Papers Relating to the Foreign Relations of the United States, Transmitted to Congress, With the Annual Message of the President, December 8, 1885
Mr. Thompson to Mr. Bayard.
Port-au-Prince, Hayti, November 5, 1885. (Received Nov. 18.)
Sir: I have the honor to produce, as herewith inclosed, two communications from Mr. Alexander C. d’Almena, the American citizen who was held in the common jail of this city, charged with the purloining of certain mandates, to the detriment of the National Bank of Hayti. The inclosed statement brings forth all the facts of the case. There has been no official statement of the trial published.
I attended many days during the proceedings of the “court of cassation,” and it was remarked daily that all the evidence produced in the prosecution was in favor of Mr. d’Almena; indeed, the attorney-general almost ignored any statement with regard to our citizen. At the end of the thirteen days he was acquitted, with two others, a British subject and a Haytian citizen.
Since the trial the attorney-general and his deputy have been suspended from office.
* * * * * * *
I have, &c.,
Mr. d’Almena to Mr. Thompson.
Honorable Sir: As a loyal American citizen, I have the honor to bring under your notice the following case of denial of justice, wanton violence, arbitrary imprisonment, and persecution, of which I have been a victim at the hands of the Haytian Government, the facts of which are as follows:
By order of the judge “d’instruction,” Mr. Ernest Bonhomme, of the civil tribunal of Port-au-Prince, I was arrested on the 10th of December, 1884, falsely accused of complicity in an embezzlement of public effects, to the detriment of the National Banking Company of Hayti, alleged to have been committed by a Mr. F. B. Coles, at the time when the latter was chief accountant in the aforesaid establishment. Seized upon by the police, I was forcibly conveyed to the prison of this city, and at once placed in special confinement (“au secret”); that is, shut up in a narrow, filthy cell, devoid of light, and the suffocating air contaminated by its noxious proximity to a cesspool liberating foul stenches, provocative of infectious disease. It was in this hole that I was kept in close confinement for the space of fifteen consecutive days and nights, at the end of which time only, the judge thought fit to cause the door to be opened, and it was only then that your predecessor, Mr. J. M. Langston, who had [Page 544] vainly endeavored hitherto to obtain access to me, was enabled to inspect the horrible den in which I had been confined, in contempt of the most elementary principles of humanity.
I have every reason to believe that these persecutions were the result of a preconcerted plot contrived to ruin my credit and bring disgrace upon me, a conviction which I no longer doubted, when, on my insisting that I should be brought face to face with my calumniators who had declared that I had received $1,000, the amount of a public effect twice paid, I was told by the inquiring judge that it would be time enough for that when the assizes came on.
Events have proved that they were evidently resolved to persecute an innocent man, and it was only on the 19th instant that I recovered my liberty, after having endured a most cruel imprisonment of 283 days, and been placed for thirteen days more on the criminal benches at the public assizes of a country where the dispensation of law is a mockery and simply a tool in the hands of those who ought to administer it with the greatest impartiality. Although during the private examination prior to the trial they could bring forward no proof of my guilt, they nevertheless kept me in prison and strenuously refused bail.
I would respectfully beg to call your attention to the fact that I am a man of 52 years of age, and have all my life enjoyed a stainless reputation for honor, and have been surrounded with all that commands private and public respect. The Haytian authorities however, did not hesitate to hold me up to the public in the light of a miscreant thief worthy of a convict prison, in order more fully to crush and humiliate me in that which a man holds dearest, his character and his honor, Indeed, during the preliminary investigations they obstinately disregarded all evidence of the truth and discarded every principle of justice, and, basing themselves solely on false accusations and groundless assertions, they decided, on the 14th of March last, that I should be remanded until the assizes and take trial in the criminal dock, this time as an author of the theft of the public effects to the prejudice of the National Bank of Hayti.
