JOSEPH BOWIE, Master of Schooner Victor to John Mercer Langston, July 29, 1884

Mr. St. Victor to Mr. Langston.

Mr. Minister: I have the honor to acknowledge the receipt of the dispatch of July 15 last, in which you bring for the first time to the knowledge of the Government, about two months after the events took place at the capital, the 22d and 23d September of last year, that during their occurrence Mr. Eugene V. Garrido, American citizen, secretary of the United States legation, had been insulted, outraged, assaulted, and maltreated by the officers of the Government in the streets, and even to the doors of your legation, where he was able to escape barely with his life.

Permit me to express to you first, Mr. Minister, the regret that this information should have reached the Government so tardily, for I am positive that an inquiry had the day after the events would have proved more efficacious than that which you now propose.

Nevertheless, I am entirely disposed to occupy myself with such inquiry which alone, according to my judgment, is able to establish in an impartial manner the nature, the extent of the damages, and the amount of a just reparation, if there be any to accord, according to international law.

Any amount fixed, without such prior examination, resting upon no foundation, appears to me to be arbitrary.

Mr. Eugene V. Garrido is, without doubt, able to put us on the track indicated to us, for instance, the person to be questioned upon the bad treatment of which he complains, furnishing us thus the first and indispensable elements of an inquiry which my Government is interested in prosecuting to the end, in order to throw light upon acts which interested passion never fails to exaggerate in moments of civil troubles which agitate a country.

Before giving, then, any opinion on the question which occupies us, I pray you to be good enough and question Mr. Garrido upon the points which I have indicated here above.

Be pleased, &c,