Monsieur Excellent to E. D. Bassett, July 8, 1875

Mr. Excellent to Mr. Bassett.

Mr. Minister: I have had the honor to receive your three notes of the 26th of June last, calling to my attention the tenor of your preceding notes of the 3d of May and the 15th of June, and responding to my dispatch of the 19th ultimo. Permit me, as you have said, not to enter more into-the recapitulation of the facts and circumstances which have been the object (qui out motivé) of all this correspondence. The government, in insisting to obtain from you the delivery of General Boisrond Canal, refers in all respects to the precise explanations and to the arguments which it has transmitted to you through me relative to the criminal acts of voluntary homicide (meurtres volontaires) and other acts of which General Boisrond Canal has rendered himself culpable. The government confirms them to you again at this moment. In fact, it is impossible for it to admit with you that General Boisrond Canal should be considered as a political refugee—a general officer legally summoned to deliver himself up to the call of superior authority. He failed in all the duties that honor and military subordination commended to him, in order to give himself over voluntarily and without cause (sans raison) to criminal acts which all laws reprobate. In making to him this call, which issued only from patriotic motives, the government had had in view only the maintenance of order and principle in preventing every explosion of acts which are always regrettable and disastrous for society.

The duty of the government is well traced. In presence of threatening inquietudes (sourdes inquietudes) produced by these recent events, it could not give up the right to take all the measures of general police which the situation demands and which the legal judgment of Boisrond Canal and his associates imposes upon it. The active and continued surveillance which is exercised upon the highway leading to your country residence (habitation de plaisance) is, as you have well recognized it, the necessary consequence of these measures of, precaution and general security which are until now incumbent upon the goverment; nevertheless, as it has not ceased to give you the perfect assurance the government intends (entend) that the severe orders which it has given shall be punctually observed concerning the regard which is due and the facilities to be accorded to you and attached to your household in their free and perfect circulation. The government would regret infinitely if any disagreeableness should have resulted to you personally from this circumstance; and in this thought it has just caused to be reiterated the most formal orders in this regard to the chiefs of the military line. The responsibility for the grave circumstances which were unfolded the 1st of May must necessarily fall back upon those who provoked them. Also, the government intends (entend) that those who profited by them to give themselves over to criminal acts against persons and property shall be handed over to justice alone competent to pronounce upon their fate. This is why it still insists upon you for the delivery of those who find themselves under your protection, while praying you to have confidence in the good faith from which it has never departed, and which induces it to have recourse in this occurrence to the judicial way and forms. You will shortly learn, Mr. Minister, at ail events, the result of the legal process commenced against Boisrond Canal and his accomplices, and then you will appreciate, without doubt, how well founded are the reclamations of the government.

Be pleased to accept, Mr. Minister, the new assurance of my very high consideration.