Mr. Powell to Mr.
Hay
Legation of the United States,
Santo Domingo City, November 11, 1903.
No. 647, Santo Domingo Series.]
Sir: I have the honor to inclose to the
Department additional correspondence that has passed between the foreign
office and this legation on the subject of the closing of ports.
I call the especial attention of the Department to the minister’s
statement that these ports are closed, not blockaded, and therefore we
have no right to interfere. At this time there is no naval vessel at
either port, both being here, one in a very bad or unseaworthy
condition.
I have the honor to state that the Cherokee landed
her cargo at Samana and Puerto Plata, the ports she was prevented from
entering in her passage to this port.
Yesterday, November 10, the Athene
(Hamburg-American) left for Macoris, convoyed by the Panther. She had been previously refused permission to land
her cargo at this place and other northern ports. The same vessel (Presidente) would not allow the Cuban or French
steamers to enter the port of Puerto Plata.
I am, etc.,
[Inclosure
1.—Translation.]
Mr. Galvan to
Mr. Powell.
Dominican Republic,
Department of Foreign
Relations,
Santo
Domingo, November 7,
1903.
Mr. Chargé d’affaires: I have the honor to
communicate to your excellency, by order of my Government, that the
port of San Pedro paeons has been included in
[Page 405]
the prohibition of maritime mercantile
traffic decreed on October 30, in the same respect as the four ports
of the Cibao, by the same reason of finding them in the hands of the
revolutionists.
The incidents that occurred there at the time of the discharging of
the steamer Cherokee of the “Company W. P.
Clyde” on the 3d of this month, the discharge that was interrupted
by a violent firing at the time, the rebels occupying the city of
San Pedro Macoris, imposes the sensible necessity to close also that
port to maritime commerce as a measure of public order and to
guarantee the interest of the commerce that with free access of the
insurrected place will suffer injury of which the Government, by the
measure of closing the port, very different from a blockade between
belligerents, who wishes to preserve its responsibility and that of
the Republic.
Accept, etc.,
[Inclosure 2.]
Mr. Powell to
Mr. Galvan.
Legation of the United States,
Santo Domingo City, November 9, 1903.
Sir: I have the honor to acknowledge the
receipt of your excellency’s communication of November 7, informing
this legation that the port of San Pedro de Macoris was closed to
maritime commerce on account of the said place being in the hands of
the insurgents.
In reply to your excellency’s communication, I can not recognize that
any of the ports named are closed unless there is before such ports
armed force sufficiently strong to forcibly prevent a vessel from
entering the ports named. If your excellency’s Government has not
such a force at the places named, I can not recognize the said ports
to be closed to American commerce.
Accept, etc.
W. F. Powell,
United States Chargé
d’Affaires.
[Inclosure
3.—Translation.]
Mr. Galvan to
Mr. Powell.
Dominican Republic,
Department of Foreign
Relations,
Santo
Domingo, November 10,
1903.
Honorable Sir: I have the honor to note the
receipt of your excellency’s note, dated the 9th of the present
month, declaring that your excellency can not recognize that any of
the Dominican ports (which are legally closed, as has been notified
to your excellency through this department and as has been
circulated to the diplomatic and consular corps of this capital) are
effectively closed to maritime commerce unless there is a sufficient
armed force situated before said ports to prevent a vessel entering
into the named port.
What it means is that your excellency, even after the preceding
explanation that has been given by this department, insists on
mixing the case of the jurisdiction of public order and of internal
right, employed by the Dominican Government in closing the ports
that are occupied by the insurgents, with the case extraordinary
that in international right are submitted to the rules of blockade.
It is very different.
The Dominican Government, through my department, makes it present to
your excellency that one of the judicial consequences injurious to
the interests of the commercial importer is the nullity of the
payment of the port and custom-house dues in the hands of whom has
not the legitimate quality delegated by the treasury to receive the
said duties, wherefrom is derived the unavoidable obligation by the
merchant debtor to repeat the payment when the competent authority
demands.
My Government hopes that in authorizing your legation for its
citizens to violate the mandates of this Government, operating in
the ports accidentally prohibited to maritime commerce, will take it
for convenience to give notice to them of the preceding.
Accept, etc.,
