Mr. Claparède to Mr. Gresham.
Legation of Switzerland , January 11, 1894 . (Received January 13.)
Mr. Secretary of State:
By a note dated January 28, 1893, your honorable predecessor, in reply to a request for intervention which I had had the honor to address to him on the occasion of the murder of a Swiss citizen named Lecoultre, at Poassa, in the province of Bahia, Brazil, was pleased to inform me that he had instructed the United States minister at Rio to communicate with the consul-general of Switzerland in that city, and to lend him his good offices in the matter as far as might be possible without prejudice to the action of the minister of France, who already had charge of the case, and without arousing his susceptibilities.
In expressing to you, Mr. Secretary of State, the sincere gratitude of my Government for the kindness with which the Department of State was pleased, at that time, to comply with the aforesaid request, I have the honor to inform your excellency that various circumstances have hitherto prevented us from availing ourselves of the aid of the United States representative in Brazil, but I have received orders to have recourse to your kindness in behalf of a person who represents the heirs of the said Lecoultre. These heirs are having the farm worked which belonged to Lecoultre. This farm is situated at Cannavieras, in the province of Bahia, and is worked by a Swiss citizen named Jean Etter, whose life and property, owing to the disturbed state of that Republic, are in constant danger.
The property adjoins a farm which formerly belonged to a Frenchman named Blanchet, but which has just been sold to a Mr. Rosse, an engineer, who is a citizen of the United States, and who, as such, enjoys the protection of your Government. The owners of the farm which formerly belonged to Mr. Lecoultre desire to have it, and likewise the person of Mr Etter, placed under the protection of the United States of America.
[Page 676]As Switzerland has no diplomatic representative in Brazil, and as the Swiss Federal Government thinks that the person of Mr. Etter, in view of the present situation of the Republic of Brazil, is in a very-precarious condition, I have the honor, Mr. Secretary of State, in pursuance of the instructions of my Government, to request that the United States legation, under whose protection Mr. Etter’s neighbor is, may be instructed by you to take also Mr. Etter under its protection, together with the property of which he has charge.
Renewing the assurance of my Government’s gratitude for the assistance and protection which the United States Government, on various occasions, has been pleased to afford to Swiss citizens in localities where Switzerland has no diplomatic representative,
I gladly avail, etc.,