All this Mr. Foster believed, or appeared to believe; for we find him embodying it in his official communications to Lafragua, with some additional remarks of his own to give the calumny greater point and force. Supported by the American minister, Sutter now looms up as the defender of Protestant rights in general. Addressing personages of no less distinction than the governor of the state and the district judge, he requests them to “promptly take the necessary measures within your power to procure the speedy punishment, according to the law, of the instigators and perpetrators of the atrocious massacre of Protestants,” etc. There is no limitation
here, it will be observed, to American citizens; the peremptory consul, “in obedience to instructions received yesterday from the Hon. John W. Foster, envoy extraordinary, etc.,” had assumed a protectorate over the entire evangelical body of Acapulco, and felt himself at liberty to insult the executive and judiciary of the state of Guerrero.
The people of Acapulco, however, differed materially in opinion from the consul. Not only did they not fear the Indians or regard their priest as an abettor of riot and murder, but, on the contrary, five or six hundred of them waited on Governor Alvarez, and, in the name of the rest, assured him that the disturbance was wholly caused by Hutchinson and his handful of Protestants, requesting him at the same time to remove the disturbers from their city, as he had the power to do under the laws of the state. Even the Minister of Foreign Affairs—though, like so many of his party, deadly opposed to the church—could not help but ascribe the riot to something like its proper cause. Annoyed, doubtless, by the impertinence of Sutter and the importunities of Foster, he writes to the latter in a vein of delicate irony:
“The consul in Acapulco cannot be ignorant of the fact that Protestant worship was a new propaganda among a people who, unfortunately, have not been able to attain to that degree of civilization to enable them to accept without aversion religious tenets which they disown, and it is well known that the religious sentiment is one of the most sensitive, and that, when attacked, it is all the more irritable.”
The logical position of the Mexican minister is unassailable. But what a humiliating predicament for our government to be placed in by her diplomatists abroad! Such is the natural result of selecting the
kind of men for important posts, or indeed for any posts at all, complained of at the beginning of the article. It is clear that this Mr. Foster has missed his vocation. He would be more at home in a Protestant board of missions, or as a “worker” in “revivals,” than standing before a people as the representative of the truth, worth, and genius of a great nation.
Mr. Foster was not satisfied with the explanation. He had lost one priest, and he was not going to let another slip through his fingers without a struggle. He reminds Lafragua of Mr. Fish’s “congratulations,” and appeals to his gratitude. “While it is very natural that I,” he writes, “as the representative of a government which has officially congratulated that of Mexico on the constitutional triumph and recognition of the principles of religious liberty, should watch with deep interest the practical enforcement of these principles, I have made the outbreaks of fanatical mobs the subject of diplomatic intervention only when American citizens have been assassinated.” But the plea was in vain; even the government of Lerdo de Tejada dared not molest the cura of Acapulco, who, strong in his innocence and in the affection of his flock, continued to exercise the duties of his sacred office, regardless alike of native “reformers” and officious diplomats. Up to the latest dates Mr. Foster had not yet caught a cura, and the people of Mexico seem as far as ever from the enjoyment of the blessings of a new Reformation, so happily and characteristically begun.
The Central American States include Guatemala, San Salvador, Honduras, Nicaragua, and Costa Rica, each of which holds an undivided fifth interest in the official attention
of Mr. George Williamson, our worthy minister peripatetic. When not involved in domestic brawls—which seldom happens—these miniature commonwealths have a habit of varying the monotony of peaceful life by a descent on one of their neighbors, and even a civil and a foreign war have been known to rage at the same time and place. Having such a vivacious people to look after, the attention of our representative might reasonably be considered fully occupied; yet we learn that he has ample leisure to devote himself to theological and educational speculations, and particularly to the subject of marriage. On this important social relation he not only becomes eloquent, though occasionally obscure, in his despatches, but is evidently looked upon as an authority by the “liberal” party on the Isthmus. Having been asked his opinion by President Barrios of Guatemala, who contemplated extending civil marriage to his people, “I replied,” he says, “it would in all probability soon come; … that in our country we considered the civil law supreme, and would neither furnish a hierarchy of Romanists nor Protestants, to assert its sanction was necessary to give validity to a contract which the law pronounced good.” It may be objected that this passage is not well constructed; so, in justice not only to the liberal views, but to the erudition of Mr. Williamson, we quote the following descriptive extract from a despatch on the condition of the Central American population:
“Intelligence is more generally diffused; people are slowly learning republican habits and adopting republican ideas; a monarchical hierarchy that fostered superstitions, that only allowed education in a certain direction, and