Bassett to L. Ethéart, May 31, 1872

Mr. Bassett to Mr. Ethéart

Sir: I have the honor to ask your attention again to the dispatches which I addressed to you on the 25th and 30th of March last, relative to the affair of Mr. Jastram at Saint Marc. In those dispatches the details of the assault on Mr. Jastram, and of the violation of his consular office, are given. In your dispatches on the subject to me you have expressed the desire to investigate for yourself the substance of these details at Saint Marc. But it is now two months since those dispatches were sent to you. Saint Marc is within easy communication of Port au Prince. A courier can pass between the two cities in a single day. And yet the sixty days that have passed since my dispatches reached you have brought me no answer to the demands made upon your government in these dispatches.

I have now the honor to make it known to you that the Government of the United States feels, as I have already intimated to you, that an international grievance has been committed in the assault on Mr. Jastram, and in the violation of his consular office at Saint Marc, on the 20th of March last, by persons in the service of your government, and my Government will insist upon due reparation for the offense. The terms of reparation stated in the dispatch which I addressed to you on the 25th of March last will, I think, be acceptable to the Government of the United States.

I beg you also to observe that unless I receive a favorable answer to that dispatch within a reasonable time from this date—more than sixty days having already passed since it was placed in your hands—I shall feel constrained to take such delay as evidence of an indisposition on the part of your government to make the reparation which I have asked and which is customary in such cases, and I shall also feel it my duty to make it the subject of unfavorable representation to the Government of the United States.

I am, &c.,