J. H. MANDEVILLE.
To his Excellency, Don Jose Antonino Vidal, &c. &c. &c.
(MOST CONFIDENTIAL.)
Buenos Ayres, June 10th, 1842.
My dear M. de Vidal,—My Government has seen with regret that the results of my visits to Monte Video, in December and January last, was not concession of a Treaty of Amity, Commerce and Navigation between Great Britain and the Republic of Uruguay upon the footing proposed by my predecessor Mr. Hamilton, and subsequently by me, and I have been represented as not having been sufficiently urgent with your Excellency to conclude this treaty with me, and I have been blamed in consequence.
I therefore appeal to your Excellency if I did not do my utmost to induce you to negociate it with me, observing, that once concluded, it would not prejudice the acceptance of any other additional proposal on your part which might be added to it afterwards and form additional articles—and that I only desisted from urging it upon you, when I saw that my solicitations were of no avail, and you were resolved to await the answer to the proposition which I transmitted to London by your Excellency's desire.
I am anxious that this circumstance should be put in its true light, and that I may be exonerated from an undeserved censure—and still more that your Excellency should commence the negociations of the treaty with me, which would be the best answer to the reports of the lukewarmness of my wishes in this business.
Believe me to be, my dear M. de Vidal, with great truth and regard, most sincerely and faithfully yours,
J. H. MANDEVILLE.