By this act of wanton injustice and refined persecution on the part of the judicial council chamber of Port-au-Prince, I was struck in my nearest interests, for, contrary to the usage and practice of the Haytian law, they published this decision in the official journal of the Republic (Le Moniteur), knowing that copies of it are regularly sent abroad, where the effect was calculated to utterly ruin my credit and my interests. Happily, however, in doing this they did not calculate upon the evidence it contained against them of their preconcerted decisions. Such a decision was too unjust, and wanting in all spirit of fair play and equity to be overlooked, and I attacked it in the court of appeal of Port-au-Prince. I did so not only on the plea of its want of equity, but also on several technical flaws it contained. It is needless to add that the appeal was without effect, the court coming to two decisions dated 1st and 17th July, 1885, maintaining the former decision of the council chamber, and ignoring my appeal altogether, thus clearly setting forth their premeditated intention of committing and maintaining a complete denial of justice.
I must remark that at the same time I lodged, as you are doubtless aware, my formal protest in the hands of your predecessor, both against the writ of the council chamber, and also these two latter decisions, which caused me to undergo the ordeal, though innocent, of a trial in a criminal court. During this trial, which lasted thirteen days, it is noteworthy to remark that all the witnesses for the prosecution gave evidence in my favor, and also that the public prosecutor (attorney-general) himself throughout was completely embarrassed, and totally at a loss to bring forward the slightest fact in proof of my would be guilt, and up to the end was unable to say a word tending to prove that I was in any way concerned in the matter with which I was charged, his only statement being false and empty insinuations to my discredit. I came out of prison innocent and acquitted, it is true, but with the stigma of a criminal jail hanging about me, and having to bear the consequences of the terrible sufferings of a contaminating confinement of more than nine months.
The positive damages which this odious and unjust trial has occasioned me are nevertheless immense. When one takes into account that on my arrival here I held a contract with a financial establishment of Paris (of which there is a legalized copy in the hands of his Excellency the President of Hayti), engaging itself to furnish, progressively, funds to the extent of 15,000,000 francs for the establishment of central sugar factories in the plains of “Cul de Sac” and the “Grand Plain,” ultimately to be connected by railways; to further connect the “Etang Salé” with the sea by steam navigation, and to develop the exploitation of the rich timber forests in that district, and, lastly, to found in Port-au-Prince a banking establishment, with branch associations, for a “crédit foncier et agricole.” The industry and technical knowledge I was furnishing to this enterprise was estimated at the sum of 500,000 francs, which, bearing interest, was to form my capital. Apart from this, I was to receive annually a sum of $20,000 for my expenses, administration, displacements, &c. All this was on the eve of being realized, and already one of the chief capitalists was to start for [Page 545] Port-au-Prince, on the 21st of December, 1884, from Paris, when the news arrived there, on the 15th December of that year (by cable), of my arrest here for my connection in the embezzlement of public effects from the National Bank of Hayti. As soon as the news was confirmed, the fate of all my future prospects was naturally doomed.
The news of the arrest of a man of such good repute and on such a charge created the greatest astonishment, but when came the announcement of the decision of the council chamber of the 14th March 1885, published as it was in the official journal of the Haytian Government, the final blow was struck and I was simply ruined. Thus, not content with having violently assailed without cause the character and standing of an innocent man in their own country, the Haytian Government must needs disgrace him abroad, and even before the rendering of the verdict they must, by aid of their official means, hold him up to public odium and scorn. I will not expatiate any longer on the injustice I suffered at the hands of the authorities here.
The harm occasioned to me by the Haytian Government, both morally and physically, by an imprisonment as trying as it was arbitrary, and as long as unjust in the jail of this city, under a false and slandering accusation devoid of the least particle of evidence to support it; the great publicity given to the decision of the 14th March, 1885, by the Government official journal, wholly based on suppositions, occasioning the loss of my credit and financial and industrial combinations; and, lastly, the denial of justice committed to my prejudice by the supreme court of appeal, on the application I made, the principal object of which was to spare my having to sit in the criminal dock, innocent though I was, and exposed to the derision and even contempt of the public (causing me thus to drink the bitter cup of shame to its very dregs)—are not these weighty wrongs, at however just pecuniary value one may estimate them, of a nature never adequately to be compensated by their authors towards their victim?
