PUBLIC DOCUMENTS. 



665 



Brought forward $33,081 



Signal-men 594 



Quarantine 430 



Wharfage 6,793 



Recargo, municipal 1,105 



Recargo for Bteamer 5,886 



Water 241 



Import dues 691,391 



Export dues 71,419 



Coast fees 7,511 



Deposits 13,243 



Additional entrance fees 1,400 



Total.. , 



II. DIRECT AND INDIRECT TAXES. 



Registry and mortgages 274,706 



Licenses 12,721 



Stamped paper 18,574 



Postage-stamps 



Postal income 



Total $415,299 



III. PUBLIC PROPERTY. 



Sales and rents 15,000 



iv. SUNDRIES. 

 Sundries 8,462 



Total., 



$1,271,855 



The commissioners believe that the statement of 

 the public debt given above includes all the indebt- 

 edness or obligations for which the Dominican Re- 

 public is in any degree liable, as well that which it 

 considers valid and binding as that which it regards as 

 unfounded or overstated by the claimants. Through- 

 out the inquiry, it was urged upon the Dominican 

 authorities, that every claim known to exist, of what- 

 ever character, should be exhibited to the Commis- 

 sion, whose object was not to determine the precise 

 amount that was justly due and binding, but to get 

 at the bottom, and find the utmost limit of their obli- 

 gations, setting forth every thing for which the gov- 

 ernment could, under any circumstances, be made 

 liable. The above account contains much that the 

 American Government believes to be partly or wholly 

 groundless, and some which, upon inspection, will 

 appear questionable. There was brought to the no- 

 tice of the Commission a claim of Messrs Jesurun & 

 Son, of Curacoa, for upward of $500,000 for money 

 advanced to the Dominican Government, with inter- 

 est. This was the same loan as the $100,000 in 1857, 

 mentioned in the preceding^ list of pending claims by 

 the same parties. On being asked if he had any 

 statement or explanation to make regarding it, Mr. 

 Jesurun. who submitted the loan, declined to make 

 any. This claim has been already for a considerable 

 time before the Dominican Government, which re- 

 fuses to consider more of it than the amount named 

 in the foregoing list, and of that it is believed that 

 but a small part will be allowed. The debt was in- 

 curred for arms and provisions in time of war, when 

 the property furnished was estimated at $100,000, on 

 which compound interest at eighteen p^er cent, was to 

 be allowed. It is claimed by the Dominican Govern- 

 ment that, soon after the original contract was made, 

 that government turned over to these claimants a 

 ship and cargo valued at $70,000, and that subse- 

 quently other payments were made, which, taken to- 

 gether, reduce the amount to a sum much below that 

 named in the foregoing list. The claim is now pend- 

 ing before the Dominican Senate, and underlined 

 among the pending claims is one of President Baez 

 for the destruction of property. It is alleged by the 

 claimant that the Spanish Government recognized 

 this claim as valid, and ordered an examination to fix 

 the amount, but the Commission cannot understand 

 how this claim could be voted against the Dominican 

 Government. Another claim for damages, amounting 

 to $10,000, made by W. S. Cazneau, seems to be of a 

 similar nature. 



A question has been raised in our country, whether 

 the government and people of the Dominican Repub- 

 lic, having once been under the rule of the Haytians, 



might not be liable for a portion of the indemnity 

 exacted for France from Hayti for the estates of 

 French families who had been driven out of the island, 

 and whose property had been confiscated by the Hay- 

 tians during the revolution of 1791. The Commission 

 made inquiries on this subject of the Dominican Gov- 

 ernment and also in Hayti, and they could not learn 

 that the Haytian Government had ever made this 

 claim upon the Dominican Republic ; and they think 

 that, if made, it would be wholly without foundation. 

 By the so-called treaty of 1825, which Avas not a treaty 

 at all, but in form and in fact a royal ordinance 

 issued by the King of France, and forced upon the 

 Haytians by arms, the payment of 150,000,000 francs 

 was imposed to indemnify such former planters as 

 may claim indemnity, which imposition, in the ex- 

 press language of the ordinance, was upon the in- 

 habitants of the French portion of St. Domingo, 

 and upon these conditions independence was grant- 

 ed to the inhabitants of the French portion of the 

 island of St. Domingo. It was a burden imposed 

 upon the people of the French or Haytian part of the 

 island for depredations committed by them upon 

 French subjects in that part of the island, depreda- 

 tions with which the Dominican people had no more 

 to do than had the people of the United States. The 

 fact that the people of the Dominican or Spanish part 

 of the island were subsequently, for a few years, ruled 

 by the same government as that which ruled the Hay- 

 tian, did not render them inhabitants of the French 

 portion of the island of St. Domingo, nor liable for 

 burdens imposed on those inhabitants for their own 

 acts by treaties with other powers. The commission- 

 ers were informed by the Dominican authorities that 

 the present administration of the government has not 

 had diplomatic representatives, or made treaties or 

 engagements with any other Government except the 

 United States. An enumeration of the treaties made 

 during the previous history of the republic with 

 France, Great Britain, and other powers, will be 

 found in Ex. Doc. 17, Forty-first Congress, second 

 session. They are mostly treaties of navigation and 

 commerce, and contain no unusual provision requir- 

 ing notice here. 



The only dividing line between the Dominican Ke- 

 public and an adjoining nation is the boundary be- 

 tween it and the Republic of Hayti, a line carefully 

 surveyed and marked by monuments nearly a hun- 

 dred years ago, described and established by the 

 treaty of 1777, and repeatedly reaffirmed in subse- 

 quent treaties, all of which refer to it as the undis- 

 puted boundary. It is deeply embedded in the his- 

 tory of the island. It marks the separation of different 

 languages, different national traditions and character- 

 istics, different modes of holding and surveying the 

 soil, different peoples. In 1821, the people of what 

 is now the Dominican Kepublic threw oft the Span- 

 ish yoke, and proclaimed a republic. At this time 

 the boundary was undisputed, and the republic in- 

 cluded all the Spanish part of the island or, in other 

 words, all east of the line of 1777. In 1822 the Hay- 

 tian President, Boyer, acquired possession of the 

 whole island, and it remained under one government 

 until the revolution of 1844 resulted in the expulsion 

 of the Haytian rulers and the reestablishment of the 

 independence of the Dominican or Spanish-speaking 

 portion of the island, except a few interior valleys on 

 the Dominican side of the line, in some of which 

 there has been an almost constant struggle since that 

 time, the Haytian and Dominican forces alternately 

 occupying the disputed territory. Of this disputed 

 territory the Haytians have had practically constant 

 control, the towns of San Rafael, San Miguel, and Las 

 Caobas. The Benica Valley, east of these, with 

 Benica as its principal town, and the Neyba district 

 to the south, have been alternately overrun by both 

 governments. The attention of the Commission had 

 been drawn to a map issued by private parties in our 

 own country, claiming to be based on a Haytian re- 

 port made on this subject in President Geffrard's 



