of these interests, in the name of Mr. Hopkins, be safer than in the hands of the company? He was the head and front of the company there. An American citizen, consul of his country, this case would have been at least as strong as the other.

But this pretence is hypocritical as well as absurd. It is perfectly clear, upon the testimony of Lieutenant Powell, given here as a witness for the claimants, and it is perfectly clear upon the official correspondence of the State Department, that there was no hostility whatever to the company or its enterprise. This is the judgment of Mr. Marcy, who, in his letter to Messrs. Arnold and Gallup, (committee of the company,) dated March 7, 1855, says: "It is evident, from the tenor of the whole correspondence, that the government of Paraguay confined its opposition entirely to Mr. Hopkins individually." (This is the language of the Spanish translation, re-translated. I have not the original English before me.)

Lieutenant Powell distinctly states that President Lopez declared to him that his objection was entirely personal to Mr. Hopkins; and that if the interests of the company should be transferred to any other hands, every privilege and advantage should be guarantied to it which any foreigner could enjoy. Commander Page, in a despatch to the Secretary of the Navy, dated Asuncion, September 26, 1854, uses the following language, to the same effect:

"Mr. Hopkins declined allowing any one of the persons under him to carry on these works, and came to the conclusion that the course for him to pursue was to throw the responsibility on this government, and look to a reclamation being made by the government at home. * *The opposition of the government was confined to himself and a Mr. Morales, who had made himself odious to the government by some very impudent and ridicu⭑ lous remarks. Acting Lieutenant Powell used his best endeavors, both for the interest of this company and to avoid collision with the gov ernment. He desired to know from Mr. Hopkins if he would allow another to act in his stead, stating that to this the government had no objection. He declined doing so. * * * I called on the President on my arrival. He expressed himself as having been outraged by the remarks, the communica→ tions, and conduct of Mr. Hopkins and Mr. Morales, and said that matters had gone to such a length that he would not now permit Mr. Hopkins to do any more business here. I requested to be informed if other Americans belonging to the company would not be allowed to do business. He said that any Americans would be allowed to do business with the same privileges that were accorded to other foreigners, and that his objections were confined to Mr. Hopkins and Mr. Morales. I stated to him that some of the persons of this company had said they did not feel themselves protected, and desired to know if they would not receive every protection from insult and injury. He said they should.

"The day following I saw Mr. Hopkins on board this vessel, having sent him word to meet me at a certain hour, for I had expected to have seen him the day before. He explained the circumstances involved in this difficulty, stating to me that he had thrown all the work they had in hand on the responsibility of this government, having been compelled to do so, because of its action towards him, and that he required or demanded of me to join him

in a protest to this government for the outrages that had been committed. His tone and manner were in his usual style of presumption, and I promptly informed him that his requisition and demand would not be granted. I assumed this, in my humble judgment, as the proper course for me to pursue, because I could see no good resulting from such an empty boast, Mr. Hopkins having taken such steps before my arrival as to preclude any action on my part towards a continuation of the operations of the company. I stated to him the nature of my interviews with the President, and at the same time assured him that if he or any American citizen residing on shore considered himself unprotected from insult or injury, he or they would find protection on board of the Water Witch. He said he desired to leave the country, with those who were attached to the company, and to take with him such effects and merchandise as he had in store and in his dwelling house; but that he apprehended no merchant captain would consent to receive him on board, lest he should incur the displeasure of the government. I informed him that I would see the President on the subject, and if I could not procure him a passage with his effects, I would take himself, company, and effects on board the Water Witch to Corrientes, where he desired to go.

"I called to see the President-singular as it may appear, nothing is done in this country without his knowledge and assent-and learned from him that he was willing and desirous that Mr. Hopkins should leave the country, and said that he would instruct the captain of the port to procure a vessel. No captain of a vessel would decline taking Mr. Hopkins on board, with his company and merchandise, if requested to do so by the captain of the port, because he would be assured that by so doing he would be acting in accordance with the wishes of the President. * # # This Mr. Hopkins is aware of; and, for the interest of the company, he should have withdrawn himself actively from its operations, and have made a trial, at least, of the sincerity of the government in its professions of friendly disposition towards the company.

* *

"I should have mentioned in another part of this letter that I ascertained from the President there was no intention on the part of the government to prevent Mr. Hopkins taking out of the country any of his effects, merchandise, or property, notwithstanding the indebtedness of the company to the amount of $10,000, for the payment of which he would not hold the property.

"At the time Mr. Hopkins was ordered to leave the cuartel at San Antonio, he was requested to move all the property. He removed some of the articles, declining to remove others. They were removed by the government, an inventory having been taken and an appraisement made. These articles,a list of which, together with the proceedings, will be found in the papers sent, were stored in the city, they having been thrown on the hands of the government by Mr. Hopkins, and will be sold, the money given to Mr. Hopkins, if he will receive it, and, if not, will be put into the treasury for the benefit of his creditors, or for the company.

"The operations of the cigar factory were stopped because Mr. Hopkins would not take out a license, in accordance with a decree of the government. These are arbitrary acts, and show the power of this government, but still, it is its mode of proclaiming the laws, and all have to abide by them."

These quotations from Commander Page's despatch apply also to other portions of this case; but they are now cited to show that it was perfectly understood by Mr. Hopkins that the difficulty about this "foreign commercial title,” and all the other difficulties, were entirely personal to himself; and that it is a mere shallow and insincere pretence which is now put forth, that the object of the decree was to take the enterprise out of the name of the company (against whom there

was no hostility) into the name of Hopkins, for the purpose of wantonly injuring his unoffending principals.

