File No. 711.13/18. The Secretary of State to the American Minister to Salvador. No. 145.] DEPARTMENT OF STATE, Washington, August 5, 1913. SIR: The Department has received and read with interest your despatch No. 315 of July 12, 1913.1 You report a conversation with the Minister of Foreign Affairs of Salvador in the course of which he, at the instance of President Meléndez, requested you to inform the Department that while it was true that there exists among the masses throughout the Republic of Salvador a sentiment hostile to the acquisition by the Government of the United States of a naval base on the Bay of Fonseca, the Government of Salvador was watching the situation and would not permit such feelings of hostility to assume proportions which it would be unable to repress, and adding that President Meléndez wished you to assure the Department that the Government of Salvador is not only prepared but also willing to give to Americans residing in that Republic every protection for their property as well as for their lives in the event of a hostile demonstration against the interests which the American Government desired to acquire on the Bay of Fonseca. Your telegram of July 29, which was received prior to your No. 315, contains more reassuring information as to the situation, and the Department has not failed to note the assurances of President Meléndez reported in the telegram and the despatch under acknowledgment, that he will not permit the commission by the populace of untoward acts against American life and property. You will on an appropriate occasion, express to His Excellency this Government's gratification at these assurances. I am [etc.] For the Secretary of State: File No. 711.13/34. The American Minister to Costa Rica to the Secretary of State. [Telegram-Paraphrase.] AMERICAN LEGATION, San José, September 19, 1913. I have just learned that the Government of Salvador has invited the Governments of Costa Rica, Guatemala and Honduras to send representatives to a meeting at Salvador to consider and perhaps protest against the prospective acquisition by the United States of the Fonseca and Dulce stations. The President of Costa Rica replied that he would not send a representative unless the Government of Nicaragua should be invited also. To this the Government of Salvador has not yet responded. HALE, 1 Not printed. 140322°-FR 1913 65 File No. 711.13/34. The Secretary of State to the American Minister to Costa Rica. [Telegram-Paraphrase.] DEPARTMENT OF STATE, Washington, September 20, 1913. In regard to Salvador's invitation reported in your September 19, you may if opportune suggest to Costa Rica that its acceptance should be based upon the willingness of Nicaragua to attend such a conference rather than merely on the extending of an invitation to Nicaragua. File No. 711.13/34. BRYAN. The Secretary of State to the American Minister to Salvador. [Telegram-Paraphrase.] DEPARTMENT OF STATE, Washington, September 26, 1913. Say to the President of Salvador that this Government has heard with surprise and deep regret the insinuations against this Government contained in the invitation which Salvador is said to have extended to other republics to protest jointly against the action of the United States in connection with the canal convention which has been discussed with Nicaragua. You may assure the President of Salvador that this Government will be pained to learn that the Government of Salvador questions the good faith and friendliness of this Government, which has done nothing and contemplates nothing to justify the movement which it is reported Salvador is attempting to start. File No. 711.13/34. BRYAN. The Secretary of State to the American Minister to Nicaragua. [Telegram-Extract.] DEPARTMENT OF STATE, Washington, September 27, 1913. The following telegram was sent September 26 to the American Legation at Salvador. [Quotation of the telegram next above.] File No. 711.13/36. BRYAN. The American Chargé d'Affaires at San Salvador to the Secretary of State. [Telegram-Paraphrase.] AMERICAN LEGATION, San Salvador, September 30, 1913. I imparted the contents of your September 26 to the President of Salvador who told me that his Government had indeed invited Guate mala, Honduras and Costa Rica to a conference to discuss the proposed protectorate of Nicaragua by the United States and the latter's desire to acquire interests on Fonseca Bay, but he denied that any reference was made to the canal convention, and added that the matter was, in any case, now closed, since the invitation had not been well received by the Governments to which it was sent. I have learned that the movement was aimed at assembling delegates at Managua to oppose the attitude of the Government of Nicaragua towards the Government of the United States in regard to the proposed protectorate, the cession of a naval base, and the canal and loan conventions. I have also learned that Nicaragua protested to Salvador as the initiator of the movement. HINCKLEY. File No. 711.13/37. The Minister for Foreign Affairs of Nicaragua to the Nicaraguan Minister at Washington. [Telegram, undated, handed to the Department of State October 10, 1913-Translation. I MINISTRO CHAMORRO Washington, D. C. Honduras and Guatemala on the 23d of this month [September] declined the invitation [to a Central American conference at San Salvador]. Salvador renewed its invitation, proposing the sending of delegates to this capital [Managua] to offer cooperation of the other republics of Central America in aid of Nicaragua in its serious political and financial problems by concluding an agreement by which the five Governments would collectively guarantee the territorial integrity of Central America. The President of Honduras believes Salvador's invitation is a pretext for creating a revolution in Nicaragua. President Díaz has begun to prepare for any emergency. This Ministry is preparing a note protesting against the interference of Salvador in Nicaraguan affairs in violation of the Washington Convention, and against the promotion of conferences for discussion of Nicaragua's international policy without Nicaragua's consent and even while deliberately excluding her. Inform the Department of State. MINISTER FOR FOREIGN AFFAIRS. File No. 817.812/49. The Minister of Salvador to the Secretary of State. [Translation.] LEGATION OF SALVADOR, Washington, October 21, 1913. EXCELLENCY: My Government has heard that the Government of Nicaragua has signed a treaty with the United States for the building of an interoceanic canal over the San Juan River and Lake Nicaragua and that the