[Inclosure in No. 1113.]
Mr. Denby to the
Tsung-li-yamên.
Legaton
of the United States,
Peking, May 5,
1890.
No. 5.]
Your Highness and Your Excellencies: I have the
honor to inform Your Highness and Your Excellencies that I have received
instructions from my Government, to again bring to your attention the
necessity of having a joint investigation in the McCaslin case, being a
claim against the Government of China for injuries suffered by Louis
McCaslin at Ningpo, April 29, 1888.
As to the most satisfactory mode of communicating the views of my
Government, I have the honor to send you a translation of the material
part of the dispatch I have received.
“I have to inform you that the Department has received from Mr. Pettus,
United States consul at Ningpo, a dispatch bearing date the 12th of
February, in which he transmits copies of his correspondence with
yourself and the taotai and a report of the evidence in the case.
“The purpose of the new investigation of the matter by Mr. Pettus and the
taoti was to take the evidence of the native and the foreign witnesses
jointly. Each side had previously examined its own witnesses separately,
and for this reason each refused to accept the testimony taken by the
other.
“It thus became necessary, in order to secure a common ground for
discussion, to have all the testimony taken jointly by the
representatives of the United States and China. This point is made clear
by the correspondence in the case and by your instructions to Mr.
Pettus. The only explanation of his omission to produce his witnesses is
found in the response of the taotai to his inquiry whether the foreign
witnesses should be called. ‘If,’ said Mr. Pettus in his letter to the
taotai of April 15, 1889, ‘you also wish that the foreign witnesses be
called in again and their evidence retaken, I can have them summoned for
the date decided upon.’
[Page 182]
“In his letter of the 1st of May, 1889, the taoti, replying to Mr.
Pettus’s inquiry, said: ‘I beg to state you must suit yourself about the
foreign witnesses.’
“From this Mr. Pettus inferred, and seems to have had good grounds to
infer, that the presence and reëxamination of the foreign winesses would
not be required.
“The natural construction of the taotai’s language would be that, if Mr.
Pettus desired to reëxamine his witnesses for the purpose of eliciting
new evidence, he would be at liberty to do so, but that, if he
preferred, he might let the claimant’s case rest on the evidence already
taken. When, however, the taotai had examined the native witnesses, he
closed the case, refusing to consider the evidence of the foreign
witnesses previously taken, and rendered a decision against the
claimant.
“The first and only object of the reëxamination of the case was thus
completely defeated by a misunderstanding, for which the taotai was
certainly largely responsible, and of which he took advantage.
“It can not be said that there has been any joint investigation of the
case in the sense in which that term was understood by yourself and the
imperial authorities when Mr. Pettus and the taotai were respectively
instructed to proceed to the reexamination of the matter.
“The Imperial Government should not permit a fair and just consideration
of the case to be prevented by such a misunderstanding between the
consul and the taotai, or permit an adverse judgment of so doubtful a
character to stand.
“You are instructed to communicate these views to the Imperial
Government.”
I made substantially the same argument to Your Highness and Your
Excellencies on divers occasions.
My Government puts the facts and the law in a very strong light, and I
trust that Your Highness will now see the propriety of setting aside the
judgment complained of, and that justice may be done.
I avail, etc.,
