No. 339.
Mr. Preston to Mr. Fish.
Washington, June 25, 1875. (Received June 26.)
The undersigned, minister plenipotentiary of Hayti, referring to the recent conversations which he has had the honor to have with the honorable Secretary of State in relation to the asylum granted by Mr. Bassett, minister of the United States at Port au Prince, to M. Boisrond Canal and his accomplices, who are implicated in the political conspiracy of the 1st of May last, and who are charged with the commission of one or more murders while engaged in resisting armed force, desires to lay aside, for the present, the grave questions of international law raised by the exercise of the privilege of granting asylum, and to confine himself to recapitulating a few of the circumstances connected with the case which has recently presented itself in Hayti.
In the first place, it does not seem doubtful that Boisrond Canal and his accomplices have taken refuge, with arms and ammunition, at the house of the minister of the United States.
In the second place, it is within the knowledge of the undersigned that his government has addressed Mr. Bassett in vain, for the purpose of obtaining from him an official list of the persons to whom he has granted asylum.
The undersigned brings these facts once more to the notice of the honorable Secretary of State, knowing the spirit of justice in which they will be considered by him. He has, moreover, full confidence in the instructions which the Department of State has already given to Mr. Bassett in relation to this difficult matter, and the sense of which the honorable Secretary of State has beea pleased to make known to the undersigned.
The undersigned cannot, however, refrain from expressing the fears which he entertains in consequence of the prolongation of the state of things created by the presence of Boisrond Canal and others at the legation of the United States at Port au Prince. He apprehends that the [Page 738] impunity secured to them by the protection which they enjoy may contribute to maintain a state of agitation fatal to the interests of domestic peace, and that the very fact of this impunity may encourage other guilty attempts in future; he therefore considers it highly important that the matter should be settled with as little delay as possible.
Finally, the undersigned willremind the honorable Secretary of State of what he has already had the honor to say to him orally in regard to the request which Mr. Bassett stated that he had addressed to this Government, with a view to having vessels of the federal Navy sent into Haytian waters. As the undersigned has already received the assurance from the honorable Secretary of State that nothing of the kind will be done, he will not insist upon this point; he feels, in fact, well assured that the Honorable Hamilton Fish has already taken measures to put an end to the ill-founded fears to which Mr. Bassett’s words may have given rise. The government of Hayti is firmly resolved to cause the inviolability of the rights of every legation to be respected by all; it knows, moreover, the regard which is due to the representative of the American Republic, to which it is bound by so many ties; it also, however, too well knows the spirit of justice which directs the counsels of the Federal Governmenkto suppose for an instant that that Government would suffer one of its agents abroad to use the doubtful right of asylum to such an extent that, by the presence of naval forces intended to extend its exercise, it might become dangerous to the internal tranquillity of an allied and friendly country.
The undersigned, therefore, addresses the Secretary of State of the United States with full confidence, and begs him to dispel, by his reply, the inquietude which exists in Hayti.
The undersigned begs, &c.