages, for they are not only bound to give the ten pounds, but also all the special damages."

Even in cases of breach of contract, there is a manifest tendency towards a greater liberality of compensation. Whenever there are reliable data, the courts seem willing now to make the party injured entirely whole, even to the extent of damages somewhat remote.

Where the case, however, is a case of tort, and the wrongdoer is the defendant, the rule has been held to extend even to consequential damages. "He who has caused a damage maliciously and purposely," says Puffendorf, "is answerable for all events, however unforeseen or extraordinary they may be. He has himself, in a voluntary manner, become liable to all the consequences of his own wicked act and intention, and therefore merits no indulgence." (Law of Nations, book 3, chapter 1, page 213-note.) So, in 6th Bingham, 716, Tindal, C. J., says: "No wrongdoer can be allowed to apportion or qualify his own wrong; as a loss has actually happened while his wrongful act was in operation and force, and which is attributable to his wrongful act, he cannot set up as an answer to the action the bare possibility of a loss if his wrongful act had never been done." See also the "Amiable Nancy," 3 Wheaton, 546 and 558, where it was held that, "had the action been against the original wrongdoer, exemplary damages might have been allowed. The rule is, however, says Sedgwick, page 112, that even in cases where vindictive damages cannot be demanded, the law will go

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