University of Virginia Library

28. CHAPTER XXVIII
AS COMMISSIONER TO SANTO DOMINGO—1871

RETURNING from Russia and Germany, I devoted myself during thirteen years, first, to my professorial duties at the University of Michigan; next, to political duties in the State Senate at Albany; and, finally, to organizing and administering Cornell University. But in the early winter of 1870-71 came an event which drew me out of my university life for a time, and engaged me again in diplomatic work. While pursuing the even tenor of my way, there came a telegraphic despatch from Mr. William Orton, president of the Western Union Telegraph Company, a devoted supporter of the administration, asking me whether I had formed any definite opinion against the annexation of the island of Santo Domingo to the United States. This question surprised me. A proposal regarding such an annexation had been for some time talked about. The newly elected President, General Grant, having been besought by the authorities of that republic to propose measures looking to annexation, had made a brief examination; and Congress had passed a law authorizing the appointment of three commissioners to visit the island, to examine and report upon its desirability, from various points of view, and to ascertain, as far as possible, the feeling of its inhabitants; but I had given no attention to the matter, and therefore answered Mr. Orton that I had no opinion, one way or the other, regarding it. A day or two afterward came information that the President had named the commission, and in the following order:

Ex-Senator Benjamin F. Wade of Ohio, Andrew D. White of New York, and Samuel G. Howe of Massachu-setts. On receiving notice of my appointment, I went to Washington, was at once admitted to an interview with the President, and rarely have I been more happily disappointed. Instead of the taciturn man who, as his enemies insisted, said nothing because he knew nothing, had never cared for anything save military matters, and was entirely absorbed in personal interests, I found a quiet, dignified public officer, who presented the history of the Santo Domingo question, and his view regarding it, in a manner large, thoughtful, and statesmanlike. There was no special pleading; no attempt at converting me: his whole effort seemed given to stating candidly the history of the case thus far.

There was much need of such statement. Mr. Charles Sumner, the eminent senator from Massachusetts, had completely broken with the President on this and other questions; had attacked the policy of the administration violently; had hinted at the supremacy of unworthy motives; and had imputed rascality to men with whom the President had close relations. He appeared, also, as he claimed, in the interest of the republic of Haiti, which regarded with disfavor any acquisition by the United States of territory on the island of which that quasi-republic formed a part; and all his rhetoric and oratory were brought to bear against the President's ideas. I had long been an admirer of Mr. Sumner, with the feeling which a young man would naturally cherish toward an older man of such high character who had given him early recognition; and I now approached him with especial gratitude and respect. But I soon saw that his view of the President was prejudiced, and his estimate of himself abnormal. Though a senator of such high standing and so long in public affairs, he took himself almost too seriously; and there had come a break between him, as chairman of the Senate Committee on Foreign Affairs, and President Grant's Secretary of State, Mr. Fish, who had

proved himself, as State senator, as Governor of New York, as United States senator, and now as Secretary of State, a man of the highest character and capacity.

The friends of the administration claimed that it had become impossible for it to have any relations with Senator Sumner; that he delayed, and indeed suppressed, treaties of the greatest importance; that his egotism had become so colossal that he practically assumed to himself the entire conduct of foreign affairs; and the whole matter reached a climax when, in a large social gathering, Mr. Fish meeting Senator Sumner and extending his hand to him, the latter deliberately rejected the courtesy and coldly turned away.

Greatly admiring all these men, and deeply regretting their divisions, which seemed sure to prove most injurious to the Republican party and to the country, I wrote to Mr. Gerrit Smith, urging him to come at once to Washington and, as the lifelong friend of Senator Sumner and the devoted supporter of General Grant, to use his great powers in bringing them together. He came and did his best; but a few days afterward he said to me: "It is impossible; it is a breach which can never be healed.''

Mr. Sumner's speeches I had always greatly admired, and his plea for international peace, delivered before I was fairly out of my boyhood, had made a deep impression upon me. Still greater was the effect of his speeches against the extension of slavery. It is true that these speeches had little direct influence upon the Senate; but they certainly had an immense effect upon the country, and this effect was increased by the assault upon him by Preston Brooks of South Carolina, which nearly cost him his life, and from which he suffered physically as long as he lived. His influence was exercised not only in the Senate, but in his own house. In his library he discussed, in a very interesting way, the main questions of the time; and at his dinner-table one met interesting men from all parts of the world. At one of his dinners I had an opportunity to observe one of the difficulties

