The Sun.
London, England, 1850-09-26 00:00:00

MEXICAN BONDHOLDERS.

---
Colonel. Facio bus, by order of his Government, cora-
municktel to the Committee of Mexican Bondholders
the following correspondence:--
(Translation.)
" Mexico, Aagu•t 6, 1850.

" Messrs. Manning and Mackintosh,
" Gentlemen,—A few days before the departure of
the packet last month, I addressed you officially, by
order of the President, irquiring ii you had remitted to
England the amounts proceeding from that part of the
tobacco revenue belonging to the Government which is
allotted to the payment of dividends, and which had been
paid over to you. As you have not been pleased to return
any reply to that question, I have now, by the exixess
order of his Excellency, to request a plain and catego-
rical answer from you whether or not you have for-
warded the said funds to England? In case they have
to: yet been sent, the President desires me to tell you
that it ebsoluttly must be done by the next English
packet.
" The Government which makes sacrifices to main-
tain its credit, and keeps its c fficials starving rather
than touch the funds which have been assigned for the
payment of the external and domestic debt, has an un-
doubted right to watch over and to adopt all the neces-
sary measures, that these sacrifices should have the de-
aired result.
"You will reply as may be advised within three days,
and understand that, if you fail to do so, such proceed-
ings as the case may ri quire will be adopted.
41' " God and liberty.
(Signed) " PAYNO."
" Mexico, August 9, 1850.
" Excellent Sir,—We have the honour to reply to the
letter of your Excellency, of the 6th instant, in
which you ark us if we have remitted to England, for
the bondholders, that portion of the tobacco revenue
which we have received for that purpose. We beg
to observe that, on the sth article of the convention
of the Bth of July, 1849, concluded between Senor
Don Francisco Arrangoix and Mr. W. I'. Robertson,
it is stipulated that the funds which the resident Mexican
agent of the bondholders receive for the payment of
dividends remain, from the moment that the agents give
their receipt for them, for the account and at the risk of
the bondholders. This article was framed for the pro-
tection of the Government against any responsibility,
and at the same time in order to leave us at liberty to
pass to our credit or debit in our account with the bond-
holders the entries which we consider just. According
to this convention of the Bth July, 1849, we alone, there-
fore, are responsible fur the sums which we have re-
ceived, and having given cur receipt for them, which for
ever covers the Government of the nation against any
responsibility, these sums now belong to our account
with the bondholders.
" We beg to assure your Excellency of our considera-
tion and respect.
(Signed) " MANNING and MACKINTOSH.
"Isis Excellency the Secretary of State for the
Department of Finance."
"From this day you will suspend all further pay-
ments of funds which you have hitherto made to the
house of Messrs. Manning and Mackintosh, for trans
mission to the bondholders in England. In future you
will, with the concurrence of the comptroller, remit
every week all funds collected, however insignificant
they may be, to the board of directors of the Aca-
demy of San Carlos, who aro instructed to forward them
to London by the monthly packets.
"By order of his Excellency the President, I com-
municate this to you, with the assurance of my consi-
deration. " God and liberty.
(Signed) " PA MO.
" The Administrator of the Tobacco Revenue.
" Mexico, Aug. 6, 1850."
"Mexico, April 8, 1850.
" Excellent Sir,—We arc in receipt of the dispatch of
your Excellency of the Ist inst., accompanied by a copy
of the account of the contract concluded by us with the
Supreme Government, under date of March 5, 1846, and
of matters arising out of it.
" We beg at:once to observe to your Excellency that
we do not agree to our being debited with 679,902 dolls,
as the amount of the cotton licences, because this'matter
has been definitely disposed of by the 6th article of the
convention concluded on the 6th of July last between his
Excellency the Minister of Finance, Senor Don Fran-
cisco Arraegoiz, and Mr. W. P. Robertson, which is to
the following effect, viz :
" Art. 6. The permission to import raw cotton
which the Government gave to the creditors on the 19:h
of July, 1847, valued at 680,000 dolls., being in payment
of sums which belonged to them an were taken from
the maritime customs of Vera Cruz and Tampico, re-
mains definitely for the account of the creditors, what-
ever may be the loss at which they may realise it.'
" With respect to the other items of the said account.
we shall examine them, and advise your Excellency
whether they agree with our books.
" We beg to renew to your Excellency the assurances
of our consideration and distinguished regard.
" God and liberty.
" M ANNING and MACKINTOSH.
"His Excellency the Secretary of State for the
Department of France."
" Mexico, April 15, 1850.
"Messrs. Manning and Mackintosh,
" Gentlemen,—With reference to the account ren-
dered by the general Treasury of the agreements en-
tered into with you on the sth March, 1846; the 20th
July, 1847; and 20th June, 1848, which account, by
order of his Excellency the President, I transmitted
to you with my letter of the Ist instant, you state,
in reply, that you disagree at once to being
charged with the 679,902 dulls. for the cotton licences
which were transferred to you, in conformity with the
sth article of the agreement of the 20th July, 1847, in
reimbursement of amounts collected at the maritime
custom-houses, intended for the pa) ment of dividends,
but stopped in virtue of the decree of the 2d May, 1846.
You found this objection on the 6th article of the con-
vention of 6th July, 1849, concluded between Senor Don
Francisco Arrangoiz and Mr. W. P. Robertson, which
says that the said licerSces shall definitively remain for
account of the bondholders at whatever loss they ma
thaty
eventually be realised; but you have forgotten
this convention is not yet ratified by the two
parties in whose name it was concluded, viz, by
the Congress, and by the committee of bondholders of
the foreign debt' of the Republic; and that in the mean-
while you alone are responsible for the property in ques-
tion. That being the case, and the supreme Government
having always the right to inquire, in order to provide
the needful respecting the distribution of the property of
the nation, his Excellency the President desire whether
to
say that it is necessary that you should state,
or not, you have realised, wholly or in part, the said
it
licericee; and in case it should have beers done, how
has been realised, and what has been done, or what you
intend to do, with the proceeds.
" All which I have to say to you by order of his Ex-
cellency the President, in order that the needful may be
done.

