Immediately after receiving information of Mr. Teel’s arrest, and before
writing to the minister, I called on him and explained the facts as they
had come to me, and told him that I should, under the circumstances, be
obliged to demand that Mr. Teel be at once set at liberty. The minister
received my statements with his accustomed courtesy, and
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said he would give them prompt attention.
But I have not yet received his answer to my dispatch, which was handed
to him on the evening of the 25th instant.
I regret that I am not within sufficiently easy reach of the Department
to avail myself of its early instructions in this case. But in the
absence of those special instructions, I shall feel it my duty to
anticipate them so far as to follow up the position taken in my dispatch
to the minister, and I hope to be able at an early date to communicate
to the Department a favorable result of these efforts.
I have, &c.
[Inclosure A.]
Mr. Bassett to
Mr. Ethéart
Legation of the United States,
Port au Prince, July 25, 1872.
Sir: It becomes my tin pleasant duty to
call your attention to certain unlawful and unjustifiable
proceedings which were taken by the military authorities of your
government at Miragoâne, on the 22d instant, against Mr. Charles F.
Teel, the United States consular officer at that point.
The store and consular office of Mr. Teel, at the time and place
named, were forcibly entered by a band of armed men under command of
the general of the place. They ransacked his store and his house
from top to bottom, rudely overturning all the personal effects of
himself and his family, searching and seizing moneys in his store,
and uttering, meanwhile, imprecations against him and all other
foreigners. And then Mr. Teel himself was rudely seized, placed
under arrest, and in spite of his protestations hurried off to
prison to Anse-à-Veau, twenty-four miles distant from Miragoâne.
These proceedings were taken by the said military authorities in an
apparently malicious way, without due process of law, without even
fulfilling the formalities required by Haytian law, and with their
full knowledge of Mr. Teel’s official character.
The pretense for these violent and unlawful proceedings may be
briefly stated. Mr. Teel, in the ordinary course of business, had
received, as every other man engaged in business here does, certain
moneys in Haytian currency. This money was sent to Messieurs Emile
Sievers & Co., of this city, who declined to receive it, and
when it was returned to Mr. Teel, the general of the place,
pretending to think it unlawful money, came to seize it. Some three
or four young persons were put to the work of examining it, and
without, however, any adequate examination of it, pronounced
twenty-five thousand false money. Mr. Teel thereupon stated that he
could show that all moneys in his possession had been received in
the usual course of legitimate trade, and offered to exhibit to the
said general of the place his cash-book, from which could easily be
ascertained the names of all persons from whom he had received
money, since he began business at Miragoâne. But all representations
and protestations were unavailing with this general of the place,
who was and still is a debtor of Mr. Teel.
Mr. Minister, I regret all these proceedings more than you possibly
can regret them. And I must energetically ask of your government Mr.
Teel’s immediate release from prison. I make this urgent request,
first, because all the proceedings in searching his house, arresting
him and dragging him to a prison twenty-four miles from his home,
were illegal, unjustifiable, and therefore null and void; and,
secondly, because Mr. Teel’s official character as a consular
officer of the United States—not to mention his personal quality as
a citizen thereof—which clothes him with certain privileges and
immunities guaranteed by the law of nations and by treaty
stipulations between my Government and yours, has been strangely
disregarded and violated in the proceedings herein narrated.
It is my impression that neither in England nor in France nor in
Germany would a consular officer of the United States, nor would a
foreign consular officer in the United States, even when charged
with crime, be subjected to the proceedings ordinarily taken against
persons charged with criminal offenses. But here, Mr. Teel, so far
from being treated with the care and consideration due to his
official character, has been subjected to all this violence and
outrage without even a compliance with the formalities required by
your own laws for the arrest of the commonest criminals.
I therefore reiterate my urgent request for Mr. Teel’s immediate
release from prison; and if in future he or any other consular
officer of the United States in Hayti is charged
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with any criminal offense, immediate
knowledge of that fact, and of the evidence against him, should he
submitted to this legation.
I respectfully ask that you will give attention to this subject at
once.
I am, &c.,
