Minister Dawson to the Secretary of State.
Santo Domingo , August 1, 1906 .
Sir: I have the honor to report that shortly after the armed attack on the government buildings in San Pedro de Macoris, which occurred on May 19, the minister of foreign affairs told me in the course of a personal conversation that he had reluctantly come to the conclusion that Señor Marchena, a Dominican citizen and ad honorem consul of Portugal to this Republic, had really been implicated. Proofs of his complicity as well as of his enmity to the governmental authorities had been presented and he had taken a defiant attitude, publicly proclaiming that the Government would not dare to interfere with him because of his consular character. The local authorities had begun preliminary proceedings against him, and he had called upon the consular body at Macoris to intervene. The cabinet, earnestly desirous of avoiding giving any cause for offense to a friendly government and of even seeming to interfere with the very wide interpretation given by custom in this country to consular immunities, had ordered the proceedings stopped. His Government, however, proposed to withdraw Señor Marchena’s exequatur, directing a note to that effect to the Portuguese minister of foreign affairs because Portugal is not diplomatically represented in the Republic.
Accordingly on June 16 Señor Marchena was notified to this effect and about the same time the note referred to was sent to Lisbon. On the 18th Señor Marchena sent a note to the Dominican minister of foreign affairs vigorously protesting against the withdrawal of his exequatur, denying that he had been engaged in the conspiracy to shoot up the town, denouncing the local government authorities of Macoris as employers of spies, and announcing his intention of appealing to the Government of Portugal. On the same day he addressed a note to the dean of the consular corps at this capital in which he asked its intervention. Mr. Borno, Haitian minister plenipotentiary and ex-officio dean of the diplomatic and consular corps, being temporarily absent the note was delivered to me as next in rank.
I thereupon called upon the minister of foreign affairs and unofficially asked him about the matter. He at once showed me the communication he had written to the Portuguese foreign office, by which it appeared that a participation by Señor Marchena in a conspiracy which had resulted in an attack on the legal authorities of Macoris and the death of unarmed Dominican citizens, was frankly and explicitly alleged as the reason why the Dominican Government had deemed it necessary to withdraw his exequatur immediately. The note further expressed the warmest friendship for the Government of Portugal and the earnest desire of the Dominican Government that the former should name another consul.
The matter being in this status, it seemed to me that I had no right nor would it have been prudent to take any action, except to turn over the correspondence to the dean of the corps when he should [Page 571] return. This accordingly I have done. A copy and translation of my note to him are inclosed.
The whole affair is a striking illustration of the wisdom of the department’s practice of not appointing natives to consular offices, except where it is impossible to find anyone else.
I have, etc.,