f Central America;
but the best gifts can come to her only if she be ready and free to
receive them and to enjoy them honorably. America in particular--America
north and south and upon both continents--waits upon the development of
Mexico; and that development can be sound and lasting only if it be the
product of a genuine freedom, a just and ordered government founded upon
law. Only so can it be peaceful or fruitful of the benefits of peace.
Mexico has a great and enviable future before her, if only she choose
and attain the paths of honest constitutional government.

The present circumstances of the Republic, I deeply regret to say, do
not seem to promise even the foundations of such a peace. We have waited
many months, months full of peril and anxiety, for the conditions there
to improve, and they have not improved. They have grown worse, rather.
The territory in some sort controlled by the provisional authorities at
Mexico City has grown smaller, not larger. The prospect of the
pacification of the country, even by arms, has seemed to grow more and
more remote; and its pacification by the authorities at the capital is
evidently impossible by any other means than force. Difficulties more
and more entangle those who claim to constitute the legitimate
government of the Republic. They have not made good their claim in fact.
Their successes in the field have proved only temporary. War and
disorder, devastation and confusion, seem to threaten to become the
settled fortune of the distracted country. As friends we could wait no
longer for a solution which every week seemed further away. It was our
duty at least to volunteer our good offices--to offer to assist, if we
might, in effecting some arrangement which would bring relief and peace
and set up a universally acknowledged political authority there.

Accordingly, I took the liberty of sending the Hon. John Lind, formerly
governor of Minnesota, as my personal spokesman and representative, to
the City of Mexico, with _the following instructions_:

Press very earnestly upon the attention of those who are now
exercising authority or wielding influence in Mexico the following
considerations and advice:

The Government of the United States does not feel at liberty any
longer to stand inactively by while it becomes daily more and more
evident that no real progress is being made towards the
establishment of a government at the City of Mexico w