r side. Great Britain and France
have cordially seconded our proposition of mediation, and I do not
forego the hope that it may soon be accepted by all the belligerents and
lead to a secure establishment of peace and friendly relations between
the Spanish American Republics of the Pacific and Spain--a result
which would be attended with common benefits to the belligerents
and much advantage to all commercial nations. I communicate, for
the consideration of Congress, a correspondence which shows that the
Bolivian Republic has established the extremely liberal principle of
receiving into its citizenship any citizen of the United States, or
of any other of the American Republics, upon the simple condition of
voluntary registry.

The correspondence herewith submitted wall be found painfully
replete with accounts of the ruin and wretchedness produced by recent
earthquakes, of unparalleled severity, in the Republics of Peru,
Ecuador, and Bolivia. The diplomatic agents and naval officers of the
United States who were present in those countries at the time of those
disasters furnished all the relief in their power to the sufferers, and
were promptly rewarded with grateful and touching acknowledgments by
the Congress of Peru. An appeal to the charity of our fellow-citizens
has been answered by much liberality. In this connection I submit an
appeal which has been made by the Swiss Republic, whose Government and
institutions are kindred to our own, in behalf of its inhabitants, who
are suffering extreme destitution, produced by recent devastating
inundations.

Our relations with Mexico during the year have been marked by an
increasing growth of mutual confidence. The Mexican Government has
not yet acted upon the three treaties celebrated here last summer for
establishing the rights of naturalized citizens upon a liberal and just
basis, for regulating consular powers, and for the adjustment of mutual
claims.

All commercial nations, as well as all friends of republican
institutions, have occasion to regret the frequent local disturbances
which occur in some of the constituent States of Colombia. Nothing has
occurred, however, to affect the harmony and cordial friendship which
have for several years existed between that youthful and vigorous
Republic and our own.

Negotiations are pending with a view to the survey and construction
of a ship canal across the Isthmus of Darien, under the auspices of
the United States. I hope to