convention grants to the United States, among other concessions, that of a ninety-nine years lease, renewable at the latter's pleasure, of a point within the Gulf of Fonseca and on the Nicaraguan Coast, for a naval station. The geographical and juridical situation of the Gulf or Bay of Fonseca is such that the lease of any one of its parts must necessarily affect the other. From the day when, at the beginning of the 16th century, the Spanish discoverers who occupied and conquered Central America came upon the considerable expanse of water that penetrates the land from Amapala Point in our territory to Cosiquina in Nicaragua, the bay or gulf which was then named "Fonseca," after the President of the Council of the Indies which from Spain ruled those countries in behalf of the Crown of Spain, has not ceased, even for a day, to belong to three riparian countries-Salvador, Honduras and Nicaragua-under whose sovereignty and jurisdiction the said Gulf of Fonseca was and remains. During the three centuries of Spanish domination in that part of the continent, the three countries above named held the aforesaid bay without objection or opposition from any quarter, asserting their dominion through the defense offered on more than one occasion by the peoples of Salvador, Honduras and Nicaragua to the filibustering hordes which in those centuries preyed on the Central American coasts and worked their way up to the heart of the gulf in their intention to settle on Tigre Island. These historical facts, and many others it seems needless to call to mind, suffice to demonstrate that the Gulf of Fonseca undoubtedly belongs in the class of bays styled "historic" by international law and on that ground alone subject to the exclusive dominion and sovereignty of the riparian States no matter how far they run inland or how wide at the mouth, even though it may exceed the six nautical miles recognized by international law for territorial bays, provided that, as is the case with the Gulf of Fonseca, the riparian countries shall have asserted their sovereignty under circumstances that depend on geographical configuration, use from time out of mind and, above all, self-defense. The bay or gulf of Fonseca therefore possesses the historical character in the same manner and by the same right as the Chesapeake and Delaware bays in the United States and Conception, Chaleurs and Misamichi bays in British America, which have been recognized as such. The rights of the United States to the former and of Great Britain to the latter have been recognized and sanctioned by treaties and arbitral awards as an indisputable title of ownership and sovereignty. These same rights held by the Spanish Government from time immemorial over the waters embraced inter fauces terrae, whether or not territorial, that form the Gulf of Fonseca, were transferred by virtue of its independence to the Federal Republic of Central America which comprised the said gulf within its maritime limits, as successor to all the rights of dominion and sovereignty which within its territory belonged to the Crown of Castile. And during the life of the Central American Federal Government the possession and dominion of the Gulf of Fonseca were asserted by many acts of legislation and national jurisdiction, laws being enacted in regard to harbors, police and many other matters. When the bond of union between the five States that formed the Federation was sundered in 1839, the States of Salvador, Honduras and Nicaragua remained the joint lawful owners and sovereigns of the Gulf of Fonseca as they now hold it, for no convention or agreement has yet been arranged to bring to an end the condition of undivided and joint ownership that the three riparian States found as preexisting when they erected themselves into free and independent nations, even if there were some occasions when attempts were made to do so, as was the case with the boundary treaty, which failed to be perfected, signed on April 10, 1884, between Salvador and Honduras, and provided in its Article 2, with a view to doing away with indivision, that: "the maritime boundary line between Salvador and Honduras starts from the Pacific, cuts in half the distance between Meanguera, Conchaguita, Martin Pérez Islands and Zacate Point of Salvador, and Tigre, Zacate Grande, Inglesa, and Exposition Islands of Honduras and ends at the mouth of the Goascorán." The treaty never went into effect having been rejected by the Congress of Honduras and the condition of indivision and community was left as it originally stood. From the foregoing reasons and facts, the Government of the United States must have satisfied itself that my Government has a right to consider itself concerned in the contemplated lease of a part of the Gulf of Fonseca without the previous advice and consent of the other States which are joint owners and sovereigns, even if it be on the coast of Nicaragua. In addition to these considerations, others arise, even more troublesome, to make Salvador and Honduras feel that they are wronged by the promised alienation of a part of the Gulf of Fonseca contained in the clauses of a hundred-year lease. It is a principle of international law, based on universal equity, that a nation must refrain from acts which in their nature may endanger the existence or safety of the others. By virtue of that principle, nations are given the right to appropriate to themselves, even to the point of forbidding admittance, the gulfs and bays naturally defended by islands, sandbanks or reefs, or by the crossfire of cannons mounted on the headlands. By the same rule it is agreed that bays whose mouths are not more than six nautical miles wide, for police and safety measures, and than ten miles, for fishery rights, are territorial bays forming part of the national territory, and the three miles of marginal sea are counted, seaward, from a straight imaginary line running from headland to headland. Those principles must in reason apply to gulfs or bays that are the joint property of several States, regardless of the extent of their penetration inland and whatever their geographical configuration may be in respect to the marginal belt of territorial waters belonging to each riparian State. The foregoing doctrines have been declared and accepted by Great Britain and the United States in the arbitral award made at The Hague, on September 7, 1910, on the fishery dispute. "It has been contended by the United States," says the award, "that the reunuciation applies only to bays six miles or less in width, inter fauces terræ, those bays only being territorial bays, |