No. 363.
Mr. Bassett to Mr. Fish.
Port au Prince, October 16, 1873. (Received Nov. 1.)
Sir: I have the honor to represent that, as a result of several agreeable conferences had with the minister of foreign affairs and other members of the Haytian cabinet, relative to that portion of the claims of our citizens which arose from transactions with this government under the administration of President Salnave, I have received assurances that the executive, while feeling unauthorized and indisposed to announce itself willing directly to contravene the provisions of the law on this subject, adopted by the Corps Législatif August 24, 1872, is, nevertheless, well inclined, in the absence of the legislative session this year, to assume to the extent of its ready ability and in a quiet way a friendly attitude, especially toward such of those claims as were created under an element of force, and are beyond doubt well founded.
At these conferences with members of the Haytian cabinet I have uniformly confined my remarks to equity and good feeling. I have brought forward the desirability of conserving the credit and the good name of the government, and of now laying aside the prejudice and passion which confessedly, and perhaps somewhat naturally, existed at first against the so-called Salnave debts. I have also sought to turn to fair account the thought that it may be well worth while for this administration to consider how it can now, before its close, which is near at hand, give a testimony of good disposition and good faith toward claims of which the government of the United States has already taken cognizance.
Recently, when the question was brought up in cabinet meeting, the President is said to have expressed himself emphatically in favor of some present action on the part of the executive authority touching the claims. A list of them was subsequently produced and looked over, and it was decided quietly to commence the payment of those which arose under the government monopoly established by Salnave in 1868, and of which the aggregate amount is not far from one hundred thousand dollars, [Page 592] held mostly by our citizens; Messieurs Oliver Cutts & Company having more than five-sixths of them.
This method of entering upon the settlement of the extract-claims of our citizens upon the Haytian government is not, of course, such as could be desired; it is, indeed, scarcely satisfactory, in the absence of some equitable arrangement for the definitive regulation of them all upon a common basis. But it may possibly be taken as a slight indication of better works in the near future. History, it has been thought by respectable authority, points to the fact that when a government once takes a step, even though feebly, toward the right direction, it is generally carried further in that direction than it originally intended. Such, I trust, may in the present instance be the result of the beginning made, though I am not quite perfectly sanguine of it.
I am, &c.,