The dispatch of the Secretary of State instituting this act of war does not appear in his Report; but we are sufficiently enlightened by that of Mr. Bassett, our Minister Resident at Port-au-Prince, who, under date of February 17, 1870, informs the State Department in Washington that he had “transmitted to the Haytian Government notification that the United States asked and expected it to observe a strict neutrality in reference to the internal affairs of San Domingo”; and then, with superserviceable alacrity, he lets the Department know that he communicated to Commander Owen, of the Seminole, reports that “persons in authority under the Haytian Government were planning clandestinely schemes for interference in San Domingo affairs.”[37] But a moment of contrition seems to have overtaken the Minister; for he adds, that he did not regard these reports “as sufficiently reliable to make them the basis for a recommendation of _severe or extreme measures_.”[38] Pray, by what title, Mr. Minister, could you recommend any such measures, being nothing less than war against the Black Republic? By what title could you launch these great thunders? The menacing note of the Minister was acknowledged by the Black Republic without one word of submission,--as also without one word of proper resentment.[39]
The officious Minister of the Great Republic reports to the State Department that he had addressed a diplomatic note to the Black Republic, under date of February 9, 1870, where, referring to the answer of the latter, he says, “It would nevertheless have been more satisfactory and agreeable to my Government _and myself_, if you, in speaking for your Government, had felt authorized to give assurance of the neutrality asked and expected by the United States.”[40] This letter was written with the guns of the Dictator and Severn behind. It appears from the Minister’s report, that these two war-ships arrived at the capital of the Black Republic on the morning of February 9th, when the Minister, as he says, “arranged for a formal call on the Haytian Government the same day.” The Minister then records, and no blush appears on his paper, that “the Admiral availed himself of this visit to communicate, _quite pointedly_, to the President and his advisers the tenor of his instructions.”[41] This assault upon the Independence and Equality of the Black Republic will appear more fully in the Report transmitted to the Senate by the Navy Department. For the present I present the case on the confession of the State Department.