E. D. Bassett to Monsieur Excellent, May 17, 1875

Mr. Bassett to Mr. Excellent.

Monsieur: Asking your special reference to your dispatch of the 8th instant and to mine of the 12th instant in reply thereto, I have the honor to state that the respect which my Government and myself entertain for your government, and especially for President Domingue, impels me to acknowledge the receipt of your note of the 14th instant, in which you announce to me that your government, before it submits to the appreciation of the Cabinet at Washington the case of General Boisrond Canal, has charged you to express to me anew its desire to see me deliver over to it this general.

In the dispatch which I addressed to you on the 5th instant I had the honor to ask your attention to the fact that the right of asylum has been uniformly exercised by foreign representatives of every grade in Hayti since the foundation of Haytian independence. In no country on this hemisphere has this right been more frequently exercised or more fully consecrated than in Hayti during the past seventy years. And yet in no single instance during all that number of years has such a request as you make ever been complied with, either in Hayti, or, as I am inclined to believe, in any other country in the world. Is it possible, in view of’these facts, that you should expect this legation to be the first to set the example of delivering up before the civilized world any one who has once found an asylum under its flag? We have a friendly disposition toward your government. We shall be happy to comply with its well-founded desires on all suitable occasions. We wish to oblige it. But I beg you to believe us that no departure will, for the present, be made from any ground which we have heretofore taken upon the subject to which your note of the 14th instant relates.

I am, &c., &c.,