from which our country suffers most—namely, that easy-going facility in slander which is certain to be developed in the absence of any effective legal responsibility for one's utterances. At the time referred to there was present an Englishman eminent in parliamentary and business circles. I sat next him, and near us sat a gentleman who had held a subordinate position in the United States navy, but who was out of employment, and apparently for some reason which made him sore. On being asked by the Englishman why the famous American Collins Line of transatlantic steamers had not succeeded, this American burst into a tirade, declaring that it was all due to the fact that the Collins company had been obliged to waste its entire capital in bribing members of Congress to obtain subsidies; that it had sunk all its funds in doing this, and so had become bankrupt. This I could not bear, and indignantly interposed, stating the simple facts— namely, that the ships of the company were built in the most expensive manner, without any sufficient data as to their chances of success; that the competition of the Cunard company had been destructive to them; that, to cap the climax, two out of their fleet of five had been, at an early period in the history of the company, lost at sea; and I expressed my complete disbelief in any cause of failure like that which had been named. As a matter of fact, the Collins company, in their pride at the beauty of their first ship, had sent it up the Potomac to Washington and given a collation upon it to members of Congress; but beyond this there was not the slightest evidence of anything of the sort which the slanderer of his country had brought forward.

As regards the Santo Domingo question, I must confess that Mr. Sumner's speeches did not give me much light; they seemed to me simply academic orations tinged by anger.

Far different was it with the speeches made on the same side by Senator Carl Schurz. In them was a restrained strength of argument and a philosophic dealing with the

question which appealed both to reason and to patriotism. His argument as to the danger of extending the domain of American institutions and the privileges of American citizenship over regions like the West Indies carried great weight with me; it was the calm, thoughtful utterance of a man accustomed to look at large public questions in the light of human history, and, while reasoning upon them philosophically and eloquently, to observe strict rules of logic.

I also had talks with various leading men at Washington on the general subject. Very interesting was an evening passed with Admiral Porter of the navy, who had already visited Santo Domingo, and who gave me valuable points as to choosing routes and securing information. Another person with whom I had some conversation was Benjamin Franklin Butler, previously a general in the Civil War, and afterward governor of Massachusetts—a man of amazing abilities, but with a certain recklessness in the use of them which had brought him into nearly universal discredit. His ideas regarding the annexation of Santo Domingo seemed to resolve themselves, after all, into a feeling of utter indifference,—his main effort being to secure positions for one or two of his friends as attachés of the commission.

At various times I talked with the President on this and other subjects, and was more and more impressed, not only by his patriotism, but by his ability; and as I took leave of him, he gave me one charge for which I shall always revere his memory.

He said: " Your duties are, of course, imposed upon you by Congress; I have no right as President to give you instructions, but as a man I have a right in this matter. You have doubtless noticed hints in Congress, and charges in various newspapers, that I am financially interested in the acquisition of Santo Domingo. Now, as a man, as your fellow-citizen, I demand that on your arrival in the island, you examine thoroughly into all American interests there; that you study land titles and contracts with the

utmost care; and that if you find anything whatever which connects me or any of my family with any of them, you expose me to the American people.'' The President uttered these words in a tone of deep earnestness. I left him, feeling that he was an honest man; and I may add that the closest examination of men and documents relating to titles and concessions in the island failed to reveal any personal interest of his whatsoever.

Arriving next day in New York, I met the other commissioners, with the secretaries, interpreters, attachés, and various members of the press who were authorized to accompany the expedition. Most interesting of all to me were the scientific experts. It is a curious example of the happy-go-lucky ways which prevail so frequently at Washington, that although the resolutions of Congress required the commissioners to examine into the mining and agricultural capacities of the island, its meteorological characteristics, its harbors and the possibilities of fortifying them, its land tenures, and a multitude of other subjects demanding the aid of experts, no provision was made for any such aid, and the three commissioners and their secretaries, not one of whom could be considered as entitled to hold a decisive opinion on any of these subjects, were the only persons expected to conduct the inquiry. Seeing this, I represented the matter to the President, and received his permission to telegraph to presidents of several of our leading universities asking them to secure for us active young scientific men who would be willing to serve on the expedition without salary. The effort was successful. Having secured at the Smithsonian Institution two or three good specialists in sundry fields, I obtained from Harvard, Yale, Columbia, Cornell, and other universities the right sort of men for various other lines of investigation, and on the 17th of January, 1871, we all embarked on the steam-frigate Tennessee, under the command of Commodore Temple.

It fell to my lot to take a leading part in sending forth our scientific experts into all parts of the republic. Fourteen

different expeditions were thus organized and despatched, and these made careful examinations and reports which were wrought into the final report of the commission. It is doubtful whether any country was ever so thoroughly examined in so short a time. One party visited various harbors with reference to their value for naval or military purposes; another took as its subject the necessary fortifications; another, agriculture; another, the coal supply; another, the precious metals; another, the prevailing epidemics and diseases of the country; while the commission itself adjourned from place to place, taking testimony on land tenures and on the general conditions and disposition of the people.

