Papers Relating to the Foreign Relations of the United States, Transmitted to Congress, With the Annual Message of the President, December 3, 1888, Part I

No. 645.
Mr. Thompson to Mr. Bayard.

Legation of the United States,
Port au Prince Hayti, July 21, 1888. (Received August 1.)

No. 196.]

Sir: By the arrival of H. M. S. Wrangler last evening and H. M. S. Canada this morning, we have at present in the harbor three British men-of-war, one French, and one Dutch.

I received this morning from the chief of the station at St. Nicholas Mole a cable dispatch which read as follows:

Impracticable this season, unless particulars of actual urgency furnished. Bayard, Secretary of State, Washington.

Not only our citizens, but even natives and aliens, have expressed to me the hope that one of our ships of war would also come, to show by such presence that no question of autonomy would enter into the difficulties that seem surely to be coming to this island in the near future.

I have, etc.,

John E. W. Thompson.