Chilean
authorities have, as will be observed from the correspondence, charged
the refugees and the inmates of the legation with insulting the police;
but it seems to me incredible that men whose lives were in jeopardy and
whose safety could only be secured by retirement and quietness should
have sought to provoke a collision, which could only end in their
destruction, or to aggravate their condition by intensifying a popular
feeling that at one time so threatened the legation as to require Mr.
Egan to appeal to the minister of foreign affairs.

But the most serious incident disclosed by the correspondence is that
of the attack upon the sailors of the _Baltimore_ in the streets of
Valparaiso on the 16th of October last. In my annual message, speaking
upon the information then in my possession, I said:

So far as I have yet been able to learn, no other explanation of this
bloody work has been suggested than that it had its origin in hostility
to those men as sailors of the United States, wearing the uniform of
their Government, and not in any individual act or personal animosity.

We have now received from the Chilean Government an abstract of the
conclusions of the fiscal general upon the testimony taken by the judge
of crimes in an investigation which was made to extend over nearly three
months. I very much regret to be compelled to say that this report does
not enable me to modify the conclusion announced in my annual message.
I am still of the opinion that our sailors were assaulted, beaten,
stabbed, and killed not for anything they or any one of them had done,
but for what the Government of the United States had done or was charged
with having done by its civil officers and naval commanders. If that be
the true aspect of the case, the injury was to the Government of the
United States, not to these poor sailors who were assaulted in a manner
so brutal and so cowardly.

Before attempting to give an outline of the facts upon which this
conclusion rests I think it right to say a word or two upon the legal
aspect of the case. The _Baltimore_ was in the harbor of Valparaiso by
virtue of that general invitation which nations are held to extend to
the war vessels of other powers with which they have friendly relations.
This invitation, I think, must be held ordinarily to embrace the
privilege of such communication with the shore as is reasonable,
necessary, and proper for the comfort and convenience of the offi