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of the handwriting), "promising all these things with the most satisfactory guarantees. Saving you, sir, from any responsibility, we take it upon ourselves, since we are aware of your bad state of health, and we suppose that you do not know of this fact" (manuscript illegible), "on account of this master operation, or whosoever is concerned in it, make this gentleman pay four or five thousand dollars, to apply them to benevolent works, and to the embellishment of this town, or else let him in no manner take away with him any of the moulds of plaster of Paris he has made and continues making. Indeed, if this treasure is ours, and by right belongs to our town, why should it not be benefited by it?

"It is an honour to us, sir, to make a demand of this nature, since we have not heard that any offer whatever has been made at all about this undertaking up to this date. Let the visiters of these ruins make moulds, drawings, &c., but let them also contribute with sums proportionate to their operations. This is, sir, if we are not mistaken, a business of a great speculation. The persons concerned in this affair are men of importance. Therefore we beg of you most earnestly, and in virtue of our legal right, not to permit the removal of any of the said moulds of plaster of Paris from this town without the said sums being paid, grounded on the great utility that the extractors may derive from it, as well as on the aforesaid offer made by Mr. Brown.

"Palenque, October 15, 1840."

"SANTIAGO FRoncoso,
"BARTOLO BRAVO,
"MIGUEL CASTILLO.

"Don Santiago Froncoso having informed the governor that he and two other inhabitants of that town have presented a memorial before you in regard to the removal of the antiquities of the ruins at Palenque, his excellency consulted the departmental junta on the subject, which junta answered by approving the petition, which copy I send you enclosed, with the decree of his excellency written under it, that you may cause it to be fulfilled. I send you, likewise, two copies of the regulations for passports for the archives of that subprefecture, with the object that the

subprefect should act according to it, in the introduction of foreigners in your district, and also a copy of the order of the 17th of June, 1835, and his excellency orders me to tell you to inform him immediately with regard to the issue of the fulfilment of his said decree.

"It is a copy.

God and liberty.

"DOMINGO GONZALEZ.

"San Cristobal, December 1, 1840."

"His excellency the governor, having read your information of the 15th inst., orders me to tell you to keep a watchful eye upon the strangers who visit the ruins; and when any of them arrive, to give notice of it to this government without delay, expressing their numbers, whence they come, and what is their object, without allowing them to make any operation or excava. tion, and much less to remove anything whatever, however insignificant it may appear.

"Consequently, if they arrive with the only object of visiting, let them do it in company with one, two, or more officers of that subprefecture, that the above dispositions may be fulfilled.

"It is a copy from the original.

"God and liberty..

"DOMINGO Gonzalez.

"San Cristobal, November 30, 1840.”

Under these orders Mr. Pawling has been compelled to leave the ruins, and the casts belonging to the author, for the making of which he had subjected himself to considerable expense, have been seized and detained by the prefect. Perhaps, instead of unavailing regrets, he ought rather to congratulate himself that he had left the ruins, and that Mr. Catherwood's drawings were safe, before the news of their visit reached the capital. He can imagine the excitement in the village, and the annoyance and vexation to which future travellers will be subjected; but he cannot understand exactly the cause. His purpose of leaving Pawling to make casts was known in the village, and no objections whatever were made. Don Santiago Froncoso, the first of the "true patriots" whose names are signed to the complaint, was

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his particular friend, from whom, late in the evening before he left Palenque, he received the following note (translation):

"Mr. (I do not know your surname), at his house, June 3, 1840. "MY MOST RESpected Sir,

"I have just arrived, because my wife sent me notice yesterday that you (permit me to address you on the footing of a friend*) and your estimable companion depart to-morrow without fail. If it is really true, continue your journey with all the felicity which my great affection desires. I send you, together with my gratitude and affection, this raw silk from the ruins to keep for my sake.

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Farewell, my friend and dearest sir. Command whatever you wish, and from whatever distance.

"Your most affectionate friend,

"SANTIAGO FRONCOSO. "Senor ex-plenipotentiary envoy near the government of Central America from the government of North America."

The author feels assured that, if he had been on the spot him. self, Don Santiago would have been the last man in the place to embarrass his operations. He is now violent against foreigners. The author has received no letter from Mr. Pawling, and fears that he has in some way got into difficulty with the people of the village, or else the author's plans have been defeated, and his casts are detained and kept from being introduced into the United States, by the agency and offers of Mr. William Brown. In the absence of any farther information than what appears in these documents, the author makes no comments; but he mentions, that this Mr. William Brown is an American, known in this city as Captain William Brown, having been for several years master of a vessel trading between this port and Tobasco.

It was the hope of the gentlemen before referred to, with the monuments of Quirigua, casts from Copan and Palenque, or the tablets themselves, and other objects from other places within their reach, to lay the foundation of a Museum of American Antiquities which might deserve the countenance of the Gen* Don Santiago apologizes for not using the title your excellency. VOL. II.-3 O

eral Government, and draw to it Catlin's Indian Gallery, and every other memorial of the aboriginal races, whose history within our own borders has already become almost a romance and fable. The author does not despair of this yet. The difficulty will perhaps be increased (the author trusts he will not be considered presumptuous) by the attention that will be directed to the remains of Palenque and the other ruined cities by the publication of these pages, and the consequently exaggerated notions that the inhabitants will form of their value; but then he is persua ded that the Government of Mexico will, on proper representa. tions, order a restitution of the casts now detained at Palenque, and that the republic, without impoverishing herself, will enrich her neighbours of the North with the knowledge of the many other curious remains scattered through her country. And he entertains the belief also that England and France, whose formidable competition has already been set up, as it were in ter rorem, by one proprietor, having their capitals enriched by the remains of art collected throughout the Old World, will respect the rights of nations and discovery, and leave the field of American antiquities to us; that they will not deprive a destitute country of its only chance of contributing to the cause of science, but rather encourage it in the work of bringing together, from remote and almost inaccessible places, and retaining on its own soil, the architectural remains of its aboriginal inhabitants.

THE END.

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