Mr. Blaine to Mr. Denby.
Washington, March 24, 1890.
Sir: Referring to your No. 988 of the 31st of October last, in relation to the claim of Louis McCaslin for injuries sustained by him in consequence of the closing of the bridge at Ningpo, on April 29, 1888, I have to inform you that the Department has received from Mr. Pettus, United States consul at that place, a dispatch bearing date the 12th ultimo, in which he transmits copies of his correspondence with yourself and the taotai and a report of the evidence in the case.
The purpose of the new investigation of the matter by Mr. Pettus and the taotai was to take the evidence of the native and the foreign witnesses jointly. Each side had previously examined its own witnesses separately, and for this reason each refused to accept the testimony taken by the other. It thus became necessary, in order to secure a common ground for discussion, to have all the testimony taken jointly by representatives of the United States and China. This point is made clear by the correspondence in the case and by your instructions to Mr. Pettus. The only explanation of his omission to produce his witnesses is found in the response of the taotai to his inquiry whether the foreign witnesses should be called. “If,” said Mr. Pettus, in his letter to the taotai of April 15, 1889, “you also wish that the foreign witnesses be called in again and their evidence retaken, I can have them summoned for the date decided upon.” In his letter of the 1st of May, 1889, the taotai, replying to Mr. Pettus’s inquiry, said: “I beg to state you must suit yourself about the foreign witnesses.” From this Mr. Pettus inferred, and seems to have had good ground to infer, that the presence and reëxamination of the foreign witnesses would not be required.
The natural construction of the taotai’s language would be that if Mr. Pettus desired to reëxamine his witnesses for the purpose of eliciting new evidence, he would be at liberty to do so, but that, if he preferred, he might let the claimant’s case rest on the evidence already taken. When, however, the taotai had examined the native witnesses, he closed the case, refusing to consider the evidence of the foreign witnesses previously taken, and rendered a decision against the claimant. The first and only object of the reëxamination of the case was thus completely defeated by a misunderstanding, for which the taotai was certainly largely responsible and of which he took advantage. It can not be said that there has been any joint investigation of the case in the sense in which that term was understood by yourself and the imperial authorities when Mr. Pettus and Taotai Nu were respectively instructed to proceed in the reëxamination of the matter.
The Imperial Government should not permit a fair and just consideration of the case to be prevented by such a misunderstanding between [Page 179] the consul and the taotai as that which has been described, or permit an adverse judgment of so doubtful a character to stand.
You are instructed to communicate these views to the Imperial Government.
I am, etc.,