Tisdel to Rear-Admiral English, March 20, 1885

Mr. Tisdel to Rear-Admiral English.

Sir: I have the honor to announce my arrival at this place, the 19th instant, and having completed my mission in accordance with instructions from the Department of State, I shall leave by first opportunity for Europe.

I regret very much not being able to communicate with you in person before my departure, in order that I might give you a verbal account in detail of my trip up country.

Referring to your order in the matter of the cruise of the Lancaster and Kearsarge, I think that you will be justified in returning at once to Europe, and I earnestly recommend that you do so. As I interpret your orders, the Government of the United States intended that a detail of officers should be sent to communicate with me at Stanley Pool, and that the ships should cruise off the Congo until such time as I should return to the coast. You were instructed also not to make undue haste in your departure, but at the same time you were admonished to have due regard for the health of your officers and men.

I recommend your early departure: First, because from a sanitary point of view it is absolutely dangerous to remain here, the climate at this season being particularly bad. Second, having finished my mission the object of your coming cannot be realized. Third, the question of the Congo having been virtually settled, there is no further need for a ship of war here (particularly an American ship of war).

I must give great credit to the International African Association for the work which they have accomplished in opening and maintaining a line of stations from the coast to the remote interior of Africa. They can continue these stations just so long as the money which supports them shall hold out, and no longer. The reported wealth of the up country has, in my opinion, been greatly exaggerated, and admitting for a moment that all the glowing reports of good climate, fertility of soil, wealth of mineral deposits, and inexhaustible stores of ivory are true, it would still be an undesirable and unprofitable country for the white man to make his home, or to embark in any business enterprise.

Between Vivi and Stanley Pool I saw on all sides misery, want, sickness, and death amongst the employés of the Association. The country does not and cannot produce food for the white man to eat, and barely produces enough for the natives.

In the lowlands along the coast, within a 60-mile limit inland, the country is rich, and the established trading companies have been moderately successful; but now the business is overdone, and I fear that the excitement caused by the reports which have been laid before the Berlin Conference may lead to much suffering on the part of would-be traders and missionaries, who are rushing into a country and climate for which they are wholly unsuited, and from which no good results can possibly come.

In the matter of the United States Government acquiring land in the Lower Congo, I beg to say that all the eligible sites on tide-water are in the hands of old established houses, and can only be secured upon the payment of large sums of money. I do not deem it advisable or desirable that the United States should become the possessor of lands here under existing circumstances.

If Americans wish to invest capital here, for purposes of trade, they can acquire locations, as others have done, and as for the United States attempting to make coaling stations here, it is absurd. Coals and stores can be purchased from the Dutch African Company at prices 25 to 50 per cent, lower than they can possibly be laid down here by our Government.

I have, &c.,