I became much attached to my colleagues. The first of these, Senator Wade of Ohio, was bluff, direct, shrewd, and well preserved, though over seventy years of age. He was a rough diamond, kindly in his judgments unless his feeling of justice was injured; then he was implacable. Many sayings of his were current, among them a dry answer to a senator from Texas who, having dwelt in high-flown discourse on the superlative characteristics of the State he represented, wound up all by saying, "All that Texas needs to make it a paradise is water and good society,'' to which Wade instantly replied, "That 's all they need in hell.'' The nimbleness and shrewdness of some public men he failed to appreciate. On his saying something to me rather unfavorable to a noted statesman of New England, I answered him, "But, senator, he made an admirable Speaker of the House of Representatives.'' To which he answered, "So would a squirrel if he could talk.''

Dr Howe was a very different sort of man—a man of the highest cultivation and of wide experience, who had devoted his whole life to philanthropic efforts. He had been imprisoned in Spandau for attempting to aid the Poles; had narrowly escaped with his life while struggling in Greece against Turkey; and had braved death again and again while aiding the free-State men against the pro-slavery myrmidons of Kansas. He told me that of all

these three experiences, he considered the last as by far the most dangerous. He had a high sense of personal honor, and was devoted to what he considered the interests of humanity.

Our main residence was at the city of Santo Domingo, and our relations with the leading officials of the republic were exceedingly pleasant. The president, Baez, was a man of force and ability, and, though a light mulatto, he had none of the characteristics generally attributed in the United States to men of mixed blood. He had rather the appearance of a swarthy Spaniard, and in all his conduct he showed quiet self-reliance, independence, and the tone of a high-spirited gentleman. His family was noted in the history of the island, and held large estates, near the capital city, in the province of Azua. He had gone through various vicissitudes, at times conquering insurgents and at times being driven out by them. During a portion of his life he had lived in Spain, and had there been made a marshal of that kingdom. There was a quiet elegance in his manners and conversation which would have done credit to any statesman in any country, and he had gathered about him as his cabinet two or three really superior men who appeared devoted to his fortunes. I have never doubted that his overtures to General Grant were patriotic. As long as he could remember, he had known nothing in his country but a succession of sterile revolutions which had destroyed all its prosperity and nearly all its population. He took very much to heart a passage in one of Mr. Sumner's orations against the annexation project, in which the senator had spoken of him as a man who wished to sell his country. Referring to this, President Baez said to me: "How could I sell my country? My property is here; my family is here; my friends are here; all my interests are here: how could I sell my country and run away and enjoy the proceeds as Mr. Sumner thinks I wish to do? Mr. Sumner gives himself out to be the friend of the colored race; but I also am a colored man,'' and with that Baez ran his hand through his crisp hair and said, "This leaves no doubt on that point.''

We discussed at various times the condition of his country and the relations which he desired to establish with the United States, and I became more and more convinced that his dominant motives were those of a patriot. As a matter of fact, the country under the prevailing system was a ruin. West of it was the republic of Haiti, more than twice as populous, which from time to time encroached upon its weaker sister. In Santo Domingo itself under one revolutionist after another, war had raged over the entire territory of the republic year after year for generations. Traveling through the republic, it is a simple fact that I never, in its entire domain, saw a bridge, a plow, a spade, a shovel, or a hoe; the only implement we saw was the machete—a heavy, rude instrument which served as a sword in war and a spade in peace. Everywhere among the mountains I found magnificent squared logs of the beautiful mahogany of the country left just where the teams which had been drawing them had been seized by revolutionists.

In one of the large interior towns there had been, indeed, one evidence of civilization to which the people of that region had pointed with pride—a steam-engine for sawing timber; but sometime before my arrival one of the innumerable petty revolutions had left it a mere mass of rusty scraps.

Under the natural law of increase the population of the republic should have been numbered in millions; but close examination, in all parts of its territory, showed us that there were not two hundred thousand inhabitants left, and that of these about one half were mulattos, the other half being about equally divided between blacks and whites.

Since my visit business men from the United States have developed the country to some extent; but revolutions have continued, each chieftain getting into place by orating loudly about liberty, and then holding power by murdering not only his enemies, but those whom he thought likely to become his enemies.

The late president, Heureaux, was one of the most monstrous

of these creatures who have found their breeding-bed in Central American politics. He seems to have murdered, as far as possible, not only all who opposed him, but all who, he thought, might oppose him, and even members of their families.

It was not at all surprising that Baez, clear-sighted and experienced as he was, saw an advantage to his country in annexation to the United States. He probably expected that it would be, at first, a Territory of which he, as the foremost man in the island, would become governor, and that later it would come into the Union as a State which he would be quite likely to represent in the United States Senate. At a later period, when I saw him in New York, on his way to visit the President at Washington, my favorable opinion of him was confirmed. He was quiet, dignified, manly, showing himself, in his conversation and conduct, a self-respecting man of the world, accustomed to manage large affairs and to deal with strong men.