The answer is plain, and I think that in naming $1,000 per day, that is, $283,000 as compensation for the 283 days passed in the prison cells of this city, on the one hand, and of $200,000, in all $483,000, taking as a basis five years only of my aforesaid industrial administration and my 500,000 francs’ capital, on the other, as reparation and indemnity for the material wrongs inflicted on me by the arbitrary persecutions of which I have been the object, from December last to the day of my release, 19th of September of this year, will be but a feeble estimate in money of the irreparable wrongs and losses which I have had to bear at the hands of those by whom they have been inflicted.
I have, therefore, sir, the honor to hand over to you the present statement and claim, for the length of which I must apologize, begging you, at the same time, to use your good offices to obtain from the Haytian Government that compensation to which you will agree with me I am so justly entitled.
I have, &c.,
Mr. d’Almena to Mr. Thompson.
Honorable Minister: Without wishing to modify any of the considerations advanced in the statement, of date 10th of this month, which I had the honor to lodge with you for the information of yourself and of my Government, in support of my claim against the Government of Hayti, it may not be superfluous to call your further attention to the following facts, for the consideration of the honorable the Secretary of State and Cabinet of the United States Government:
- (1)
- No law has ever existed, nor does at present exist, with reference to the “Banque Nationale d’Hayti” which can justify my arrest, based upon the conditions and circumstances of fact or of reason, which have preceded, accompanied, or followed, the unjust imprisonment of which I have been the victim during so many months. For this reason, the “juge d’instruction” (magistrate who conducted the preliminary examination of the case) was obliged to allege in his commitment, as a motive for my imprisonment and solitary confinement (“secret”), my pretended participation in a breach of confidence of which one Mr. F. B. Coles, chief accountant at the “banque,” and then “en fuite,” was accused of being the principal. Later on, it became evident that my pretended complicity was but a pretext, not a legal motive for placing me under arrest; that this complicity was so unfounded that they subsequently abandoned it to make me one of the principals in a domestic robbery of public securities committed at the “Banque Nationale d’Hayti,” and to the prejudice of said “banque.”
- (2)
- After having thus proceeded—that is to say, in the absence of any legal provision—without any law foreseeing or determining, from a penal standpoint, the proper [Page 546] and exact character of the facts on which, notwithstanding, the prosecution against me was based, they did not hesitate, the victim being once secured and thrown by force into a dungeon in contempt of all law, to pursue thenceforth a course in violation of justice. Later on still, in contempt of all the testimony previously given before the “juge d’instruction,” establishing my complete innocence—for, repeated orally before the jury, said testimony has established how the real facts were falsified by both said magistrate and the “chamber du conseil” (a sort of secret grand jury)—in order to arraign me before the criminal court (assizes), I was accused gratuitously, wickedly, and without the least reasonable presumption, of being one of the principals of said domestic robbery, although the facts, such as they were developed at the preliminary examination, constituted neither domestic nor simply robbery, nor any other offense qualified crime by the laws of Hayti or of any other country. In default of Mr. F. B. Coles, then absent from the country, it is obvious that they wanted to lay hands on some high officer of the “banque,” on whom to saddle a responsibility which they had taken off the shoulders of the director, to whom a “safe-conduct” was granted for leaving the country, but in fact to discharge the bank’s administration of the obligation of paying the securities fraudulently placed in circulation.
- (3)
- It is therefore evident and incontestable that I have been arbitrarily and illegally proceeded against, thrown into a “cachot,” kept in secret confinement under the false accusation of having committed or participated in a domestic robbery, the indictment itself being false and defective in legal form.
