Mr. Eustis to
Mr. Adee.
Embassy of the United States,
Paris, August 28, 1895. (Received Sept.
29.)
No. 362.]
Sir: My telegrams of August 23 and 26
informed you that, in compliance with the Department’s telegraphic
instructions of August 22, the second secretary of the embassy, Mr.
N. B. Eustis, and our legal adviser, Mr. Alexander, had proceeded to
Clairvaux, where Mr. Waller is confined, and had obtained from him a
sworn statement of all the circumstances relating to his trial. This
statement is herewith inclosed, and I trust you will find it covers
all the points of the case you had in view.
The representatives of the embassy were given all desirable
facilities to communicate with the prisoner, whose state of health
was satisfactory. He is no longer subject to the Malagasy fever, but
his constitution is feeble and the director of the prison has
recommended his removal before next winter to a milder place than
Clairvaux. In answer to a question addressed to him he stated that
he had no complaint to make as to his treatment in his present place
of confinement. He is placed on the invalid list, which enables him
to get the best food furnished to prisoners. He has received all the
letters addressed to him through this embassy, and is allowed to
communicate with whom he likes through the same channel. The
secretary informed him of the action of the Department with regard
to the return of his family to the United States, and assured him
that this embassy would take care of them.
In view of your telegraphic instructions received August 25,
concerning the possible search of Mrs. Waller’s effects upon her
arrival in France, I have asked, as a favor, that all facilities be
granted her by the custom-house officers at Marseilles, and have
also requested our consul at that port to use every effort to carry
out your intention.
With copies of the telegrams above referred to, I inclose herewith
copy and translation of a note from Mr. Hanotaux, dated August 26,
stating that he has asked the minister of war to ascertain by
telegraph from Madagascar when the Waller papers would reach Paris,
and that General Zurlinden had sent a cable to that effect.
In my telegram of the 19th I stated that these papers were expected
here at the end of the present month, and I find that such is still
the opinion and hope entertained at the foreign office. But I have
serious doubts in this respect. From all the information I have been
able to gather it is impossible for me to determine exactly where
these papers are.
Captain Campion, whose statement you mention in your Nos. 468 and
487, did send them to the admiral commanding, for transmission to
the
[Page 278]
navy department at
Paris, but it appears the admiral only forwarded the charges and
sentence of the court, with certain correspondence with our consul
and other parties. It is supposed that when, later on, he got the
request to send these papers, he remained under the impression that
the sentence and correspondence, which he had already forwarded and
which had not yet reached Paris, were all that was required. I am
assured that the long delays of which I have been complaining are
caused by the difficulties attending the postal and telegraphic
communications with Madagascar and by the above-mentioned
misunderstanding.
I send a letter addressed to me by Mr. E. G. Woodford. I wrote to him
that the State Department expressed its appreciation of his generous
assistance to Waller’s family, and he authorized me to make whatever
use of his letter I thought proper.
I have, etc.,
[Inclosure 1 in No.
362—Translation.]
Mr. Hanotaux to Mr. Eustis.
Mr. Ambassador: As I had the honor of
telling your excellency in the course of our last conversation,
I had pointed out to the minister of war the interest I had in
being informed as promptly as possible as to the date when the
papers in the Waller case would reach Paris, and I had requested
my colleague to ask for this information by telegraph of the
commander of the expeditionary corps at Madagascar in case he
should not be able to furnish it himself.
General Zurlinden has just made known to me that the documents in
question had been kept in the archives of the naval division of
the Indian Ocean, and that he had requested by cable the
superior commanding officer at Majunga to ascertain from
Rear-Admiral Bienaime at what date these papers had been
sent.
Please accept, etc.,
[Inclosure 2 in No.
362.]
Mr. Waller’s deposition.
Prison of Clairvaux, Village of
Clairvaux,
Department of
Aube, Republic of
France.
John L. Waller, being duly and publicly sworn, doth depose and
say:
I was born in New Madrid, Missouri, on the 12th of January, 1850.
I am a citizen of the United States.
In the month of February, 1891, I was appointed consul of the
United States at Tamatave, in Madagascar, and I continued in
said office until the 26th of January, 1894. From that date I
continued to reside in Madagascar, at Antananarivo, until 20th
September, 1894. I then started to go home to America and went
to Tamatave. I arrived in Tamatave about the 1st of October,
1894, and remained there until I was arrested, which was on
March the 5th, 1895. I remained there until I had settled up my
business.
I was arrested on March the 5th, 1895, by the French naval
authorities, who had proclaimed martial law at Tamatave. I was
charged with having communicated with the enemy to the detriment
of the military and political situation of France.
