^OKAllFOfy* 
 
 ^\WEUNIVER%. ^lOS-ANGElfj^. 
 
 ^OFCAllFC% 
 
 ^Aavaan-^ ^uow-scn^ ^/maim-jv^ ^amir^ 
 
 ^lOSANCFtfj> 
 o 
 
 tymim-iti 
 
 <$UIBRARY0/v ^UIBRARY^r 
 
 ^fOJUVD-JO^ %0JHV3J0 
 
 ^EUNIVER% 
 
 ^TJIWSOI^ 
 
 ^LOS-ANCElfj*- 
 o 
 
 "^/sa3AiNn-]v\v 
 
 ^0F-CAIIF(% ,^0KALIF(%, 
 
 ^•Auvaan-^ 
 
 ■^Aavaan-^ 
 
 <\tf E UNIVERS/a 
 
 <TJ130NVS01^ 
 
 ^UIBRARYQc 
 
 ^Aavaaii-^ 
 
 ^EUNIVER^ 
 
 ^lOSANCElfj^ 
 
 "ftlHNV-SOl^ 
 
 ^V\E-UNIVER% 
 
 <TJ133NV-S01^ 
 
 -< 
 
 %a3AiNn-3\\^ 
 
 ^vlOS-ANCELfj> 
 
 O 
 
 ~%3AIN(13\\^ 
 
 ^UIBRARY^ 
 
 ^OJITVDJO^ 
 ^•OF-CALIFOfy* 
 
 %avaan-^ 
 
 ^lOSANCElfj> 
 
 -< 
 "^AINIHlW* 
 
 ^UIBRARYOc -^UIBRARY^ 
 
 ^EUNIVERS/a 
 
 ^OJIIVD-JO-^ ^OJIIVJJO^ <rii]DNV-S01^ 
 
 vvlOSANCElfj> 
 
 ^0FCALIF0%, ^OFCALIFO/?^ 
 
 y <?Aavaan^ ^Aavaain^ 
 
 ^EUNIVERS//, 
 
 o
 
 1 * 
 
 / 
 
 f(, 
 
 TO 
 
 THE HOLDERS OF THE FOREIGN BONDS 
 OF MEXICO.
 
 Gentlemen, 
 
 The Report, recently published by the Committee of 
 Mexican Bondholders, demands some remarks in vindication of 
 my proceedings in my mission to Mexico. 
 
 On some contradictory principle these proceedings are censured 
 by the Committee, who did not investigate the facts, although the 
 Sub-committee, which did investigate them, and that with no 
 anxiety to spare me, could find nothing to denounce. 
 
 That investigation was instituted for the special purpose of 
 discovering some ground for my condemnation, — some pretext 
 for escaping payment, — not only of my reward for my protracted, 
 arduous, and anxious labours, but even my positive loss by ship- 
 wreck, and actual disbursements in their service. After arrang- 
 ing and re-arranging the charges against me, they are exhibited 
 in six questions, with an answer at the foot of each, to the effect, — ■ 
 that no such charge is established. 
 
 It is true that their business being conviction and not acquittal, 
 they in form acquit me on the fifth question only, in these express 
 words, " The charge involved in the above query falls to the 
 ground." Whether the third is meant to produce the same effect, 
 I know not. The question is : Has Mr. Robertson protected the 
 interest of the bondholders with regard to the tobacco monopoly ? 
 Reply : Mr. Robertson says, " that the two mortgages upon them 
 " for 2,800,000 dollars are valid — are preferential.'' They speak 
 of the two mortgages, as well known to them as to me, — of no in- 
 considerable amount ; and they tell you that I tell them, what they 
 know as well without as with my information, that the mortgages 
 are valid and preferential ; and they do not express a suspicion 
 of the correctness of that news. There never was any question
 
 on the subject. Indeed, the answer does not fit the question 
 proposed for my trial. But it leaves you to infer, and with the 
 conviction that you will infer, as an irresistible conclusion, 
 that this tobacco monopoly, which is well known to be hardly 
 tenable in one province of the Republic, which is invaded by con- 
 trabandists throughout its frontier, is utterly worthless under such 
 a mass of preferential incumbrance. 
 
 The main object is to prove that I made an unauthorised and 
 improper convention. This forms the subject of the first question : 
 " Was it in the power of Mr. Robertson to have obtained more 
 advantageous terms for the bondholders ? " Answer : " Your Sub- 
 committee feel a difficulty in giving an opinion as to whether the 
 best terms were obtained. They have, however, no reason to doubt 
 that Mr. Robertson used his best exertions," &c. But here it was 
 felt that they were exceeding their office. — This seemed to be ap- 
 probation too unqualified — there must be a semblance, or at least a 
 shadow, of condemnation, — it appears. " Your Sub-committee 
 wish, in saying this, to disclaim any approval of the 10th article." 
 Do they venture to disapprove it ? 
 