- (4)
- I could not allow such a gross illegality to be perpetrated against me without appealing to the supreme court (“cour de cassation”), for a condemnation and reversal of the foregoing proceedings, and I did appeal accordingly. But it was in vain, in support of my appeal, that the strongest and most unretortable legal facts and arguments were presented, among others, the precedents established by the supreme court itself during many years, the resolution had been taken beforehand to place me in the criminal dock.
The most outrageous denial of justice has been committed by the supreme court of Hayti in contempt of all my rights. Two judgments, the second intended to rectify and explain the other, dated the 1st and 17th of July, of this year, were rendered by the supreme court on the appeals of two other persons accused at the same time and of the same crime (both being British subjects), which appeals were made, like mine, against the said indictment dated the 14th of March, which sent them for trial before the criminal court of this city; but, in defiance of every legal principle, the said supreme court refused to examine my appeal, and consequently did not render judgment at all upon it, although the appeal was based upon the text of the law governing the proceedings of preliminary examination in criminal cases.
A formal protest was addressed at this time by the Hon. Dr. Thompson—I mean yourself—to the secretary of state for foreign affairs of Hayti, with regard to this attitude of the supreme court towards me. In answer to this protest the Haytian secretary of foreign affairs advanced to the American legation all sorts of considerations irrelevant to the question at issue, and failing to justify the attitude of the supreme court with regard to my appeal. In that response the Haytian secretary of foreign affairs asserted, among other things, that “the appeal of Mr. d’Almena aimed at a destruction of all grave presumptions both against himself and against those accused with him” (a consequence which would inevitably have followed if the appeal had been admitted as it ought to have been), as if there existed in that fact any motive which could justify the supreme court in refusing an examination of my appeal.
It was also affirmed in this same dispatch of the Haytian minister that “it is the fact itself with which all the accused are charged that constitutes the object of Mr. d’Almena’s appeal.” How could my appeal have any other object than that of the accusation itself, based, as it was, precisely on the very same consideration mentioned in the first provision of article 205 of the “Code d’Instruction Criminelle,” which clearly declares that the fact charged against me is not qualified as a crime? The inference is self-evident.
The same dispatch adds further, that “the maintenance of the bill of indictment by the supreme court is a proof that the fact, which is the object of the prosecution, constitutes a crime in the eye of the law.”
Here one is forced to demand how a fact, bad in itself, is able to become good by simply maintaining this same fact in its primitiveness without the least modification? In other words, how could the bill of indictment of the 14th March, 1885, framed contrary to the law (see first provision or clause of article 205 of the Code d’Instruction Criminelle), become conformable to the law because simply of its having been maintained as such by the supreme court?
The denial of justice enacted by a subservient court has evidently filled up the measure of all that I was made to suffer physically and morally during the 283 days of my imprisonment in one of the “cachots” of Port-au-Prince, from the first hour of my arrest, to the day when I was set at liberty, thanks to Divine Providence. [Page 547] That my innocence was and is unquestionable is clear from the fact that a jury, however bribed and menaced as they were, shrunk from the awful responsibility of returning a verdict against me.
On submitting, honorable minister, both this explanation and the statement, dated the 10th of the present month, alluded to above, to you as the representative of my Government, I respectfully request that you will cause an official certificate of the deposit of these documents at the legation to be delivered to me, and, upon due consideration of all the circumstances, inform me whether a doubt may exist of the responsibility of the Haytian Goverment for the outrages committed against my liberty, honor, and interests, in order that the damages which I have sustained may be immediately repaired.
I have, &c.,
P. S.—As another evident proof of the long-entertained conviction of my innocence in “high spheres,” I beg to subjoin a number, dated the 26th September last, i. e., eight days after my release, of the “Œil,” a newspaper which receives subsidies from the Government, and is owned and acknowledged as being the semi-official organ of same. This spontaneous declaration reads as follows:
“We have announced in our last number the acquittal of Mr. d’Almena. For our part, we had never entertained a doubt on that matter.”