The history of the whole matter is as follows:
On the 20th of January, 1895, the English mail steamer arrived at
Tamatave, bringing me a letter from my wife. The ship arrived
very early in the morning. I went to the post-office and
received the letter from the post-office clerk. I understood
that’ an order had been issued that all letters arriving should
be given to the naval authorities of France. I had only heard
this as a rumor. On opening the letter I found enclosed in it
[one] from a young Hova friend of mine named Ratzmannia, whom I
had engaged to work for me on my concession in Madagascar, as he
spoke both his native tongue and French and English, and who was
assisting my wife to collect some money owed to me. He stated,
among other things, that I had promised before leaving
[Page 279]
Antananarivo, which
was before hostilities had been declared by the French, that I
had agreed that on my arrival in London or in America to send to
him and his father and brother each one Colt’s revolver. He said
he would be glad to send those revolvers at once; that as Paul
Bray, my stepson, was in Mauritius he perhaps could secure them
there. This part of the letter I cut out and destroyed it
because I feared if the letter fell into the hands of the French
or of others who did not understand the arrangement they might
infer that I was acting in a hostile way to the French.
On the 20th of January, 1895, I wrote to my wife and the young
Hova, but I dated the letter the 23rd, as the steamer was billed
to sail on that day. The ship, however, sailed on the 20th, and
I did not change the date. This letter was sent via Mauritius,
inclosed in a letter to George E. Tessier, a merchant there. A
few days after the departure of the steamer a friend of mine on
the street—I don’t know his real name, but he is always called
Koko and he speaks English and French—asked me how I liked the
new order issued by the naval authorities in regard to the
mailing of letters. I told him I knew of no order. He showed me
a printed circular, printed in French and issued by the naval
authorities of France. He translated this to me, and it was an
order forbidding any mail to be sent to Antananarivo except
through the French post at Tamatave. This was the first
information I had of this order. I am unable to read French. The
order was issued on the 18th instant. After hearing this I
thought of the letter I had sent out on the 20th. I went to John
Dublin’s, where I lived, and wrote two letters to John Tieber,
in Mauritius, calling his attention to the fact that I had
written those letters and requested him to call at the
post-office and claim them and hold them for me. I wrote two
letters because the first one was not satisfactory to me. I did
not send these letters, as I had no opportunity, and they were
seized by the authorities.
In the letter to my wife I stated that it was a Godsend that
these had not fallen into the hands of the French, as I feared
if they had the French would have shot Paul on account of the
statement made about the revolvers. On the 7th and 8th of
February I went down on the beach where the people were landing
from a French ship that had just arrived. I was standing quietly
among a large crowd, when Captain Levesot, of the military
authorities, came to me and ordered me to leave the beach,
although there were many police there. I heard nothing more
until I was arrested on March 5th. On that day the police came
and arrested me and seized my papers and correspondence. I was
taken to the office of Captain Levesot, who stated to me by an
interpreter that he had a very bad case against me, and that the
best thing I could do was to confess the whole thing. He, having
mistaken the name of Ratzmannia for Ramannia, the latter a
former merchant of Tamatave, asked me where Ramannia’s letter
was. I told him I had received no letter from Ramannia. He said
it was false, and that I had received a letter from him. I
found, on examination, the mistake the Captain was making as to
the names. I was then turned over to the police at the military
jail. About three days afterwards the prosecuting attorney came
with his interpreter. He said he had come to make a preliminary
examination. I then asked for counsel to assist me, which to
that time had been denied.
My request was refused, and they commanded that I should tell all
I knew about the case and my connection with it. The statements
made to them are in French and signed by me. I was suffering
from fever, and don’t remember what I said. I was torn to pieces
on account of not having counsel. The prosecuting attorney told
me that I could only have counsel after he had finished with me,
and that then I could have whom I pleased, except my stepson
Bray. This examination continued three hours that afternoon, and
two days afterwards they came again and continued the
examination for three hours more. During all this time I was
under guard and without counsel. Three or four days after, they
came to me and told me that they had taken Bray’s testimony and
Mr. Poupard’s, which they then proceeded to read to me. Also,
they read the testimony of Captain Levesot. I objected to this
testimony having been taken without my having an opportunity to
cross-examine the witnesses. This ended the matter until I
appeared in court on March 20th. The court consisted of French
naval officers. The following witnesses appeared and testified
as follows:
John A. Poupard testified that he had reason to believe that I
would have had him expelled from the country during the time I
was consul. He knew nothing of these letters.
Bray said he knew me; was my step-son, and that he did not have
the handling of my mail; that I attended to that myself. That he
did not know Draper and Purdy.
Captain Levesot testified as to the circumstances under which he
got the letters inclosed to Tessier. He had made up his mind
that they were criminal and that then he ordered my arrest.