The same desire to annex the island to the United States was evident among the clergy. This at first surprised me, for some of them were exceedingly fanatical, and one of them, who was especially civil to us, had endeavored, a few months before our arrival, to prevent the proper burial of a charming American lady, the wife of the American geologist of the government, under the old Spanish view that, not being a Catholic, she should be buried outside the cemetery upon the commons, like a dog. But the desire for peace and for a reasonable development of the country, even under a government considered heretical, was everywhere evident.

It became my duty to discuss the question of church property with the papal nuncio and vicar apostolic. He was an archbishop who had been sent over to take temporary charge of ecclesiastical matters; of course a most earnest Roman Catholic, but thoroughly devoted to the annexation of the island to the United States, and the reason for his opinion was soon evident. Throughout the

entire island one constantly sees great buildings and other church property which have been confiscated and sold for secular purposes. In the city itself the opera-house was a former church, which in its day had been very imposing, and everywhere one saw monastery estates in private hands. The authorities in Santo Domingo had simply pursued the policy so well known in various Latin countries, and especially in France, Italy, and Spain, of allowing the religious orders to absorb large masses of property, and then squeezing it out of them into the coffers of the state.

In view of this, I said to the papal nuncio that it was very important for the United States, in considering the question of annexing the island, to know what the church claimed; that if the church demanded the restoration of all that had been taken from her, this would certainly greatly diminish the value of the island in the eyes of our public men. To this he answered that in case of annexation the church would claim nothing whatever beyond what it was absolutely and actually occupying and using for its own purposes, and he offered to give me guarantees to that effect which should be full and explicit.

It was perfectly clear that the church authorities preferred to be under a government which, even though they regarded it as Protestant, could secure them their property, rather than to be subject to a Roman Catholic re-public in which they were liable to constantly recurring spoliation. This I found to be the spirit of the clergy of every grade in all parts of the island: they had discovered that under the Constitution of the United States confiscation without compensation is impossible.

It also fell to my lot, as the youngest man in the commission, to conduct an expedition across the mountains from the city of Santo Domingo on the south coast to Puerto Plata on the north.

During this journey, on which I was about ten days in the saddle, it was my duty to confer with the principal functionaries, and this gave me novel experiences. Whenever

our cavalcade approached a town, we halted, a messenger was sent forward, and soon the alcalde, the priests, and other men of light and leading, with a long train of functionaries, came dashing out on horseback to greet us; introductions then took place, and, finally, there was a wild gallop into the town to the house of the alcalde, where speeches were made and compliments exchanged in the high Spanish manner.

At the outset there was a mishap. As we were organizing our expedition, the gentlemen charged with purchasing supplies assured me that if we wished to secure proper consideration of the annexation question by the principal men of the various towns, we must exercise a large if simple hospitality, and that social gatherings without rum punch would be offensive rather than propitiatory. The order to lay in a sufficient spirituous supply was reluctantly given, and in due time we started, one of our train of pack-horses having on each side of the saddle large demijohns of the fluid which was to be so potent for diplomatic purposes. At the close of the first day's travel, just as our hammocks had been swung, I heard a scream and saw the people of our own and neighboring huts snatching cups and glasses and running pell-mell toward the point where our animals were tethered. On examination I found that the horse intrusted with the precious burden, having been relieved of part of his load, had felt warranted in disporting himself, and had finally rolled over, crushing all the demijohns. It seemed a serious matter, but I cannot say that it afflicted me much; we propitiated the local functionaries by other forms of hospitality, and I never found that the absence of rum punch seriously injured our diplomacy.

Civil war had been recently raging throughout the republic, and in one of the interior towns I was one day no-tified that a well-known guerrilla general, who had shown great bravery in behalf of the Baez government, wished a public interview. The meeting took place in the large room of the house which had been assigned me. The

mountain chieftain entered, bearing a rifle, and, the first salutations having been exchanged, he struck an oratorical attitude, and after expressing, in a loud harangue, his high consideration for the United States, for its representative, and for all present, he solemnly tendered the rifle to me, saying that he had taken it in battle from Luperon, the arch-enemy of his country, and could think of no other bestowal so worthy of it. This gift somewhat disconcerted me. In the bitterness of party feeling at home regarding the Santo Domingo question, how would it look for one of the commissioners to accept such a present? President Grant had been held up to obloquy throughout the whole length and breadth of the land for accepting a dog; what, then, would happen to a diplomatic representative who should accept a rifle? Connected with the ex-pedition were some twenty or thirty representatives of the press, and I could easily see how my acceptance of such a gift would alarm the sensitive consciences of many of them and be enlarged and embroidered until the United States would resound with indignant outcry against a commission which accepted presents and was probably won over by contracts for artillery. My first attempt was to evade the difficulty. Rifle in hand, I acknowledged my appreciation of the gift, but declared to the general that my keeping such a trophy would certainly be a wrong to his family; that I would therefore accept it and transmit it to his son, to be handed down from generation to generation of his descendants as an heirloom and a monument of bravery and patriotism. I was just congratulating myself on this bit of extemporized diplomacy, when a cloud began to gather on the general's face, and presently he broke forth, saying that he regretted to find his present not good enough to be accepted; that it was the best he had; that if he had possessed anything better he would have brought it. At this, two or three gentlemen in our party pressed around me, and, in undertones, advised me by all means to accept it. There was no alternative; I accepted the rifle in as sonorous words as I could muster —"in behalf of the Government of the United States''; had it placed immediately in a large box with the words "War Department'' upon it, in very staring letters; and so the matter ended. Fortunately the commission, though attacked for a multitude of sins, escaped censure in this matter.

