The Sun.
London, England, 1865-02-07 00:00:00

SPAIN AND PERU,

The Peruvian GOvermnent has addressed the fol-
lowing circular to its agents in foreign parts :
" LIMA, Dec. 22, 18G4.
" The Peruvian Govermnent has been made ac-
quainted with the circular his Excellency the Minis-
ter of State of her Catholic Majesty, Don A. Llorente,
addressed to the agents of Spain abroad upon Nov.
8 last. In this document the Cabinet of Madrid ex-
plains the reasons which, in its 'opinion, appear to
justify the acts of coercion already exercised against
Peru, and those upon which it appears to have re-
solved.
" His Excellency endeavours to show that Peru
has tenaciously refused to enter into amicable and
pacific relations with _ Spain, and throws upon the
Government of the Republic the responsibility of
the want of success of the efforts made upon either
part to establish those relations.
" It is nevertheless not difficult to show that this
responsibility is wrongly cast upon the Peruvian
Government, which has always been disposed, and
is still disposed, while maintaining intact its honour
and dignity, to increase and reconnect the ties which
naturally and in a special manner unite Peru with
Spain, as well as with all nations born and living
beneath the influence of Christian civilisation.
" In 1852 Peru accredited to the Court of Madrid
a Minister Plenipotentiary, with the mission of ob-
taining the recognition of her independence, and of
settling all the questions which had arisen out of the
fact of her emancipation, and the incidents of the
struggle from which she had emerged.
" With this object the Peruvian Plenipotentiary
handed to the Madrid Cabinet the draft of a treaty
in which the Government of the Republic, using its
right, will make modifications, while giving its re-
presentative orders to reopen with her Catholic Ma-
jesty's Ministry conferences tending to obtain its
acceptance.
"It was certainly not the fault of Peru if her
agent, instead of carrying out the orders forwarded
to him, opened a discussion thereupon with his own
Government, and was thus the cause that the civil
war, which a short time afterwards convulsed the
Republic, did not permit the Government to give its
attention to an affair grave and delicate in its nature.
" Internal struggles ended and peace re-esta-
blished in the State, one of the most important acts
of the new Administration was to send to Spain
another agent of the first rank, charged with the
same mission as his predecessor. Whatever may be
the faults that have been committed in that mission,
which unhappily also remained without result, it
cannot be denied that it was a new and solemn tes-
timony to the constant desire entertained by Peru
to draw nearer to Spain.
" Notwithstanding the state. of the relations be-
tween the two countries, the Government of Peru
none the less willingly admitted the Consuls whom
the Government of her Catholic Majesty, in view
of the commercial interests of her subjects, thought
proper to accredit to the Republic ; and, upon its
its part, desirous of showing reciprocal courtesy,
also sent functionaries of the same category into the
Peninsula. If it decided upon recalling them, it
was because it believed itself to possess sufficient
reasons for considering the recal of her Catholic
Majesty's agents—a recal which was the cause de-
termining its conduct—had not been an accidental
measure, as has been since stated, but rather the
result of intentions displaying little friendship and
good-will. It did not therefore see in the two pro-
ceedings any difference but this—its own course was
frank, that of the Queen's Government was not.
it" Peru, in her quality of a civilised Government,
cannot refuse, and, further, did never refuse, per-
mission to Spaniards to place themselves under the
protection of the representative of his Majesty the
Emperor of the French, or of any other diplomatic
agent of a friendly nation. This is what happened
in the matter : the Hon. M. de Lesseps having
announced that he was authorised to take steps in
the name of her Catholic Majesty, to bring forward
the claims some Spanish subjects had believed them-
selves entitled to make, the Peruvian Govermnent
explained to him the impossibility in which it found

itself of acceding to the wishes of those of her
Catholic Majesty. This was, in fact, impossible;
and the Minister then holding the portfolio of
Foreign Affairs proved it to be so in his despatch
of Nov. 23, 1863, citing the law upon the subject,
but in terms which, far from being harsh, were
most courteous, and which only contained a peremp-
tory answer, because a reply of that character was
the only one that could be given. Further, in this
conjuncture, as in every other, Peru has neither
been able, nor has wished, to renounce the sincere
and vehement desire, the complete and incontestable
right, of coming to a direct understanding with
Spain, to establish upon solid and indestructible
bases that peace which is of such great importance
to the two nations, and to unite the bonds which
nature and history establish between them.

" The misfortunes taking place at Talambo, which
his Excellency the Minister of State hyperbolically
styles a bloody and horrible catastrophe—and which,
nevertheless, reduces itself to a death of one inha-
bitant of the peninsular and one Peruvian, and to
wounds received by Peruvian and Spanish subjects
—have given rise to a criminal investigation, already
ended, and in which the Government, as far as its
constitutional powerspdrmitted, displayed a diligence
and zeal for its active and prompt pursuit which will
always be honourable, and of which there is no ex-
ample in analogous cases affecting Peruvians only.
" These sad events have fatally provoked others
which have brought the relations between Peru and
Spain to the deplorable state in which they are now.
Disfigured and aggravated by distance, they caused
the mission of Senor Salazar y Mazarredo, who came
to Peru in the character of Special Commissioner.
" It is not correct to state that he was repulsed.
We asked of him, or, to speak more precisely, we
presented to him, inviting his acceptance, an expla-
nation of his diplomatic character. If this explana-
tion appeared to him inadmissible, he could and he
ought to reject it; but that was not a reason for
withdrawing, as he did, inopportunely and violently,
addressing to the Ministry for Foreign Affairs a
document as singular as it was indefinite.
" If, therefore, it can be said that there was in
this matter, on the part of the Peruvian Government,
an excessive natural and excusable susceptibility in
its position towards Spain, and in the midst of cir-
cumstances by which it was surrounded, how are we
to qualify the conduct of the Special Commissioner?
And how could we interpret his intentions after, in
agreement with, and by the assistance of, the Com-
mandant of her Catholic Majesty's .forces in the
Pacific, he occupied the Chincha Islands.
" Despite the incomprehensible conduct of the
Special Commissioner, and before knowing the
above-mentioned fact, the Minister for Foreign
Relations of the Republic, under date of April 13
last, addressed himself to that of her Catholic Ma-
jesty, expressing in the most moderate and most
circumspect terms the astonishment that such con-
duct had caused this Government, the nation, and
all acquainted therewith. No reply has yet been
received to this communication ; it is the last de-
spatch that was exchanged between the Cabinets.

" There is here one evident and incontestable fact,
viz., that the Government of Madrid has interrupted
and ceased official communications with that of Peru.
" When the latter saw confirined in a certain man-
ner the incredible intelligence communicated to it
successively on the above-cited 16th of the month,
respecting the act of attack perpetrated by the naval
forces of her Majesty in the Pacific, it was really in-
capable of explaining such injurious violence. But
when the declaration signed in that same anchorage
at the Ohincha Islands by those who had taken pos-
session of them reached its knowledge, it under-
stood the full extent of the offence which had been
committed against the Peruvian nation.
" Among the number of the reasons Vuch have
been brought forward in justification ha been in.