496 IN THE DIPLOMATIC SERVICE-III 



"in behalf of the Government of the United States"; 

 had it placed immediately in a large box with the words 

 "War Department " upon it, in very staring letters; and 

 so the matter ended. Fortunately the commission, though 

 attacked for a multitude of sins, escaped censure in this 

 matter. 



One part of our duty was somewhat peculiar. The 

 United States, a few years before, had been on the point 

 of concluding negotiations with Denmark for the purchase 

 of St. Thomas, when a volcanic disturbance threw an 

 American frigate in the harbor of that island upon the 

 shore, utterly wrecking both the vessel and the treaty. 

 This experience it was which led to the insertion of a 

 clause in the Congressional instructions to the commission 

 requiring them to make examinations regarding the fre- 

 quency and severity of earthquakes. This duty we dis- 

 charged faithfully, and on one occasion with a result in- 

 teresting both to students of history and of psychology. 

 Arriving at the old town of Cotuy, among the mountains, 

 and returning the vicar's call, after my public reception, I 

 asked him the stereotyped question regarding earthquakes, 

 and was answered that about the year 1840 there had 

 been one of a very terrible sort; that it had shaken and 

 broken his great stone church very badly ; that he had re- 

 paired the whole structure, except the gaping crevice 

 above the front entrance; "and," said the good old padre, 

 "that I left as a warning to my people, thinking that it 

 might have a good influence upon them. ' ' On visiting the 

 church, we found the crevice as the padre had described it ; 

 but his reasoning was especially interesting, because it 

 corroborated the contention of Buckle, who, but a few 

 years before, in his "History of Civilization in England," 

 had stated that earthquakes and volcanoes had aided the 

 clergy of southern countries in maintaining superstition, 

 and who had afterward defended this view with great 

 wealth of learning when it was attacked by a writer in the 

 "Edinburgh Keview." Certainly this Santo Domingo 

 example was on the side of the historian. 