One part of our duty was somewhat peculiar. The United States, a few years before, had been on the point of concluding negotiations with Denmark for the purchase of St. Thomas, when a volcanic disturbance threw an American frigate in the harbor of that island upon the shore, utterly wrecking both the vessel and the treaty. This experience it was which led to the insertion of a clause in the Congressional instructions to the commission requiring them to make examinations regarding the frequency and severity of earthquakes. This duty we dis-charged faithfully, and on one occasion with a result interesting both to students of history and of psychology. Arriving at the old town of Cotuy, among the mountains, and returning the vicar's call, after my public reception, I asked him the stereotyped question regarding earthquakes, and was answered that about the year 1840 there had been one of a very terrible sort; that it had shaken and broken his great stone church very badly; that he had repaired the whole structure, except the gaping crevice above the front entrance; "and,'' said the good old padre, "that I left as a warning to my people, thinking that it might have a good influence upon them.'' On visiting the church, we found the crevice as the padre had described it; but his reasoning was especially interesting, because it corroborated the contention of Buckle, who, but a few years before, in his "History of Civilization in England,'' had stated that earthquakes and volcanoes had aided the clergy of southern countries in maintaining superstition, and who had afterward defended this view with great wealth of learning when it was attacked by a writer in the "Edinburgh Review.'' Certainly this Santo Domingo example was on the side of the historian.

Another day brought us to Vega, noted as the point where Columbus reared his standard above the wonderful interior valley of the island; and there we were welcomed, as usual, by the officials, and, among them, by a tall, ascetic-looking priest who spoke French. Returning his call next day, I was shown into his presence in a room utterly bare of all ornament save a large and beautiful photograph of the Cathedral of Tours. It had happened to me, just after my college days, to travel on foot through a large part of northern, western, and middle France, especially interesting myself in cathedral architecture; and as my eye caught this photograph I said, "Father, what a beautiful picture you have of the Church of St. Gatien!'' The countenance of the priest, who had at first received me very ceremoniously and coldly, was instantly changed; he looked at me for a moment, and then threw his arms about me. It was pathetic: of all who had ever entered his door I was probably the only one who had recognized the picture of the cathedral where he had been ordained; and, above all, by a curious inspiration which I cannot to this hour account for, I had recognized it by the name of the saint to whom it is dedicated. Why I did not speak of it simply as the Cathedral of Tours I know not; how I came to remember that it was dedicated to St. Gatien I know not— but this fact evidently loosened the cords of the father's heart, and during my stay at Vega he was devoted to me; giving me information of the greatest value regarding the people, their habits, their diseases, and the like, much of which, up to that moment, the commission and its subordinates had vainly endeavored to secure.

And here I recall one thing which struck me as significant. This ascetic French priest was very severe in condemnation of the old Spanish priesthood of the island. When I asked him regarding the morals of the people he answered, "How can you expect good morals in them when their pastors set such bad examples?'' It was evident that the church authorities at Rome were of his opinion; for in nearly every town I found not only a

jolly, kindly, easy-going old Spanish padre, surrounded by "nephews'' and "nieces,'' but a more austere ecclesiastic recently arrived from France or Italy.

In the impressions made upon me by this long and tedious journey across the island, pleasure and pain were constantly mingled. On one hand was the wonderful beauty of the scenery, the luxuriance of the vegetation, and the bracing warmth of the climate, while the United States were going through a winter more than usually bitter.

But, on the other hand, the whole condition of the country seemed to indicate that the early Spanish rulers had left a curse upon it from which it had never recovered. Its inhabitants, in revolution after revolution, had destroyed all industry and industrial appliances, and had virtually eaten up each other; generation after generation had thus been almost entirely destroyed.

Finally, after nearly a fortnight of clambering over mountains, pushing through tropical thickets, fording streams, and negotiating in palm huts, we approached the sea; and suddenly, on the north side of the island, at the top of the mountain back of Puerto Plata, we looked far down upon its beautiful harbor, in the midst of which, like a fly upon a mirror, lay our trim little frigate Nantasket.