" God and liberty.
(Signed) " ()CAMPO."

CALIFORNIA.
A feeling has now become prevalent that the last
accounts from California are of a character to con-
firm more strongly than ever the most favourable an-
ticipations of its present and permanent yield. From
the first there has always been reason to suppose that
such general statements as might reach us would be
lather under than over the truth, and every succeeding
account has tended to rapport that impression. The
inducements to exaggeration were to be looked for in
the desire of land speculators to get the country
peopled, and also in the universal impulse on the part
of discoverers to exalt the woaders they have exclu-
sively seen. But, although these must have operated,
especially amongst Americans, with extraordinary
force, there were influences to be recognised on The
other side of a still more poweiful character. The
land speculators have never been more than a small
minority ; and the mess of the population working
at the mine's have te, if there
ed, always
was any
doubt about the suppl herfore
being it
been interested in preventing any further arrivals;
*bile as regards the love of the marvellous on the
part of discoverers, it must be recolected that this
would be far more than counter-balanced by the in-
variable tendency of the world, and especially the
scientific portion of it, to adopt the safe
urse and
the
Ito treat as a delusion everything that exceeds
range of routine experience. A still stronger pro-
bability that the country and its products would bin
liable to be adversely described existed, moreover, in
the fact that all that went to it were impelled by in-
ordinate acquisitiveness, and that vast numrs
leastbe-
longed to the unthinking classes, who be
are
fit to emigrate, and who would be disaippointed
anywhere. The noise made by one such person
would, as the promoters of emigration well
know, exceed, in its first effect, any expressions
that might proceed from a hundred who were well
satisfied. Yet, complaints have all along been sin-
gularly rare, and it is now found that with a fort-
nightly post to New York, which carries on each oc-
casion more than 20,000 letters home to the families
of the emigrants, each containing, it is to be pre-
sumed, the unreserved truths of individual experience,
the general confidence in the riches of the district is
increasing throughout the entire Union. The de-
pression which has prevailed in England during the
past two years, and which has been no less humiliating
than was the wild folly of which it has been the
penalty, must likewise be taken into account as causing
everything to be looked at from this side through a
false medium. All faith in the possibility of success-
ful enterprie has been destroyed, and there has been
no thought except that it must be vain to look in other
parts of the globe, for that which has been extin-
guished here.
Of course, under the influence of the facts which
have now been arriving in fortnightly succession for
a year or two, eomething•like a sense of the imper-
tance of the movement is, as we have Feld, at length
beginning to grow up, but it will be long before a
real estimate of it will take root. At this moment,
according to the advias by the last packet, thereCali-
are
from 50,000 to 100,000 persons approaching
fornia by the overland tracla The emigration to
San Francisco by sea also continues, and will again
be greatly augmented by the continues, o
the last re-
ports, and by the shortened transit through Nica-
ragua. The population of the state, therefore, bids
fair to reach before another year shall have elapsed
between 300,000 and 400,000 souls—a total equal
to one-tenth of the entire population of the
United States within the memory of many. Last
year, when the number of persons in California
was not more than 100,000, the most our-
was