be misunderstood the unauthorized action of our late naval commander
in those waters in saluting the revolted Brazilian admiral, being
indisposed to countenance an act calculated to give gratuitous sanction
to the local insurrection.

The convention between our Government and Chile having for its object
the settlement and adjustment of the demands of the two countries
against each other has been made effective by the organization of the
claims commission provided for. The two Governments failing to agree
upon the third member of the commission, the good offices of the
President of the Swiss Republic were invoked, as provided in the
treaty, and the selection of the Swiss representative in this country
to complete the organization was gratifying alike to the United States
and Chile.

The vexatious question of so-called legation asylum for offenders
against the state and its laws was presented anew in Chile by the
unauthorized action of the late United States minister in receiving into
his official residence two persons who had just failed in an attempt at
revolution and against whom criminal charges were pending growing out
of a former abortive disturbance. The doctrine of asylum as applied to
this case is not sanctioned by the best precedents, and when allowed
tends to encourage sedition and strife. Under no circumstances can the
representatives of this Government be permitted, under the ill-defined
fiction of extraterritoriality, to interrupt the administration of
criminal justice in the countries to which they are accredited. A
temperate demand having been made by the Chilean Government for the
correction of this conduct in the instance mentioned, the minister
was instructed no longer to harbor the offenders.