There was another witness, whose name I don’t remember, who
testified that he did not know Purdy and Draper, although he had
lived in the country for several months, and that he did not
know me except by reputation.
The two letters were not read in open court. In one of my letters
to my wife
[Page 280]
before my
arrest I mentioned that I had entered into an arrangement with
Purdy and Draper by which they were to use their best efforts
with the French authorities at Antananarivo to have them
register at least 40 square miles of my concession, and that I
handed them $25, with an arrangement to give them $75 more when
the work was done, if they succeeded. Later on there were
several miners at Tamatave, one of whom told me that these men
were not my friends; that they hated and had already robbed me
of $25, and had the papers for $75 more; that the French would
give them a damned sight more to assist them than I could afford
to give them. This letter was not in evidence against me.
In my letter to my wife of the 23rd, which was produced against
me, I again warned her of these men, speaking of them as P. and
D. These men were not present at my trial, and the only mention
of them there was whether or not the witnesses knew them.
And though I asked for counsel and time to arrange my defense,
trying to get these men and Tessier as witnesses, I was
refused.
I was refused a revision of my case, and was sentenced to twenty
years’ imprisonment.
John L. Waller.
Sworn to before me this 25th day of
August, 1895.
[
seal.]
Newton B. Eustis,
Secretary U. S. Embassy, Paris,
France
.
[Inclosure 3 in No.
362.]
Mr. Woodford to Mr. Eustis.
No. 143 Cannon Street, E.
C.,
August 21,
1895.
Sir: I have the honor to inform you
that as I shall only be in London about a month I thought it
might be of service to you to place at your disposal what I know
about the Waller case, as there may be some facts which I
overlooked during our hurried interview of the 15th instant.
I arrived at Tamatave on March 11 by the French mail boat, and
was at once notified that Mr. Waller had been placed under
arrest by the French authorities under a charge of having
communicated with the Hovas. Among the correspondence of
Waller’s upon which the charge had been made, it appeared that
an article, or rather interview of my own, reported by the New
York Sun of October 7, 1894, had been also captured. The French
authorities made every possible effort to prevent my landing,
but upon application to the American consul I proceeded on
shore, and for purposes of personal safety and a desire to avoid
any entanglement, I resided at the consulate during my enforced
stay until April 4.
It being my intention to proceed to the capital of Madagascar on
my private business, the high-handed action of the French
authorities in their treatment of Waller had for me a keen
personal interest, more especially as rumors were about that he
was to be shot, and during the first week of my arrival I gave
considerable thought to the legal position assumed by the French
and to Waller’s position as an American citizen. Mr. Wetter, the
acting consul, gave me access to the intercepted correspondence
upon which the charge was based, and I gave them a number of
days’ careful consideration. The letters consisted of
communications to his wife, who, at the time, was at the
capital, and consisting in a great measure of private matters,
such as would be expected from the circumstances that he was in
financial embarrassments. Considerable portion of the letters
contained a most graphic description of the terrible outrages
and excesses committed by the French troops at their
occupation.
I formed the opinion at the time that there was absolutely
nothing in any of these letters, either written by himself or
his Hova friends, that gave the slightest shadow of excuse for
the action of the French military authorities. Waller was
absolutely defenseless, neither was there any possibility of
communicating with the capital, and the impression that I formed
at the time was that it would have been absolutely useless on my
part to advance the funds for legal assistance, as I was firmly
of the opinion that he was condemned in advance. I had known
Waller during my former visit to Madagascar in 1891, and was
aware that his action at that time in applying for his exequatur
direct to the Queen had given considerable umbrage to the
French, and I was also well aware that a grant by the Hovas to
him of a valuable land concession in the south had done more to
bring about the present French invasion than any other
circumstances. His color acted also to his disadvantage.
His trial took place on Monday, March 18, and on the documentary
evidence solely he was convicted and sentenced to twenty years’
imprisonment. I visited Waller in jail on the 19th, and was very
favorably impressed by his conversation and his
[Page 281]
general demeanor. About this time
his stepson, Paul Bray, received notification that he was to be
exiled to Zanzibar. I gave him all the advice and assistance I
could, having due regard to my own dangerous and peculiar
position, and he and his father left on the French steamer Djemnah on Monday, March 25. I managed to
leave Tamatave for a port 70 miles to the south on April 4, and
arrived at Antananarivo on the 16th of April. The following day
I met Mrs. Waller, whom I found to be in destitute circumstances
and in ignorance of her husband and son’s fate. She at the time
was the guest of a Hova gentleman, and was naturally in a great
state of anxiety. She had four children dependent upon her;
three daughters of 22, 16, and 8 years, respectively, and one
son of 11, and I made provision for their temporary relief
during my stay. Mrs. Waller gave me access to all her letters
and documents, and I also met and examined the Hovas who had
written to Waller, and obtained from them sworn statements of
their connection with Waller. It was quite apparent to me from
the first examinations and interviews that I made that Waller
had been outrageously treated. In no way had he acted otherwise
than in accordance with his rights as a man and his treaty
rights as an American citizen.
