CONFESSION OF THE STATE DEPARTMENT.
In the strange report of the Secretary of State, responsive to a resolution moved by me in the Senate, the dependence of Baez upon our Navy is confessed in various forms. Nobody can read this document without noting the confession, first from the reluctant Secretary, and then from his agent.
Referring to the correspondence of Raymond H. Perry, our Commercial Agent at San Domingo, who signed the treaties, the Secretary presents a summary, which, though obnoxious to just criticism, is a confession. According to him, the correspondence “tends to show that the presence of a United States man-of-war in the port was supposed to have a peaceful influence.”[25] The term “peaceful influence” is the pleonasm of the Secretary, confessing the maintenance of Baez in his usurpation. There is no such thing as stealing; “convey the wise it call”; and so with the Secretary the maintenance of a usurper by our war-ships is only “a peaceful influence.” A discovery of the Secretary. But in the levity of his statement the Secretary forgets that a United States man-of-war has nothing to do within a foreign jurisdiction, and cannot exert influence there without unlawful intervention.
The Secretary alludes also to the probability of “another revolution,” of course against Baez, in the event of the failure of the annexion plot; and here is another confession of the dependence of the usurper upon our Navy.
But the correspondence of Mr. Perry, as communicated to the Senate, shows more plainly than the confession of the Secretary how completely the usurper was maintained in power by the strong arm of the United States.
The anxiety of the usurper was betrayed at an early day, even while vaunting the popular enthusiasm for annexion. In a dispatch dated at San Domingo, January 20, 1870, Mr. Perry thus reports:—
“The Nantasket left this port January 1, 1870, and we have not heard from her since. She was to go to Puerto Plata viâ Samana Bay [also in Dominica]. We need the protection of a man-of-war very much, but anticipate her return very soon.”[26]
Why the man-of-war was needed is easily inferred from what is said in the same dispatch:—
“The President tells me that it is almost impossible to prevent the people pronouncing for annexation before the proper time. He prefers to await the arrival of a United States man-of-war before their opinion is publicly expressed.”[27]
If the truth were told, the usurper felt that it was almost impossible to prevent the people from pronouncing for his overthrow, and therefore he wanted war-ships.
Then under date of February 8, 1870, Mr. Perry reports again:—
“President Baez daily remarks that the United States Government has not kept its promises to send men-of-war to the coast. He seems very timid and lacks energy.”[28]
The truth becomes still more apparent in the dispatch of February 20, 1870,—nearly three months after the signature of the treaties, and while they were still pending before the Senate,—where it is openly reported:—
“If the United States ships were withdrawn, he [Baez] could not hold the reins of this Government. I have told him this.”[29]
Nothing can be plainer. In other words, the usurper was maintained in power by our guns. Such was the official communication of the very agent who had signed the treaties, and who was himself an ardent annexionist. Desiring annexion, he confesses the means employed to accomplish it. How the President did not at once abandon, unfinished, treaties maintained by violence, how the Secretary of State did not at once resign rather than be a party to this transaction, is beyond comprehension.
Nor was the State Department left uninformed with regard to the distribution of this naval force. Here is the report, under date of San Domingo, March 12, 1870, while the vote was proceeding:—
“The Severn lies at this port; the Swatara left for Samana the 9th; the Nantasket goes to Puerto Plata to-morrow, the 13th; the Yantic lies in the river in this city. Admiral Poor, on board the Severn, is expected to remain at this port for some time. Everything is very quiet at present throughout the country.”[30]
Thus under the guns of our Navy was quiet maintained, while Baez, like another usurper, exclaimed, “Now, by St. Paul, the work goes bravely on!”
What this same official reported to the State Department he afterward reaffirmed under oath, in his testimony before the committee of the Senate on the case of Mr. Hatch. The words were few, but decisive, touching the acts of our Navy,—“committed since we had been there, protecting Baez from the citizens of San Domingo.”[31]
Then, again, in a private letter to myself, under date of Bristol, Rhode Island, February 10, 1871, after stating that he had reported what the record shows to be true, “that Baez was sustained and held in power by the United States Navy,” he adds, “This fact Baez acknowledged to me.”
So that we have the confession of the Secretary of State, also the confession of his agent at San Domingo, and the confession of Baez himself, that the usurper depended for support on our Navy.