Mr. Langston to Mr. Bayard.
Port-au-Prince, Hayti, May 28, 1885. (Received June 12.)
Sir: I have the honor to advise the Department that yesterday, at 5 o’clock in the afternoon, Mr. C. A. Van Bokkelen, who has been confined for the past fifteen months, as a debtor under Haytian law, in the common jail of this city and the military hospital, denied the benefit of the insolvent act of the country, though a citizen of the United States of America, and, manifestly, under the treaty of 1864, existing between this Government and that of the United States, entitled to all its benefits, was conducted to this legation and delivered to me by an attorney of the Government, on its order, as stated, and thus given his release and liberty.
This proceeding, it would seem, is the result of the reconsideration of this case, according to my earnest request, as presented in my dispatch addressed to Mr. Prophète on the 5th instant, a copy of which I had the honor to transmit to you as an inclosure to my dispatch No. 736, of the 9th instant; and, more especially, of a full and complete verbal explanation of the facts and law of the case made by me to President Salomon himself, immediately after transmitting my dispatch of the 5th instant to Mr. Prophète.
No written communication was brought me by the person conducting Mr. Van Bokkelen to the legation; but to my demand as to whether he had brought me a communication from the Government explanatory of the decision which it had taken and its action, he replied that the President would explain the matter to me.
I am writing you now at an early hour of the morning—7 o’clock—in order that I may report the fact of the release of Mr. Van Bokkelen, without the least delay, by a mail which may be closed this morning at [Page 522] an early uncertain hour, going to New Tort, via Havana, Cuba, and hence I do not await any communication which President Salomon may be pleased to make me on this subject.
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I am, &c.,