Mr. Hopkins having thus hastened to fling himself in the face of the government of Paraguay, with his title of general agent of a company assuming to itself the name of Paraguay as well as of the United States, did not wait to receive an answer which should advise him of the determination of the government, which of course he anticipated. He forthwith applied for the license required by law (as his application admits, and as has not been denied here) for the San Antonio saw-mill and the American cigar factory, signing his application with the prohibited title. Of course his application was returned to him; for to have entertained it would have been to admit his entire immunity from the law which governed all others in the country.

Again: the legal license ($8 cost) not having been taken for the cigar factory, situate in the capital itself, and the term of three days being past, as a matter of course the decree was executed. The factory was closed because the license was not taken; and this was but the fulfillment of the law.

It is proven that Mr. Hopkins was distinctly informed that the application was only rejected because he had availed himself of the occasion to brave the supreme authority of the country, by using the "foreign commercial title."

Let this thing be viewed in any aspect, by a Paraguayan or an American-can there be any doubt in the mind of any man of common sense upon it? If the objection of the Paraguayan government to the use of this title, under the circumstances of its internal policy, be not appreciated by an American, can he deny that this question of policy was to be decided by that government alone? Can he suggest a reason, not founded in Mr. Hopkins's vain, egotistical, and presumptuous character, why he should have claimed exemption from the law? Can he suggest a possible injury resulting to the company from a submission to it? And let me here say, once for all, that while I think the acts of the Paraguayan government strictly justifiable upon principles of public law and natural justice, I do not comprehend the idae upon which it is asserted that American citizens are to go into a country which they say they know to be arbitrary and despotic in its government, and claim to gather in its riches in total exemption from the operation of its political institutions. To me this seems a perfect absurdity.

These are all the specific acts of the government of Paraguay towards this company which have been complained of

Vague and general complaints and declarations about "insults" and unfriendly treatment have been made. Mrs. Hines, the wife of the "cashier," says the country girls pulled at her long (and to them strange) riding habit. The common people gathered around their windows, and showed, no doubt, something of the same inconvenient curiosity which was exhibited by the people of the United States towards their recent Japanese visitors. No doubt if Mr. Hopkins (as is probable) met these innocent intrusions in a "blustering, swaggering, overbearing and tyrannical" way, there may have been occasional retaliation by throwing orange peels, and such like, into his windows. If Mr. Morales performed there in the spirit which he has exhibited here, no doubt he got some impudence (and he deserved it) in return. The people of that country are satisfied with the paternal government which they enjoy; and they have no fancy for Mr. Hopkins, Mr. Morales, or the six banished filibusters whose depositions, out of all the vast populations bordering upon Paraguay, could alone be brought here to traduce and slander the character of President Lopez. Long after the gross provocation given by Mr. Hopkins, and within a few days of the termination of the whole affair, (to wit: on the 25th of August, 1854,) he [Hopkins] uses this language in his despatch to the Secretary of State of the United States. Speaking of President Lopez, he says: "Those around him, seeing that his published appeals to the mob to insult us have not yet had the desired effect, are pushing him to any length which may have at any moment the desired effect."

Mr. Ferguson (whose conduct, appearance, and testimony before this commission are in marked contrast to Hopkins' and Morales') says, at page 148: "I was treated with the greatest respect, as far as the people of the country were concerned. I never had any difficulty with anybody all the time I was there." And he was there during the whole affair, and left with Hopkins in the Water Witch.

It has been pretended that the agent and employés of the company were expelled from the country; and again, with characteristic consistency, that they were refused their passports; and Morales says, that after he had got his passport, and safely reached foreign parts, the Paraguayan consul tried to coax him to go back, in order that President Lopez, with his omniscient and omnipotent faculties, might get him bodily in his grasp, to punish him.

These false and ridiculous allegations answer one another. The despatch of Captain Page, already quoted, the testimony

of Lieutenant Powell, that of Ferguson, and indeed all the testimony relating to this part of the case, plainly prove that there was neither expulsion, nor refusal of passports, nor desire of personal vengeance upon the formidable Morales. It has been pretended by Mr. Hopkins, that he was required to surrender the title papers to the lots of real estate which he had purchased, and that this was made a condition to the granting of the passports.

This is without foundation. Never at any time did the government claim to interfere with any other land than that which was appurtenant to the national barrack. This barrack, at an important point, had been established there in the belief that the spot, which was vacant and wild, was of the ungranted public domain. This being ascertained to be a mistake, and the land being claimed by Zelada, the government purchased his title. Upon the survey, it was found that the 23 cuerdas were enclosed by Hopkins, under a pretended title, derived as has been already stated. It was to the annulling of this title, surreptitiously and fraudulently obtained by Hopkins, that the government limited itself. The surrender of the papers was wholly unimportant. Before proceeding to the decree of nullity, the government, in the exercise of the unquestionably just right to take private property for public use, making just compensation, suspended these proceedings, and for the sake of peace offered to purchase this voidable title for a large advance upon the price paid by Hopkins; even double the amount paid by him.

As to the other real property at San Antonio, purchased by him for $162, and on which his mills, engine, machines, &c., stood, under a shed, it was of no importance to government, and was not interfered with until Mr. Hopkins himself insisted that the inventory should exclude the whole, and that he abandoned the whole to the government.

The decree requiring him, as all others similarly situated, who had omitted the official survey and fixing of boundaries, to attend to that proceeding within a fixed term, necessarily required that the title papers in all such cases should be exhibited in order that the true boundaries might be ascertained and fixed. But this was its only, and its express purpose.

Upon this review of all the important facts in the evidence, it is confidently submitted that there is no responsibility whatever upon the Paraguayan government, in the whole premises.

But it is maintained by the counsel for the claimants that the question of responsibility is not now open; that it is to