No. 725.
Baron de
Fava to Mr. Bayard.
Washington, April 17, 1888. (Received April 18.)
Mr. Secretary of State: The note I had the honor to address to you on the 11th instant was mainly based upon the complaints communicated by the Italian colony in Buffalo to this royal legation and to [Page 1055] the King’s consul at New York, relative to the arrest en masse which the police of Buffalo had deemed it their duty to make of all the Italians residing in that city.
My note, moreover, sought to bring about, thanks to the good offices of your excellency with the governor of the State of New York, an investigation through the administrative channels, in order to examine these complaints and do justice to them if they proved to be well founded, so as to prevent the recurrence of the acts which had given rise to them.
I would have been extremely obliged to you, Mr. Secretary of State, if, with your habitual courtesy, you had deemed yourself able to employ such good offices. They would have greatly contributed, not only to bring the facts to light, but also to allay in particular the alarm caused among the Italians of Buffalo by the exceptional measures adopted with regard to them.
Moved by these considerations I even flatter myself with the hope that those good offices, to which I most confidently make a renewed appeal, will be graciously vouchsafed to me as in the past.
In offering all my thanks to you in advance, I have the honor to beg you to be so kind as to return to me at the same time the documents which accompanied my note of the 11th of April, above mentioned.
Be pleased to accept, etc.,