 Permit me, Gentlemen, to put to your thus-investigating Sub- 
 committee, — to your non-investigating Committee, — and to your- 
 selves, if you will investigate your own affairs, the question in a 
 simple form. Can you get the same terms now ? — Can you get 
 as good terms ? Has not the Mexican Republic delayed to per- 
 form them, in the expectation that you will submit to large and 
 substantial deductions from the benefits for which I had contracted ? 
 and search your own consciences and answer me :— - will you not 
 submit to deductions, notwithstanding this scrutiny and all the 
 obloquy attempted to be heaped on me ? 
 
 Now this 10th article, of which this disclaimer of approbation ; — 
 it runs thus: — "On the 1st of January, 1859, the Government of 
 " Mexico and a commissioner of the Bondholders shall make fresh 
 " arrangements for the payment of dividends posterior to the 1st 
 "of July, 1859, more or less favourable, according to the state 
 " in which the Republic then happens to be." In plain English, 
 if the Republic can then pay more interest, it shall ; if it can only 
 continue to pay at the same rate of ?>^l. per cent., it shall ; if it 
 
 430796
 
 cannot pay so much it shall pay as much as it can. Do you get 
 more than they can pay now? — Cancel the execrable article, — 
 will ye get more than they can pay ? Their strictures on such 
 subjects will I hope convince you that your Sub-committee has 
 been no way negligent in their search after grounds of complaint. 
 Are you not at this moment prepared to entertain a proposal for 
 a perpetual 3/. per cent., with a million less of hard dollars out of 
 the Indemnity Fund ? 
 
 The second and fourth questions are involved in each other, and 
 what is the effect of the answer ? The question in substance is : 
 Did Mr. Robertson sell the cotton licences under their value ? 
 Was his acceptance of " a present" of 25,000 dollars consistent 
 with his character of Special Commissioner for the Mexican Bond- 
 holders ? 
 
 Let me remark, that it was never pretended that the 25,000 
 dollars was a present ; it was, in fact, and was always treated as a 
 commission (and in Mexico at no unusual rate) paid on a pur- 
 chase by A. from B. of property which had been previously sold to 
 B. on behalf of the Bondholders. 
 
 But to the answer. " It is difficult," says the Sub-committee, 
 " to ascertain the value," — the purchaser from the Bondholders 
 sold them for the same price. It was hardly discreet for Mr. 
 Robertson to incur the risk of exciting suspicions in the minds of 
 any persons by having his acts misinterpreted. According to 
 our view the transaction between A. and B. was so much mixed 
 up with the transaction between the Bondholders and B. that we 
 think they may be in a sense regarded as one, (adding a variety 
 of arguments), but Mr. Robertson puts them as distinct, and 
 " Mr. Robertson has given his view of the transaction fully and 
 " without concealment in his published statement, but your Sub- 
 " committee must confess that they are not convinced by his 
 " reasoning. Mr. Robertson also states, that on the day after 
 " his arrival in London, he mentioned the circumstances of the 
 " present of 25,000 dollars to Mr. Hayne."* 
 
 * This is extracted from the parole evidence which I gave before the Committee. 
 I was promised a review of my evidence before it was made use of for my correc- 
 tion. 1 never had such review afforded me, otherwise the above statement would 
 have been " the day after my return to business" in London, early in January.
 
 Then it amounts to this : we cannot find that the bondholders 
 have lost a penny by the conversion of cotton licences into cash, 
 and Mr. Robertson has received the brokerage on the transac- 
 tion. If it could have been added that Mr. Robertson had been 
 so amply provided with money to defray his expenses on behalf of 
 the bondholders, and so liberally remunerated in his office of 
 " Special Commissioner for the Mexican Bondholders ;" that it 
 was derogatory to that high and highly remunerated character 
 to accept payment for a collateral transaction, the acquittal might 
 not have been complete. But, gentlemen, this is the transaction 
 which has been paraded before you, — thus, — cotton licences, the 
 absolute property of the bondholders, worth 680,000 dollars, 
 every farthing of the money, sold by Mr. Robertson for 250,000 
 dollars, — absolute, profligate loss, by his unauthorized agency, 
 430,000 dollars ; is he to be paid for such services ! — How 
 tame and quiet is the answer of the Sub-committee ! "It ap- 
 pears difficult, if not impossible, to ascertain in London the 
 value of cotton licences in Mexico." Such are their words. 
 Gentlemen, do you believe that they are worth 680,000 
 dollars ? — do you believe, from all you have heard, that they were 
 or are worth, except to be sold by a slow and speculative process 
 of retail, impracticable for the bondholders (and from which, or 
 from an equally slow use of them by himself and his partners in 
 the business, Mr. Escandon of course expects his profit), a farthing 
 more than they have been sold for ? I have already explained 
 these matters at considerable length in a pamphlet to which I will 
 beg you impartially to refer. As to the 25,000 dollars, your 
 Committee appear to have better evidence than I, that I have re- 
 ceived them. I have not yet been able to discover that fact. 
 And, inasmuch as I never have wished to obtain, in any form, more 
 than a reasonable compensation for my time and labours in or in 
 connection with the transactions of the bondholders in Mexico, 
 I shall cheerfully regard whatever I may derive from that source 
 as in reduction of my claims for a fair and liberal compensation 
 for my outlay and exertions in their service. 
 