The vice-president of the republic, surrounded by the representatives of the city, having welcomed us with the usual speeches, we pushed forward to the vice-presidential villa, where I was to be lodged.

Having no other dress with me than my traveler's outfit, of which the main features were a flaming red flannel shirt, a poncho, and a sombrero, and having been invited to dine that evening at the house of my host, with the various consuls and other leaders of the place, I ordered two of my men to hurry down the mountain, and out to the frigate, to bring in my leather trunk containing a costume more worthy of the expected ceremony; and hardly were we comfortably established under the roof of

the vice-president, when two sailors came in, bringing the precious burden.

Now came a catastrophe. Turning the key, I noticed that the brass fittings of the lock were covered with verdigris, and, as the trunk opened, I shrank back in horror. It was filled, apparently, with a mass of mossy white-and-green mold from which cockroaches of enormous size darted in all directions.

Hastily pulling down the cover, I called a council of war; the main personages in it being my private secretary, Professor Crane, since acting president of Cornell University, and sundry of the more important men in the expedition. To these I explained the situation. It seemed bad enough to lose all means of presenting a suitable appearance at the approaching festivity, but this was nothing compared with the idea that I had requited the hospitality of my host by spreading through his house this hideous entomological collection.

But as I exposed this latter feature of the situation, I noticed a smile coming over the faces of my Dominican attendants, and presently one of them remarked that the cockroaches I had brought would find plenty of companions; that the house was doubtless already full of them. This was a great relief to my conscience. The trunk was removed, and presently the clothing, in which I was to be arrayed for the evening, was brought in. It seemed in a fearful condition, but, curiously enough, while boots, shoes, and, above all, a package of white gloves carefully reserved for grand ceremonies, had been nearly de-voured, the garments of various sorts had escaped fairly well.

The next thing in order being the preparation of my apparel for use, the men proceeded first to deluge it with carbolic acid; and then, after drying it on the balconies in front of the vice-president's house, to mitigate the invincible carbolic odor by copious drenchings of Florida water. All day long they were thus at work making ready for the evening ceremony. In due time it arrived;

and, finally, after a sumptuous entertainment, I stood before the assembled consuls and other magnates. Probably no one of them remembers a word of my discourse; but doubtless every survivor will agree that no speaker, before or since, ever made to him an appeal of such pungency. I pervaded the whole atmosphere of the place; indeed, the town itself seemed to me, as long as I remained in it, to reek of that strange mixture of carbolic acid and Florida water; and as soon as possible after reaching the ship, the contents of the trunk were thrown overboard, and life became less a burden.

Having been duly escorted to the Nantasket, and received heartily by Commander McCook, I was assigned his own cabin, but soon thought it expedient to get out of it and sleep on deck. The fact was that the companions of my cockroaches had possession of the ship, and, to all appearance, their headquarters were in the captain's room. I therefore ordered my bed on deck; and, though it was February, passed two delightful nights in that balmy atmosphere of the tropical seas while we skirted the north side of the island until, at Port-au-Prince, I rejoined the other commissioners, who had come in the Tennessee along the southern coast.

At the Haitian capital our commission had interviews with the president, his cabinet, and others, and afterward we had time to look about us. Few things could be more dispiriting. The city had been burned again and again, and there had arisen a tangle of streets displaying every sort of cheap absurdity in architecture. The effects of the recent revolution—the latest in a long series of civic convulsions, cruel and sterile—were evident on all sides. On the slope above the city had stood the former residence of the French governor: it had been a beautiful palace, and, being so far from the sea, had, until the recent revolution, escaped unharmed; but during that last effort a squad of miscreants, howling the praises of liberty, having got possession of a small armed vessel in the harbor and found upon it a rifled cannon of long range, had exercised their

monkeyish passion for destruction by wantonly firing upon this beautiful structure. It now lay in ruins. In its main staircase an iron ring was pointed out to us, and we were given the following chronicle.

During the recent revolution the fugitive President Salnave had been captured, a leathern thong had been rudely drawn through a gash in his hand, and, attached by this to a cavalryman, he had been dragged up the hill to the palace, through the crowd which had but recently hurrahed for him, but which now jeered and pelted him. Arriving upon the scene of his former glory, he was attached by the thong to this iron ring and shot.

Opposite the palace was the ruin of a mausoleum, and in the street were scattered fragments of marble sarcophagi beautifully sculptured: these had contained the bodies of former rulers, but the revolutionists of Haiti, imitating those of 1793 in France, as apes imitate men, had torn the corpses out of them and had then scattered these, with the fragments of their monuments, through the streets.

In the markets of the city we had ample experience of the advantage arising from unlimited paper money. Successive governments had kept themselves afloat by new issues of currency, until its purchasing power was reduced almost to nothing. Preposterous sums were demanded for the simplest articles: hundreds of dollars for a basket of fruit, and thousands of dollars for a straw hat.

