No. 489.
Mr. Peixotto to Mr. Fish
Bucharest, June 24, 1872. (Received July 18.)
Sir: I have the honor to acknowledge the receipt of your dispatch No. 30, of the 13th of May, and the instructions therein contained have been strictly complied with. While the timely action of the consular corps, by their collective note, and which I was happy, as on the occasion of the first note, to have evoked, had the unquestioned effect of rousing the Roumanian government to the dangers, and of taking the utmost precautions against renewed disturbances during the Greek Easter holidays, and to have effectually prevented such, I regret to say that beyond this no substantial results in the interest of justice and humanity have been obtained. The rioters of Ismail and the other contiguous towns of Roumania-Bessarabia, like those of Vilcor and Cabool, at Buzéo, were each and all acquitted before the jury at Braila.
These several decisions, it is contended, will outlaw the claims of the sufferers for indemnification, amounting to over 600,000 francs.
The prince, as I have reason to believe from the representations which I was enabled to lay before him, used his prerogative in so far as setting at liberty Rabbi Brandes and Mr. Goldschlager, two of the five Israelites condemned by the Buzéo jury to three years solitary confinement, but the other three were only so far fortunate as to have had their terms reduced and the imprisonment modified to correctional confinement.
The evidence of innocence in their case was scarcely less strong than in that of the two others, consequently they may be regarded as victims of political necessity.
I am happy to say that, through the humanity of the people of the United States, as well as of Europe, I have been made the medium of conveying succor to the sufferers in the recent riots, and have thus far been enabled to transmit through trusted sources nearly 40,000 francs.
The sufferings* * * * of the Israelites of this country have at length aroused the people of the civilized world to utter their emphatic protests. The parliaments of Great Britain, Germany, and Italy have given expression to sentiments of condemnation previously uttered by the entire European press. A great meeting has been held at the Mansion House, London, participated in by forty members of parliament and distinguished men from all creeds and professions, while the British cabinet have been in active correspondence with the other cabinets of the guaranteeing powers to evoke some definite solution based upon the treaties of Paris of 1856 and 1858 relating to these principalities.
It is a source of satisfaction to know that the action already taken, and that contemplated, by the powers directly partaking of political control is likely to hasten the results had in view by our Government when in my appointment it sought to exercise a moral influence in the same direction.
[Page 693]May I be permitted to urge that a note addressed to our ministers at the courts of Saint James, Berlin, Paris, Vienna, St. Petersburg, Rome, and Constantinople, instructing them to use all moral efforts to advance the solution of a question the importance of which is already recognized by these powers, would be received in the friendliest manner and attended with the happiest effect in promoting a common understanding, which alone appears necessary to induce united action.
I am, &c.,