Mr. Bayard to Mr. Thompson.
Washington, June 25, 1885.
Sir: I have to acknowledge with much satisfaction the receipt of Mr. Langston’s No. 741, announcing that on the 27th ultimo Mr. C. A. Van Bokkelen, confined for fifteen months as a debtor in the jail at Port-au-Prince, was released.
Mr. Langston observes that he has not formally presented the matter of indemnity to Mr. Van Bokkelen, but will give it prompt attention. It is trusted that no step of this character has been taken without instruction from this Department.
If any claim for indemnity be made here, it will receive due examination on its merits. It is to be remembered that up to a certain point the proceedings against Van Bokkelen, at the suit of Toplitz & Co., and other citizens of the United States, whose debtor he was alleged to be, were perfectly regular under Haytian and general bankruptcy law. The debt was established and the insolvency of the debtor admitted. It was only when Van Bokkelen was denied certain rights which a Haytian debtor would have under the insolvency act, that this Government claimed his treaty rights, as an American citizen, to be treated in “like manner as a Haytian, and be released from imprisonment for debt on making the same or an equivalent assignment as a Haytian debtor could make. By releasing Van Bokkelen without the formality of an assignment, and as would appear unconditionally, it may be found that Hayti has annulled the only security which Haytian law afforded for the debt, and may so have inflicted injury on those citizens of the United States at whose suit the judgment was obtained.
These considerations make it needful that any claim for indemnity, from whatever source, should have the most careful scrutiny before receiving the sanction of this Government.
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I am, &c.,