AS COMMISSIONER TO SANTO DOMINGO-1871 507 



from Maine, who had brought his family to the neighbor- 

 hood of Samana Bay in order to escape the rigors of the 

 New England winter. On my asking him about the dis- 

 eases prevalent in his neighborhood, he said that his entire 

 household had gone through a light acclimating fever, but 

 he added : ' ' We have all got through it without harm ; and 

 on looking the whole matter over, I am persuaded that, if 

 you were to divide the people of any New England State 

 into two halves, leaving one half at home and sending the 

 other half here, there would in ten years be fewer deaths in 

 the half sent here, from all the diseases of this country, 

 than in the half left in New England, from consumption 

 alone. ' ' 



A special element in the question of annexation was the 

 value of the harbor of Samana in controlling one of the 

 great passages from Europe to the Isthmus. It is large 

 enough to hold any fleet, is protected by a mountain-range 

 from the northern winds, is easily fortified, and is the 

 natural outlet of the largest and most fertile valley in the 

 islands. More than this, if the experiment of annexing an 

 outlying possession was to be tried, that was, perhaps, the 

 best of opportunities, since the resident population to be 

 assimilated was exceedingly small. 



But the people of the United States, greatly as they 

 honored General Grant, and much as they respected his 

 recommendations, could not take his view. They evi- 

 dently felt that, with the new duties imposed upon them 

 by the vast number of men recently set free and admitted 

 to suffrage in the South, they had quite enough to do 

 without assuming the responsibility of governing and de- 

 veloping this new region peopled by blacks and mulattos ; 

 and as a result of this very natural feeling the whole 

 proposal was dropped, and will doubtless remain in abey- 

 ance until the experiments in dealing with Porto Eico 

 and the Philippines shall have shown the people of the 

 United States whether there is any place for such depen- 

 dencies under our system. 