 It is said that I allow that I acted without authority in conclud- 
 ing the convention. I allow no such thing. 
 
 430796
 
 For what purpose was I sent to Mexico ? Was it to ask hi. 
 per cent, for the future, and all arrears, without abatement, in 
 hard dollars ? A letter would have done as much, and as effec- 
 tually. So with the cotton licences ; they were the property of 
 the bondholders, say the Committee. Were they not sold as such ? 
 Are railway shares now saleable at their nominal value ? does the 
 Sub-committee find that the licences were worth more than they 
 were sold for ? 
 
 I confess I was surprised to find the Committee teeming 
 with regret " at the unfortunate circumstance that I should 
 have terminated my stay in Mexico before the termination of my 
 mission there." Regret — for what ? You propose to disavow 
 all I did, all I intended to do, and yet regret that I did not 
 remain to accomplish it. And well you may ; for, thwarted and 
 interfered with at every step, left utterly destitute of supplies, 
 shipwrecked with a large loss of property, and told that I might 
 have insured ; remaining so long as I did remain, month after 
 month, at my own charge ; expending hundreds, ay, thousands, on 
 my own responsibility in their service, without any requital but 
 complaints, I had concluded conditionally, (and so not exceeded 
 my authority,) an arrangement which, had I been well supported 
 from home, would have been, as I have constantly asserted, 
 adopted by the Mexican Congress ; and would have secured you 
 terms which your Committee may profess to repudiate as a 
 pretext for depriving me, (I will not use a harsher word,) of my 
 outlay and fair recompense ; but which, would the Mexican 
 Government adopt it, you would be delighted to affirm — ay, 
 even with many deductions. 
 
 Where is the evidence that I was to depend for all further 
 expenses, (beyond the trivial amount of 500/.,) and for my remu- 
 neration, on the success of my mission ? Is it to be found in the 
 probabilities of the case — that I was to transact your business at my 
 risk, at my sacrifice of ten times as much money, and month after 
 month of indefatigable exertion ? Is it to be found in these words 
 of your Chairman's letter, of the 2nd of November, 1848, which 
 accompanied my credentials: — "The remuneration for the ser- 
 " vices to be rendered by you, you must be aware, must depend
 
 " upon a vote of the bondholders." It is on that vote, Gentlemen, 
 that I do depend, in the conviction that, after the severe scrutiny 
 and inquiry to which my conduct has been subjected, and the dis- 
 sipation by that inquiry of all the imputations which have been so 
 lavishly poured forth upon me, you will do me a tardy act of 
 justice, in defiance of the baseless and fanciful suggestions of the 
 Committee. 
 
 I am, Gentlemen, 
 
 Your most obedient servant, 
 
 Wm. Parish Robertson. 
 London, '2±th June, 1850.
 
 UNIVERSITY OF «" ^.IFORNIA, I™ AN^rELFS 
 
 LONDON : 
 
 Printed by W. Clowes and Sons, 
 
 Stamford Street. 
 
 UNIVERSITY of GALIFOkj^ 
 AT 
 LOS ANGELES 
 LIBRARY
 
 I 
 
 I 
 
 
 ^OKALIF0% ^OFCAIIFO/?^ 
 
 >&AnvHan#- 
 
 
 ^MNY-SOV^ "%MAIN(Hfli 
 
 2 '+- 
 
 <^EUNIVER% .^lOSANGElfr. 
 
 < 
 
 ea 
 
 <TiUONVS01^ "%3AIN(13^ 
 
 University of California Library 
 Los Angeles 
 
 This book is DUE on the last date stamped belc 
 
 »^* 
 
 
 3*1 ,"1. / O "^ 
 
 fltC'D LDURl 
 
 I ^UIBRARYtf/ 
 
 y 0AHVH8IH$ 
 
 v ^lOSANCFlfj> 
 
 "%3AIN(13t\V ) 
 
 o £2 
 
 ^lOSANGElfj^ 
 
 
 
 <rjU3NVS0V^ %HAINlHtf* 
 
 ftfc ^OKALIFOBfe 
 
 s * 
 § s 
 
 ^Aavaan-3^
 
 UC SOUTHERN REGIONAL LIBRARY FACILITY 
 
 AA 001 146 296 7