Let us now see the character of the eighteen specified grievances, as explained by the Mexican Government.
The cases of the Topaz (No. 2), Brazoria (No. 3), Captain Kiege (No. 5), the Paragon (No. 6), the Ophir (No. 7), the affair at Metamoras (No. 10), the case of the Com- peer (No. 12), the Peter D. Vroom (No. 15), the Au- rora (No. 16), and the Fourth of July (No. 18), are ut- terly divested of all wrong and injustice on the part of the Mexican Government.
There remain only eight of the whole budget which afford the least room for complaint ; and of these the Government professed entire ignorance in the case of the Martha (No. 8), the Hannah EHzabeth (No. 9), the Eclipse (No. 11), the Northampton (No. 13), the treatment of the Consul at Tampico (No. 14), and the Beth- lehem (No. 1*7). It was not pretended that the injuries complained of in these six cases had been inflicted by orders from the Government; and it might readily be believed that the Government was not acquainted with every abuse of power by its officials. But in each of these cases, an inquiry was promised ; and it is difficult to con- ceive what more could have been reasonably demanded. We have now left only two cases within the knowledge of the Government, at all open to the suspicion of injustice and oppression—the case of Bald^vin (No. 1), and of the detained steamboats (No. 4). xipparently neither Avas a fit subject of negotiation ; for the complaints in the first case were made against judicial decisions, which can never be properly brought into question by a foreign government, except when founded on some great i-)rinciple con- tradicted by treaty or national law, and not on mere issues of fact. The complaint in the second instance ap- pears to have grown out of a contract over which our own Government had no lesfitimate cosfnizance.