rages, and that they have the power and the determination to check them. It is, however, very much to be hoped that you can effect the purposes of your visit without a resort to violence and destruction of property and loss of life. The presence of your vessel will, no doubt, work much good. The Department reposes much in your prudence and good sense." When Captain Hollins arrived at Greytown he found that the American consul had already demanded, on behalf of the United States, an indemnity for the Accessory Transit Company. On July 12, 1854, Captain Hollins, at nine o'clock in the morning, issued a proclamation announcing that, if the demands for satisfaction presented by the consul were not forthwith complied with, he would, at nine o'clock on the following morning, bombard the town. The demands embraced the immediate payment of $24,000 as an indemnity for injuries to the Accessory Transit Company and for outrages perpetrated on the persons of American citizens, and an apology for the indignity to Mr. Borland, together with satisfactory assurances of future good behavior. These demands were not complied with, and at daylight on the morning of the 13th of July Captain Hollins sent a steamer to the town to take away such persons as desired to go. At nine o'clock the batteries of the Cyane were opened on the town with shot and shell for three-quarters of an hour. After an intermission of the same length they were opened again for half an hour, and this was followed by an intermission of three hours, after which the firing was renewed for twenty minutes, and then the bombardment ceased. The object of the several intervals in the bombardment was to afford an opportunity to the people of the town to treat and arrange matters. No advantage was taken of it, and at four o'clock in the afternoon a force was sent ashore to complete the destruction of the town by fire. No lives were lost. "The execution," said Captain Hollins, in his report of the incident, "done by our shot and shell amounted to the almost total destruction of the buildings; but it was thought best to make the punishment of such a character as to inculcate a lesson never to be forgotten by those who have for so long a time set at defiance all warnings, and satisfy the whole world that the United States have the power and determination to enforce that reparation and respect due to them as a Government in whatever quarter the outrages may be committed." 46 Br. & For. State Papers, 859, 866-872, 875, 877, 878 et seq; 47 id. 1019– 1038; S. Ex. Doc. 9, 35 Cong. 1 sess. "I could not doubt that the case demanded the interposition of this. Government. Justice required that reparation should be made for so many and such gross wrongs, and that a course of insolence and plunder, tending directly to the insecurity of the lives of numerous travelers and of the rich treasure belonging to our citizens passing over this transit way, should be peremptorily arrested. Whatever it might be in other respects, the community in question, in power to do mischief, was not despicable. It was well provided with ordnance, small arms, and ammunition, and might easily seize on the unarmed boats, freighted with millions of property, which passed almost daily within its reach. It did not profess to belong to any regular government, and had, in fact, no recognized dependence on or connection with anyone to which the United States or their injured citizens might apply for redress or which could be held responsible in any way for the outrages committed. Not standing before the world in the attitude of an organized political society, being neither competent to exercise the rights nor to discharge the obligations of a government, it was, in fact, a marauding establishment too dangerous to be disregarded and too guilty to pass unpunished, and yet incapable of being treated in any other way than as a piratical resort of outlaws or a camp of savages depredating on emigrant trains or caravans and the frontier settlements of civilized states. 66 When the Cyane was ordered to Central America, it was confidently hoped and expected that no occasion would arise for 'a resort to violence and destruction of property and loss of life.' Instructions to that effect were given to her commander; and no extreme act would have been requisite had not the people themselves, by their extraordinary conduct in the affair, frustrated all the possible mild measures for obtaining satisfaction. A withdrawal from the place, the object of his visit entirely defeated, would under the circumstances in which the commander of the Cyane found himself have been absolute abandonment of all claim of our citizens for indemnification and submissive acquiescence in national indignity. It would have encouraged in these lawless men a spirit of insolence and rapine most dangerous to the lives and property of our citizens at Punta Arenas, and probably emboldened them to grasp at the treasures and valuable merchandise continually passing over the Nicaragua route. It certainly would have been most satisfactory to me if the objects of the Cyane's mission could have been consummated without any act of public force, but the arrogant contumacy of the offenders rendered it impossible to avoid the alternative either to break up their establishment or to leave them impressed with the idea that they might persevere with impunity in a career of insolence and plunder. "This transaction has been the subject of complaint on the part of some foreign powers, and has been characterized with more of harshness than of justice. If comparisons were to be instituted, it would not be difficult to present repeated instances in the history of states standing in the very front of modern civilization where communities far less offending and more defenseless than Greytown have been chastised with much greater severity, and where not cities only have been laid in ruins, but human life has been recklessly sacrificed and the blood of the innocent made profusely to mingle with that of the guilty." President Pierce, annual message, Dec. 4, 1854, Richardson's Messages, V. 282. In June, 1863, the Pembroke, a small American steamer, laden with merchandise from Yokohama to Nagasaki, in attempting to pass through the Straits of Shimonoseki was fired upon by the shore batteries and by an armed brig belonging to the Prince of Nagato. She was not struck, but she abandoned her voyage and retraced her way to Nagasaki. The American minister demanded redress for the insult to the American flag, and by his direction Commander McDougall, of the U. S. S. Wyoming, proceeded in July to retaliate upon the hostile daimio. He found at Shimonoseki three vessels belonging to the Prince, lying at anchor near the shore. He attacked them, and, after a sharp conflict with them and the shore batteries, sank a brig and blew up a steamer, by which action some forty persons were said to have been