File No. 174.
The French Ambassador to the Secretary of State.
Washington, May 18, 1906.
Mr. Secretary of State: By letter dated May 25, 1905,a the Department of State had asked me to furnish certain additional evidence bearing on the claim of Messrs. Laurent & Lambert for losses sustained by them through acts of the federal troops during the Spanish-American war.
The minister of France at Habana, to whom I transmitted your request, has sent me the documents of which I have the honor to append copies hereto.a
These documents are the following:
First. An affidavit sworn to before the consul of France at Santiago by three witnesses, from which it appears that about the end of July, 1898, the American troops had established their camp on Messrs. Laurent & Lambert’s “finca “and that at that time the houses and buildings that stood there were gradually torn down, gutted, and finally razed to the ground.
Second. A letter of the said Messrs. Laurent & Lambert, accompanied by a summons to appear before the board of the “Junta investigadora del ejercito, de reclamaciones.”
This summons, dated April 15, 1899, was followed by an investigation conducted by Lieut. George R. Armstrong on the spot where he ascertained the facts on which the claim is based.
Third. The original of the inventory of the San Pedro finca deposited at the French consulate at Santiago on November 6, 1895.
It had been taken for granted that the archives of the board of the junta investigadora were filed in the War Department at Washington, seeing that the military authorities had taken charge of the case, as shown by the above-mentioned summons, and that the said authorities were in consequence both the authors and custodians of the record, and this was the reason why the interested parties had not deemed it necessary to produce the additional proof and evidence furnished by the inclosed documents.
[Page 393]I should be thankful to your excellency if you would kindly, in the present state of things, again bespeak for my countrymen’s claim the equitable examination of the Secretary of War, at whose disposal I hold the originals of the documents, copies of which I have the honor to inclose in this letter.
Be pleased, etc.,