On my marching from Santa Fe, Governor Allencaster informed me that my papers would be considered as a sacred deposit until my arrival at this place, when your Excellency would examine and take them into consideration.
When they were examined and taken possession of, I explained without disguise the nature and contents of each, conceiving that those only which had any relation to the object of my expedition could be interesting, and that merely a copy of the chart and a translation of the official papers would be taken. You must be conscious, Sir, that it was in my power to have secreted or destroyed every trace of my voyage and plans previous to my arrival at Chihuahua; but, resting satisfied that no rupture had taken place between his Catholic Majesty and the States I have the honor to serve, which would have been a justification for the seizure of my papers, I preferred leaving them in statu quo, to using that duplicity which in some degree always implicates the character of a military man.
Admitting the country which I explored to be contested between the two governments, each would naturally wish to gain some information as to its geographical situation, in order that they might each form correct ideas as to what would be their mutual interests, founded on justice and the honor and dignity of the nation, in forming the line of demarcation. This was the view of the United States government in the expedition which I had the honor to command; the loss of the geographical sketches taken might be the occasion of a suspension of the final line of limits, and consequently the delay of an amicable adjustment of the differences now existing between the two governments.
Your Excellency may not have an intention of detaining my papers, which I had begun to suppose from your returning only part of them by Lieutenant Walker; in which case you will please to excuse this intrusion. But I will add that, if you have it in view to detain the papers, I request you will be pleased to examine them with particular care. You will find that there are letters from General Wilkinson, as well as his son, to me; also, from the latter to his father and mother; and others which, being by no means of a political nature, or at least not relative to the relations existing between the government of Spain and the United States, therefore can by no means be interesting to your Excellency. The book which contains my charts also contains part of the blotters of a voyage to the source of the Mississippi, which I presume cannot be interesting to the Spanish government.
But, to conclude, I have only to request of your Excellency to know if it is your intention to detain my papers now in your possession; and if so, that you may cause me to be furnished, or suffer me to take, a copy of them, and that I may receive a certificate from under your hand of the number, nature, etc., of the said papers, and the reasons for their seizure and detention, in order that my government may be enabled to make the proper application to the Spanish court for an explanation. My reason for applying to your Excellency so early on this subject is that, on the arrival of my men who are still in the rear, I may be prepared to march in a short period of time; for, under the present aspect of affairs, I feel conscious that I am as anxious to arrive on the territories of the United States as your Excellency must be for me to quit the dominions of his Catholic Majesty.
In all events, I hope you will believe me to be, with the highest sentiments of personal respect,
Your most obedient servant,
[Signed] Z. M. Pike.
His Excellency, Brigadier-general Don Nimesio Salcedo, Commanding-general of the Interior Provinces of the kingdom of New Spain.