killed. The loss of the Wyoming was five killed and six wounded. A French steamer and a Dutch corvette had also been fired upon at the straits by the hostile daimio. The American minister presented to the Japanese Government a claim on account of the Pembroke for $10,000 for loss of time and freight and the abandonment of her voyage. The claim was promptly paid. Mr. Seward, Sec. of State, to Mr. Pruyn, min. to Japan, No. 50, Oct. 3, 1863, Dip. Cor. 1863, II. 1060, acknowledging the receipt of Mr. Pruyn's despatches Nos. 48 and 49, July 24, and No. 50, July 25, 1863, printed in the same volume. By the act of February 22, 1883, the Secretary of the Treasury was directed to distribute a certain sum among the officers and crew of the Wyoming, “ for extraordinary, valuable, and specially meritorious and perilous services in the destruction of hostile vessels in the Straits of Shimonoseki," July 16, 1863. (22 Stat. 421.) As to the Monitor claim, and the refusal of the United States further to press it, see For. Rel. 1888, II. 1068, 1069. As to the opening of the Straits of Shimonoseki, Japan, by the allied fleets, in 1864, see supra, § 849. In September, 1864, the treaty powers made a hostile demonstration against the Prince of Nagato, destroyed the batteries of Chosu, commanding the Straits of Shimonoseki, and compelled an unconditional surrender. The Tycoon was then required to express his disapproval of the course of his adversary, the rebellious Prince of Nagato, and to provide for the payment of the expenses of the expedition, or else to open more of his ports to commerce. Accordingly a treaty was concluded October 22, 1864, by representatives of the United States, Great Britain, France, and the Netherlands on the one part, and a representative of the Tycoon on the other, under which the Japanese Government promised to pay the four powers $3,000,000,"to include all claims of whatever nature for past aggressions on the part of Nagato, whether indemnities, ransom for Shimonoseki, or expenses entailed by the operations of the allied squadrons," or else to open Shimonoseki or some other eligible port in the Island Sea. The indemnity was paid and duly divided among the four powers. By an act of Congress approved February 22, 1883, the President was directed to return the United States' share to the Government of Japan, after deducting a certain amount for the officers and crew of the U. S. S. Wyoming and of the steamer Takiang for services in destroying hostile vessels in the Straits of Shimonoseki, the former on the 18th of July, 1863, and the latter in September, 1864. The money was duly returned with the specified deduction. Mr. Bayard, Sec. of State, to Mr. Cowie, April 13, 1888, For. Rel. 1888, II. 1069, 1070-1071. When the injury involves also an insult to the flag of the United States, the demand for satisfaction must be imperative, and the United States naval force at Japan may not only be used to protect the legation and any of the citizens of the United States there resident, but the Tycoon is to be informed that "the United States will, as they shall find occasion, send additional forces to maintain the foregoing demands." Mr. Seward, Sec. of State, to Mr. Pruyn, Sept. 1, 1863, MS. Inst. Japan, See, also, same to same, No. 45, July 10, 1863, Dip. Cor. 1863, II. 1039. The Haytian Republic, an American steamer, sailed from New York, October 4, 1888, with cargo and mails for various ports, including certain ports in Hayti. On the 21st of October, while going out of the Bay of St. Marc, she was taken possession of by the Haytian man-of-war Dessalines on a charge of breach of blockade. She was taken to Port au Prince, where she was condemned by a special prize tribunal. The United States objected to the seizure of the vessel, as well as to the proceedings by which she was 'condemned, and on the ground that her condemnation was improper asked for her release and for damages for the injuries suffered by her owners, as well as by the captain, officers, and crew. Admiral Luce was sent with the Galena and Yantic to Port au Prince to take the vessel in case the Haytian Government should refuse to give her up. He arrived at that port on the 20th of December, 1888, and at once addressed a communication to the American minister, requesting him to represent to the Haytian authorities the necessity of the immediate withdrawal of the guard from the Haytian Republic, in order to avoid the possibility of a collision between the guard and the officer whom he should shortly send to her. The admiral stated that he should take the steamer to the anchorage in the outer harbor before sunset. The Haytian Government, on being advised of the situation of things, surrendered the steamer, and an indemnity was subsequently paid for her arrest and detention. See S. Ex. Doc. 69, 50 Cong. 2 sess, and particularly pp. 171, 198, 241, et seq.; For. Rel. 1889, 491-494, 497, 503-511. Perhaps the most remarkable case in which force was used without Congressional authority was that of the march to Peking, in 1900, for the purpose of aiding in the deliverance of the beleaguered legations. See supra, China, §§ 808-810. (3) GAIN OF PREFERENCE IN PAYMENT. § 1094. It having been agreed in the protocols signed at Washington on May 7, 1903, between Germany, Great Britain, and Italy, on the one hand, and Venezuela, on the other, that the question whether the three first-named powers, which had united in a hostile blockade of Venezuelan ports, were entitled to the preferential payment of their claims against Venezuela over nonblockading powers having similar claims, should be referred to The Hague Tribunal, and the nonblockading powers having assented to the reference, a tribunal was specially constituted from the members of the Permanent Court of Arbitration, consisting of Mr. N. V. Mouravieff, Russian minister of justice; Mr. L. Lammasch, member of the Austrian House of Peers, and Mr. F. de Martens, permanent member of the council of the Russian ministry of foreign affairs. The arbitrators found that the Government of Venezuela had, in the protocols of February 13, 1903, recognized "in principle the justice of the claims" presented by the Governments of Germany, Great Britain, and Italy, while in the protocols between Venezuela and the nonblockading powers the justice of the claims of the latter was not so recognized; that, until the end of January, 1903, the Venezuelan Government did not protest against the pretension of the blockading powers to obtain special guarantees for the settlement of their claims, and through all the diplomatic negotiations made a formal distinction between "the allied powers and "the neutral or pacific powers;" that the neutral powers who claimed before the tribunal equality in the distribution of the customs receipts pledged for the payment of foreign claims did not protest against the pretension of the blockading powers to a preferential |