No. 340.
Mr. Fish
to Mr. Preston.
Washington, June 29, 1875.
The undersigned, Secretary of State of the United States, has the honor to acknowledge the receipt of the note of the 25th instant addressed to this Department by Mr. Preston, the minister plenipotentiary of Hayti. It refers to a recent conversation between him and the uni dersigned upon the subject of certain Haytians to whom Mr. Bassett, the United States minister at Port au Prince, had granted an asylum in his legation. As a result of that conference an instruction was at once addressed by this Department to Mr. Bassett, on grounds which were orally indicated by the undersigned to Mr. Preston. Too short a time, however, has since elapsed for Mr. Bassett to have carried those instructions into effect and to have reported to this Department upon the subject.
The undersigned acknowledges that it is desirable that the question, which has been raised by the course of Mr. Bassett, should be promptly and satisfactorily settled.
The undersigned is, however, not a little surprised at that part of Mr. Preston’s note in which he represents that the undersigned had [Page 739] given him assurances that no United States men-of-war would be ordered into Haytian waters. The undersigned is sure that he neither made any such promise nor used words which could fairly be construed as a pledge of the kind. Pursuant to general orders, naval vessels of the United States sometimes touch at ports where the lives and property of citizens may be supposed to be in peril. If any have recently visited the harbors of Hayti, the undersigned is not aware that they have been specially ordered thither.
This Department will furnish Mr. Bassett with a copy of Mr. Preston’s note, some of the statements in which require explanations which have not yet been received.
The undersigned avails himself, &c.