When the friends of Salazar at Leon heard of his capture in the gulf, they immediately arrested Dr. Joseph W. Livingston, an American long resident in Nicaragua, and sent a courier to Granada saying they would hold him as a hostage for Salazar’s safety. The British vice-consul did not disdain to write a letter to the American Minister entreating him to save the life of Salazar in order that Livingston might go unharmed. But the courier arrived several days after the execution of the Leonese traitor; and Mr. Wheeler was not a man to be startled from his propriety by the cunning devices of Mr. Manning. In his reply to the British vice-consul the American Minister draws the distinction between Salazar and Livingston in such words as probably little suited his correspondent. “Salazar,” he writes, “was one—and a most prominent one—of a faction revolting against the lawful government of the Republic, and a general in their forces. He knew that he was liable to the penalty of treason. Dr. Livingston is an American citizen, much loved and respected, and owes no allegiance to the authorities of Nicaragua, much less to a disappointed faction; nor has he ever been mixed up with the parties by any overt or belligerent act.” At the same time he answered Mr. Manning’s letter, Mr. Wheeler wrote to General Ramon Belloso, commanding-in-chief the Allied forces, informing the latter that if any harm befell Dr. Livingston, the government of the United States would promptly hold the governments of San Salvador and Guatemala to a strict accountability. He concluded by saying, that “if one hair of Dr. Livingston’s head is injured, or his life taken, or that of another American citizen, your government and that of Guatemala will feel the force of a power which, while it respects the rights of other nations, will be ready and is able to vindicate its own honor and the lives and property of its citizens.” Brave words these; and they might have resulted in worthy deeds if Mr. Wheeler had controlled the necessary force; but when read with the gloss of after events, they are turned into a biting sarcasm on the government he represented. The life of Livingston was, however, probably saved by the energetic words of the Minister; though he was ordered from the State in which he had been living for ten years.