E. D. Bassett to Excellent, July 12, 1875

Mr. Bassett to Mr. Excellent.

Mr. Minister: I have had the honor to receive your dispatch of the 8th instant, which I have read with attention, and in which you favor me with a response to my , three notes of the 26th ultimo collectively. I might have preferred a specific answer to each one separately. Nevertheless I thank you for your attention to them. You reiterate your demand for the delivery of the refugees under my flag when T have already had the honor to inform you that my Government has authorized me to enter into, negotiations upon the subject only and solely with the view to the embarkation of those persons.

I had also the honor to state to yon in one of my notes that I placed myself at your disposition and convenience for that purpose, and I regret that you have not chosen to respond to this point or to take any notice of it whatever. My Government took its friendly decision in the sense in which I have already spoken and written to you of it, after having received all the representations submitted to it relative to the case by your government through your minister at Washington. Is it probable that a great Government like the one which I represent here will change a decision once taken in such a case and under such circumstances? My view is that it will not change that decision. And yet am I to infer that you are now unwilling to abide by the friendly decision of my Government after you yourselves appealed to that Government and invoked its decision?

I thank you for your assurance that your government intends that the severe orders which you say to me it has given concerning the respect which is due to me and the facilities to be accorded and attached to my household in their free and entire circulation, shall be punctually observed. But I regret to inform you that all the grievances stated in one of my notes of the 26th ultimo still continue unabated, unchanged. I most respectfully beg leave, therefore, to represent to you that I am compelled to reiterate and maintain all that I affirm in my said note of the 26th ultimo relative to the surrounding of my official residence by armed men and the infringements made upon my rights and immunities thereby. And I repeat that I hold your government responsible not only for all these trespasses upon my official rights and immunities, never before questioned in any way whatsoever, and especially for all the unnecessary and needless annoyances to which I and my family are continually subjected by express orders of your government, but also for any and all other injurious circumstances which may yet grow or may have already grown out of the menace kept up in so persistent and offensive a manner over the official residence of the American minister. No other government within my recollection has ever before ventured upon or attempted such a proceeding. You speak as if with an object in your last dispatch, as you have spoken in previous ones, of my country-seat or summer residence, (habitation de plaisance,) when it ought to be perfectly well known to your government, as well as to everybody else in Port au Prince who chooses to think of it, that I have but one residence in this country, and never have had but one. That is therefore my bona fide official residence, and not a mere habitation de plaisance. I speak to you plainly upon this point, because it is not unknown to me that persons in authority under your government have, for purposes which I need not here mention, boldly and persistently sought to create and spread abroad another idea which has even found expression in the official journal, Le Moniteur, of last week. I repeat that I have but one residence, and never have had but one, in this country. That residence was occupied by my predecessor, and has been continuously occupied by me and my family for more than six years. The rights and immunities which appertain to me in my bona-fide domicile ought to and must be observed. I am sorry to say that they are not now properly observed; that I am there subjected to unnecessary annoyances by day, and especially by night, under government orders. The rights which I possess and the immunities to which I am entitled here do not belong to me personally; they belong to my Government. And, as I had the honor to intimate to you in one of my notes of the 26th ultimo, I shall not now fail to refer the matter, including all the facts stated in this correspondence, to that Government.

I am, Mr. Minister, your obedient servant,