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again assembled in a hut at Altaná, within Mexican territory. Desirous to avenge the wrongs he had suffered, he collected eight or nine laborers from the coffee plantation, and made an incursion to Altaná. The Indians fled at his approach, and he proceeded to burn down three huts and carry off four boxes of corn. He also caught one of the Indians of Guatemala, whom he sent prisoner to Tapachula, informing Mr. Romero by letter of what he had done. The huts were of the kind that may readily be constructed by three or four men in a single day, and were accordingly valued at a dollar apiece. The corn was estimated to be worth eight dollars. The total valuation of the loss was, therefore, eleven or twelve dollars, but the event figures in the charges made by General Barrios as the burning and sack of a Guatemalan town. Mr. Romero was ignorant of this act of his mayordomo, which he at once condemned on receiving information thereof. He wrote to the political chief of San Márcos offering to pay the damage incurred, and subsequently wrote in similar terms to President Barrios, disavowing all responsibility for the act of his mayordomo.
Meanwhile the Guatemalan exiles in Tapachula, three of whom had already been arrested, as before mentioned, for an alleged conspiracy against the life of General Barrios, were secretly preparing an invasion of Guatemala. The political chief of Tapachula, having received information of the fact, consulted Mr. Romero as to what should be done, and, by his advice, the leaders were arrested the same night. As there was not, however, sufficient legal evidence to justify their continued imprisonment, Mr. Romero wrote out a legal opinion to the effect that the President of
