BELLIGERENT INTERVENTION IN HAYTI.
The constant intervention in Dominica was supplemented by that other intervention in Hayti, when an American admiral threatened war to the Black Republic. Shame and indignation rise as we read the record. Already we know it from the State Department. Rear-Admiral Poor, under date of February 12, 1870, reports to the Navy Department his achievement. After announcing that the Severn, with an armament of fourteen 9-inch guns and one 60-pounder rifle, and the Dictator, with an armament of two 15-inch guns, arrived at Port-au-Prince the 9th instant, he narrates his call on the Provisional President of Hayti, and how, after communicating the pendency of negotiations and the determination of the Government of the United States “with its whole power” to prevent any interference on the part of the Haytian or any other Government with that of the Dominicans, (meaning the usurper Baez,) he launched this declaration:—
“Therefore, if any attack should be made upon the Dominicans [meaning the usurper Baez] during the said negotiations, under the Haytian or any other flag, it would be regarded as an act of hostility to the United States flag, and would provoke hostility in return.”
Such was his language in the Executive Mansion of the President. The Rear-Admiral reports the dignified reply of the President and Secretary of State, who said:—
“That, ‘while they were aware of their weakness, they knew their rights, and would maintain them and their dignity as far as they were able, and that they must be allowed to be the judges of their own policy,’—or words to that effect.”[66]
Such words ought to have been to the Rear-Admiral more than a broadside. How poor were his great guns against this simple reproof! The Black Republic spoke well. The Rear-Admiral adds, that he learned afterward, unofficially, “that the authorities were displeased with what they considered a menace on the part of the United States, accompanied with force.” And was it not natural that they should be displeased?
All this is bad enough from the official record; but I am enabled from another source, semi-official in character, to show yet more precisely what occurred. I have a minute account drawn up by the gentleman who acted as interpreter on the occasion. The Rear-Admiral could not speak French; the President could not speak English. Instead of waiting upon the Secretary of State and making his communication to this functionary, he went at once to the Executive Mansion, with the officers of his vessel and other persons, when, after announcing to the President that he came to pay a friendly visit, he said, that, “as a sailor, he would take the same opportunity to communicate instructions received from his Government.”
The President, justly surprised, said that he was not aware that the Rear-Admiral had any official communication to make, otherwise the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs would have been present, being the proper party to receive it. The Secretary of State and other members of the Provisional Government were sent for, when the Rear-Admiral proceeded to make the communication already reported, and at the same time pointing to his great war-ships in the outside harbor, plainly visible from the Executive Mansion, remarked, that it could be seen he had power enough to enforce his communication, and that besides he was expecting other forces (and in fact two other war-ships soon arrived, one of them a monitor); and then he announced, that, “if any vessels under Haytian or other flags were found in Dominican waters, he would sink or capture them.” Brave Rear-Admiral! The interpreter, from whose account I am drawing, says that the President felt very sorry and humiliated by this language, especially when the Rear-Admiral referred to the strong forces under his command, and he proceeded to reply:—
“That Hayti, having the knowledge of her feebleness and of her dignity, had taken note of the communication made in the name of the United States; that, under present circumstances, the Government of Hayti would not interfere in the internal affairs of San Domingo, but the Government could not prevent the sympathies of the Haytian people to be with the Dominican patriots fighting against annexation.”
Who will not say that in this transaction the Black Republic appears better than the Rear-Admiral?