With us as one of our secretaries was Frederick Douglass, the gifted son of an eminent Virginian and a slave woman,—one of the two or three most talented men of color I have ever known. Up to this time he had cherished many hopes that his race, if set free, would improve; but it was evident that this experience in Santo Domingo discouraged and depressed him. He said to one of us, "If this is the outcome of self-government by my race, Heaven help us!''

Another curious example bearing on the same subject was furnished us in Jamaica, whither we went after leaving

Haiti. Our wish was to consult, on our way home, the former president of the Haitian republic, Geffrard,— who was then living in exile near Kingston. We found him in a beautiful apartment, elegantly furnished; and in every way he seemed superior to the officials whom we had met at Port-au-Prince. He was a light mulatto, intelligent, quiet, dignified, and able to state his views without undue emphasis. His wife was very agreeable, and his daughter, though clearly of a melancholic temperament, one of the most beautiful young women I have ever seen. The reason for her melancholy was evident to any one who knew her father's history. He had gone through many political storms before he had fled from Haiti, and in one of these his enemies had fired through the windows of his house and killed his other daughter.

He calmly discussed with us the condition of the island, and evidently believed that the only way to save it from utter barbarism was to put it under the control of some civilized power.

Interesting as were his opinions, he and his family, as we saw them in their daily life, were still more so. It was a revelation to us all of what the colored race might become in a land where it is under no social ban. For generations he and his had been the equals of the best people they had met in France and in Haiti; they had been guests at the dinners of ministers and at the soirées of savants in the French capital; there was nothing about them of that deprecatory sort which one sees so constantly in men and women with African blood in their veins in lands where their race has recently been held in servitude.

And here I may again cite the case of President Baez— a man to whom it probably never occurred that he was not the equal socially of the best men he met, and who in any European country would be at once regarded as a man of mark, and welcomed at any gathering of notables.

Among our excursions, while in Jamaica, was one to Spanish Town, the residence of the British governor. In the drawing-room of His Excellency's wife there was

shown us one rather curious detail. Not long before our visit, the legislature had been abolished and the island had been made a crown colony ruled by a royal governor and council; therefore it was that, there being no further use for it, the gorgeous chair of "Mr. Speaker,'' a huge construction apparently of carved oak, had been transferred to her ladyship's drawing-room, and we were in-formed that in this she received her guests.

From Kingston we came to Key West, and from that point to Charleston, where, as our frigate was too large to cross the bar, we were taken off, and thence reached Washington by rail.

One detail regarding those latter days of our commission is perhaps worthy of record as throwing light on a seamy side of American life. From first to last we had shown every possible civility to the representatives of the press who had accompanied us on the frigate, constantly taking them with us in Santo Domingo and elsewhere, and giving them every facility for collecting information. But from time to time things occurred which threw a new and somewhat unpleasant light on the way misinformation is liberally purveyed to the American public. One day one of these gentlemen, the representative of a leading New York daily, talking with me of the sort of news his paper required, said, "The managers of our paper don't care for serious information, such as particulars regarding the country we visit, its inhabitants, etc., etc.; what they want, above all, is something of a personal nature, such as a quarrel or squabble, and when one occurs they expect us to make the most of it.''

I thought no more of this until I arrived at Port-au-Prince, where I found that this gentleman had suddenly taken the mail-steamer for New York on the plea of urgent business. The real cause of his departure was soon apparent. His letters to the paper he served now began to come back to us, and it was found that he had exercised his imagination vigorously. He had presented a mass of sensational inventions, but his genius had been

especially exercised in trumping up quarrels which had never taken place; his masterpiece being an account of a bitter struggle between Senator Wade and myself. As a matter of fact, there had never been between us the slightest ill-feeling; the old senator had been like a father to me from first to last.

The same sort of thing was done by sundry other press prostitutes, both during our stay in the West Indies and at Washington; but I am happy to say that several of the correspondents were men who took their duties seriously, and really rendered a service to the American public by giving information worth having.

Our journey from Charleston to Washington had one episode perhaps worthy of recording, as showing a peculiarity of local feeling at that time. Through all the long day we had little or nothing to eat, and looked forward ravenously to the dinner on board the Potomac steamer. But on reaching it and entering the dining-room, we found that our secretary, Mr. Frederick Douglass, was absolutely refused admittance. He, a man who had dined with the foremost statesmen and scholars of our Northern States and of Europe,—a man who by his dignity, ability, and elegant manners was fit to honor any company,—was, on account of his light tinge of African blood, not thought fit to sit at meat with the motley crowd on a Potomac steamer. This being the case, Dr. Howe and myself declined to dine, and so reached Washington, about midnight, almost starving, thus experiencing, at a low price, the pangs and glories of martyrdom.

