No. 660.
Mr. Bayard
to Mr. Thompson.
Washington, September 22, 1888.
Sir: I have received your No. 206 of the 6th instant, informing me that the French minister at Port au Prince had written a circular note to the provisional government, which was signed by all the representatives of the foreign Governments, except yourself, asking the government to withdraw the troops from the city on the ground of health, and declaring that, in case of refusal to comply with their request, they would decline to give clean bills of health to vessels sailing for foreign ports.
Your position that, by joining in the protest of the French minister, you would have bound yourself, in the event of compliance with the demand for the removal of the troops, to give clean bills of health in any case, even if pestilence existed, is not well understood, and the soundness of your conclusion in that regard is not apparent. You do not send a copy of the French minister’s note, and the Department is unable to decide whether the protest did in terms amount to so extraordinary and irrational a compact. But the Department approves the ground taken by you, that the issuance of clean bills of health must depend on the ascertained healthfulness of the port at the time of a vessel’s departure.
If the ascertainment of such a condition is rendered doubtful by the presence of a large body of men, under circumstances peculiarly favorable to the germination of disease at an unhealthy season, and preventing any intelligent or trustworthy investigation of their sanitary condition, you would be entirely justified in withholding a clean bill of health, and in certifying the state of things to the health officers at the [Page 921] port of the vessel’s destination, in order that al proper precaution should be there taken.
The remedy, therefore, is as completely within your reach as if you had signed the protest in question, and you not only reserve a fuller liberty of action in the premises, but also avoid connection with an incident to which a political character appears to have been imputed in some quarters.
Your statement of the introduction of cases of what is supposed to have been yellow fever, by a French sailing vessel from Marseilles, and the precautions adopted in the case, has been communicated to the health, officers of the Treasury Department for their information.
I am, etc.,