No. 213.
Mr. Morgan to Mr. Frelinghuysen.

No. 447.]

Sir: Your dispatch No. 189, November 10, 1881, was received by me on the 2d December. In it I was instructed to call the attention of the Mexican Government to the case of Mr. Thomas R. Gartrell, and his wife, Nellie j. Gartrell, who were murdered while traveling, near the [Page 391] city of Durango, and to request that it take the competent measures for the arrest of the offender, his prosecution and punishment.

These instructions I complied with in a note which I addressed to Señor Mariscal, on the 3d December, a copy whereof I inclose.

Señor Mariscal not having made any reply to this note, I, on the 10th instant, addressed him another note upon the subject. A copy of this note I inclose.

I have to-day received Señor Mariscal’s reply. A translation I inclose.

You will observe that Señor Mariscal, while furnishing information as to what has been done in the case, as far as he knows, states that if the purpose of my notes is limited to bringing to the knowledge of the Mexican Government the commission of a crime, with the view of having the perpetrators thereof punished, he is pleased to have attended to my request, but that if the purpose is to lay the omen of a claim, as has been done in other cases, he has been instructed to say, at once, that diplomatic intervention cannot possibly be admitted, both because the case does not warrant it, and because the matriculation record of the foreign office does not show that Mr. and Mrs. Gartrell were citizens of the United States.

I am, sir, &c.,

P. H. MORGAN.
[Inclosure 1 in No. 447.]

Mr. Morgan to Señor Mariscal.

Sir: Thomas N. Gartrell, and his wife, Nellie J. Gartrell, citizens of the United States, arrived at the city of Chihuahua from El Paso, Tex., in July last. Their purpose was to travel in the republic of Mexico. At Chihuahua they purchased saddle-horses and pack-mules, and employed a Mexican servant to accompany them on their travels. They reached Hidalgo del Panal, Chihuahua, where they remained several days. They then proceeded to the city of Durango, stopping at various points en route, especially Tudé, State of Durango, where they remained a week or more.

They left Durango, during the latter part of the month of September, for Mazatlan, after which nothing was heard of them until about the 10th of October, when their bodies were found about ten leagues from the city of Durango, on the Mazatlan road. They had evidently been murdered for the purpose of robbery. It would seem that the man was shot while asleep. It is supposed that the woman must have been awakened by the discharge of fire-arms, and had attempted to make her escape, as her body was discovered about one hundred paces from that of her husband. Her clothing had been torn to rags, and her body showed marks which she had received in her struggle with her assassin. As it was known that she wore on her person a belt containing gold, the object of the assault upon her was doubtless to obtain this gold. They had also with them drafts on a banking-house in San Antonio, Tex., for a considerable amount which are said to have been taken possession of.

The servant who was with them has not been seen since they left Durango. Suspicion naturally points to him as the murderer. His name, I regret to say, I am not able to furnish, but as the party tarried some time at Chihuahua, where they hired the servant, it would seem that the authorities at that place would not have great difficulty in ascertaining who he was.

The foregoing are the facts, as they have been reported to my government, and I have been instructed to submit them to the consideration of your excellency’s government, and, as the murder appears to have been a particularly aggravated one, to request that it take the competent measures for the arrest of the offender, his prosecution and punishment.

I renew to your excellency, &c.,

P. H. MORGAN.
[Page 392]
[Inclosure 2 in No. 447.]

Mr. Morgan to Señor Mariscal.

Sir: On the 3d December, 1881, under instructions from my government, I informed your excellency of the murder of Thomas N. Gartrell and Nelly G. Gartrell, about ten leagues distant from the city of Durango, and I requested that your excellency’s government would take the competent measures for the arrest of the offender, his prosecution and punishment.

I very respectfully request from your excellency a reply to that note.

I renew to your excellency, &c.,

P. H. MORGAN.
[Inclosure 3 in No. 447.—Translation.]

Señor Mariscal to Mr. Morgan.

Mr. Minister: As soon as your excellency’s note of the 30th December last, which refers to the assassination of Thomas Gartrell and his wife in the neighborhood of Durango, I transmitted its contents to the governors of the States of Chihuahua and Durango; to the first that he might be able to ascertain the name and obtain a description of the servant whom Gartrell had taken in the city of Chihuahua so that he might at once give them to the second, and they were both requested to cause the arrest of the supposed assassin and to have him delivered over to the competent authority.

The governor of Chihuahua replied on the 29th of the same month that he had issued the necessary orders as requested, and that he would inform the governor of the State of Durango of the result of his efforts. All of which I have the honor to inform your excellency in reply to your first cited note, and to the one which you addressed to me on the 10th instant.

Before closing the present note, I consider it to be my duty to explain to your excellency that if your above cited notes have no other purpose than to recommend an investigation of the crime committed, in order that justice may be done, the government takes pleasure in having complied with your request; but if, as in other cases, your excellency’s official intention in the one in question is the omen of a reclamation, the government considers itself compelled, at once, through me, to declare to your excellency that it is not possible to accept your intervention, not only because there is nothing in the case to justify it, but because it does not appear on the register of matriculation in the department under my charge that Mr. Gartrell and his wife are citizens of the United States.

I renew to your excellency, &c.,

IGNACIO MARISCAL.