One discovery made by the commission on its return ought to be mentioned here, for the truth of history. Mr. Sumner, in his speeches before the Senate, had made a strong point by contrasting the conduct of the United States with that of Spain toward Santo Domingo. He had insisted that the conduct of Spain had been far more honorable than that of the United States; that Spain had brought no pressure to bear upon the Dominican republic; that when Santo Domingo had accepted Spanish rule,

some years before, it had done so of its own free will; and that "not a single Spanish vessel was then in its waters, nor a single Spanish sailor upon its soil.'' On the other hand, he insisted that the conduct of the United States had been the very opposite of this; that it had brought pressure to bear upon the little island republic; and that when the decision was made in favor of our country, there were American ships off the coast and American soldiers upon the island. To prove this statement, he read from a speech of the Spanish prime minister published in the official paper of the Spanish government at Madrid. To our great surprise, we found, on arriving at the island, that this statement was not correct; that when the action in favor of annexation to Spain took place, Spanish ships were upon the coast and Spanish soldiers upon the island; and that there had been far more appearance of pressure at that time than afterward, when the little republic sought admission to the American Union. One of our first efforts, therefore, on returning, was to find a copy of this official paper, for the purpose of discovering how it was that the leader of the Spanish ministry had uttered so grave an untruth. The Spanish newspaper was missing from the library of Con-gress; but at last Dr. Howe, the third commissioner, a life-long and deeply attached friend of Mr. Sumner, found it in the library of the senator. The passage which Mr. Sumner had quoted was carefully marked; it was simply to the effect that when the first proceedings looking toward annexation to Spain were initiated, there were no Spanish ships in those waters, nor Spanish soldiers on shore. This was, however, equally true of the United States; for when proceedings were begun in Santo Domingo looking to annexation, there was not an American ship off the coast, nor an American soldier on the island.

But the painful thing in the matter was that, had Mr Sumner read the sentence immediately following that which he quoted, it would have shown simply and distinctly that his contention was unfounded; that, at the time

when the annexation proceedings were formally initiated and accomplished, there were Spanish ships off those shores and Spanish soldiers on the island.

I recall vividly the deep regret expressed at the time by Dr. Howe that his friend Senator Sumner had been so bitter in his opposition to the administration that he had quoted the first part of the Spanish minister's speech and suppressed the second part. It was clear that if Mr. Sumner had read the whole passage to the Senate it would have shown that the conduct of the United States had not been less magnanimous than that of Spain in the matter, and that no argument whatever against the administration could be founded upon its action in sending ships and troops to the island.

In drawing up our report after our arrival, an amicable difference of opinion showed itself. Senator Wade, being a "manifest-destiny'' man, wished it expressly to recommend annexation; Dr. Howe, in his anxiety to raise the status of the colored race, took a similar view; but I pointed out to them the fact that Congress had asked, not for a recommendation, but for facts; that to give them advice under such circumstances was to expose ourselves to a snub, and could bring no good to any cause which any of us might wish to serve; and I stated that if the general report contained recommendations, I must be allowed to present one simply containing facts.

The result was that we united in the document presented, which is a simple statement of facts, and which, as I believe, remains to this day the best general account of the resources of Santo Domingo.

The result of our report was what I had expected. The Spanish part of that island is of great value from an agricultural and probably from a mining point of view. Its valleys being swept by the trade-winds, its mountain slopes offer to a white population summer retreats like those afforded by similar situations to the British occupants of India. In winter it might also serve as a valuable sanatorium. I remember well the answer made to me by a man

from Maine, who had brought his family to the neighborhood of Samana Bay in order to escape the rigors of the New England winter. On my asking him about the diseases prevalent in his neighborhood, he said that his entire household had gone through a light acclimating fever, but he added: "We have all got through it without harm; and on looking the whole matter over, I am persuaded that, if you were to divide the people of any New England State into two halves, leaving one half at home and sending the other half here, there would in ten years be fewer deaths in the half sent here, from all the diseases of this country, than in the half left in New England, from consumption alone.''

A special element in the question of annexation was the value of the harbor of Samana in controlling one of the great passages from Europe to the Isthmus. It is large enough to hold any fleet, is protected by a mountain-range from the northern winds, is easily fortified, and is the natural outlet of the largest and most fertile valley in the islands. More than this, if the experiment of annexing an outlying possession was to be tried, that was, perhaps, the best of opportunities, since the resident population to be assimilated was exceedingly small.

But the people of the United States, greatly as they honored General Grant, and much as they respected his recommendations, could not take his view. They evidently felt that, with the new duties imposed upon them by the vast number of men recently set free and admitted to suffrage in the South, they had quite enough to do without assuming the responsibility of governing and developing this new region peopled by blacks and mulattos; and as a result of this very natural feeling the whole proposal was dropped, and will doubtless remain in abeyance until the experiments in dealing with Porto Rico and the Philippines shall have shown the people of the United States whether there is any place for such dependencies under our system.