Mr. Powell to Mr. Hay.
Port au Prince, Haiti, December 28, 1899.
Sir: I have the honor to acknowledge the receipt of dispatch No. 95, of December 20, 1899, in reference to the presentation to the Dominican Government of a request for the payment due on Mr. Thurston’s claim, July 1, 1899, and that which falls due January 1, 1900, with accrued interest on all the payments.
In reply the Department will pardon me in failure to comprehend its instructions in dispatch No. 91, of October 19, 1899; it was in conformity with those instructions that I have acted.
In the dispatch referred to I was instructed—
that upon your being satisfied that the new government of Santo Domingo is in possession of the executive forces of the nation and administering the public affairs with due regard for the obligations of international law and treaties you will enter into full relations with it. This is done by your addressing a note to the Dominican minister of foreign relations.
I received no satisfactory information of the formation of the new government at Santo Domingo except what I read from our home papers and what I received from my colleagues here until Mr. Maxwell’s letter of December 9, 1899, reached me, stating the names of the cabinet of the new Executive. As the Department can readily understand, I could not act on the former information of the news received through the columns of our home journal without subjecting myself to censure from the Department. On the receipt of Mr. Maxwell’s, our consul-general’s, letter I could not reply by that mail, on account of the early departure of the steamer, which left the same day on its return trip.
I have not up to this date, nor has any of my colleagues, received any official information from the Dominican secretary of foreign relations of the existence of the present Government. Again I was, and am still, in a quandary as to the form of note I should address to the secretary of foreign relations in reference to the recognition of the pending Government. This was in part the instruction I trusted the Department would forward to me.
[Page 253]The Department is also unaware of the very poor mail facilities that exist between the two republics. There is but one steamer a month, reaching here on the 8th or 9th and leaving on its return trip the same day or early the next. The time of going from one capital to the other is six days, leaving on the 9th and reaching Santo Domingo City on the 15th, or the time it requires to go from here to New York, so unless we take advantage to reply by the same steamer we must wait for the next, a month hence.
In regard to Mr. Thurston’s claim there is but one course for me to pursue, that is to go to Santo Domingo and remain there until this matter is finally closed and money paid; simply to write to them from here is a waste of valuable time, by them either not replying to my communications or else taking the time to discuss when they would pay the same. By being there I would better secure the amount due Mr. Thurston than by remaining here and requesting the same through the mails.
I have requested the Department in previous communications to instruct me in reference to other claims pending against the Dominican Government as to the course I should pursue in regard to them, principally that of Messrs. Drake & Stratton, and also as to the future condition of the Santo Domingo Improvement Company. From the columns of the New York papers I see that instructions were to be sent to me concerning this and other matters, but up to date nothing has been received.
I have, etc.,