No. 188.
Mr. Langston to Mr. Frelinghuysen.
Fort au Prince, Hayti , May 19, 1882. (Received June 23.)
Sir: I had the honor, by my dispatch No. 456 of the 15th of last month, to advise you of the departure of President Salomon for Cape Haytien. I have the honor, now, to announce his return to Port-au-Prince, after an absence of thirty odd days, during which time he has been as far northward as Monte Christe, where the Dominican local authorities are said to have paid him their cordial respects.
The principal part of this time, however, he spent in the Cape investigating, with the local authorities of the place, the revolutionary condition [Page 361] of that city and neighboring region. The result of such investigation seems to have been the placing of the Cape, Fort-Liberté, and Trou, under martial law, according to the act of the 13th April, 1880, which confers the authority, in that behalf, upon the President of the republic in case of civil troubles or imminent invasion by a foreign power, and the order of arrest of forty-two persons charged with complicity in the civil troubles existing in that section of the country, and who, under the act referred to, if arrested, are to be tried by military commission like that recently sitting at St. Marc.
Of the forty two persons whose arrest the government at present seeks, twenty-nine have been already taken and put in prison in this city. Fifteen of them were brought by the President on his return.
The President arrived at the capital at 7 o’clock on the morning of the 18th instant. His reception was cordial and enthusiastic; the army and National Guard being represented in large numbers; and the people, though the hour was early, making their appearance in thousands and behaving themselves in most seemly manner. The debarkation of the President, his march to and attendance at the cathedral, where a Te Deum was celebrated, his departure thence, his tour of the city, and his arrival at the National Palace, where he is said to have pronounced briefly to those about him the most assuring words, were all signalized by military display and popular demonstrations of the most flattering sort. It is claimed that his reception on this occasion is without parallel in the history of this country.
At this writing the tranquility of the country is nowhere disturbed. The quiet is, in fact, profound, but of such character as to compel the feeling whether it may not be ominous of early and dreadful outbreaks as has been the case so many times heretofore in the experience of past administrations of this country. 1 have, &c.,