About the time that I concluded my business with the Hova
Government and was preparing to return to Europe, I considered
that it was nothing less than my duty, as the only American in
the capital, to remove them from a place where it was impossible
for them to earn a subsistence and where there was a possibility
of their being subjected to outrage or death in the possible
event of the French filibustering expedition sacking the
capital, and I therefore provided that Mrs. Waller should be
taken to the coast, and from there sent to the nearest port
where she could obtain cable communication and an opportunity to
obtain redress, together with the release of her husband, she
being practically the only person able to give the necessary
details.
Escape from Madagascar at this time was most uncertain, as it was
not known what the movements of steamers or vessels were, or
that the French might not at any moment blockade the Madagascar
coast, thus entailing months of delay and the terrible risks
attendant upon a residence in the deadly swamps that lie near
the coast. I succeeded on Tuesday, June 11, in placing them on
board the steamer Pembroke Castle at a
port called Vatomandry, and must here bear tribute to her
courage and her children’s in crossing the bar with me during a
terrible surf, which discouraged a great number of intending
passengers.
On the 12th instant I arrived in the port of Tamatave, where we
lay at anchor for seven hours. Owing to the formalities of the
French authorities and a strong wind which was blowing, I found
it impossible to communicate with the shore, but found much to
my satisfaction that the gunboat Castine
was at anchor. I was somewhat apprehensive that the French
authorities might endeavor to remove me forcibly from the vessel
or otherwise delay or inconvenience me, as they had acted in a
very high-handed manner in the previous war with a missionary,
Shaw. At a late period in the day the captain of the Castine, accompanied by the consul, came
on board and informed me that if I went on shore I would either
be killed or arrested. As I had not the faintest intention of
subjecting myself to any such possibilities, the advice was
needless.
I laid the facts of the matter before the captain of the Castine and the consul at a special
interview on board, and requested their advice and assistance as
to what I had best do with Mrs. Waller and her family, pointing
out to them that the call upon my ready cash had been
unexpected, and that in a measure I had thought that under the
circumstances Mrs. Waller and family might have been transferred
to the Castine, and that although their
passages were paid to Mauritius, and I had still funds on hand,
it was rather a difficult job for me to drag five helpless
people about with me. The captain of the Castine informed me that he had no instructions; that
he would be a short time on the Madagascar coast, and would then
cruise to South America. He kindly gave me $10 for Mrs. Waller,
and I shortly afterwards sailed and arrived at Port Louis on
Friday, June 14, with about sufficient funds to land them and
take them to a hotel. I was very ill after my arrival with
continuous attacks of fever, but, however, I arranged for them
at the time and during the four weeks I remained in the island
waiting for a steamer.
As it was impossible for me to sail direct by any of the French
boats, I was compelled to return to Europe via Colombo and
Marseilles. I left Mrs. Waller all I could, and was very glad,
on my arrival in Paris, to learn that the Government had sent
for her, and that she was now on her way to the United
States.
I may mention that during the time I was in Tamatave, prior to
Waller’s conviction, Mr. Wetter did everything that a man could
to assist Waller, and, as far as he and I could judge, the case
was unique, and under the circumstances could only be referred
to Washington for consideration by the State Department. Mr.
Wetter was at considerable private expense over matters not
provided for in the consular regulations—I mean cash
disbursements—and prepared a complete report with copies of all
the documents in connection with the matter. He read me portions
of this report, and
[Page 282]
I
accompanied him when they were mailed in time to catch the same
steamer upon which Waller and Bray sailed. Of course, during the
whole time that I was in the interior of Madagascar I was cut
off from all news of the outer world, and neither at Port Louis
nor Colombo could I obtain any American papers, and even up to
the present I have had no time to make myself acquainted with
what has transpired during the past five months. I wish you,
therefore, to understand that I am endeavoring to give you a
recital of the facts that occurred to my knowledge, uninfluenced
by anything but a sincere desire to see justice done to an
American citizen, and in the hope and confidence that the
arrogant acts of the French in Madagascar will receive the
consideration of the State Department.
I have personally invested a considerable amount of money in
Madagascar enterprises, to find myself harassed and subject to
heavy loss by this nation.
Apart from any business considerations which I may have in the
island of Madagascar, I shall be pleased at any time to do all
that lays within my power to obtain redress for this unfortunate
man and his family, and to obtain for American citizens trading
abroad security from the aggressions to which they are at
present being subjected.
I have, etc.,
