第172章

It became my duty to discuss the question of church property with the papal nuncio and vicar apostolic. He was an archbishop who had been sent over to take temporary charge of ecclesiastical matters; of course a most earnest Roman Catholic, but thoroughly devoted to the annexation of the island to the United States, and the reason for his opinion was soon evident. Throughout the entire island one constantly sees great buildings and other church property which have been confiscated and sold for secular purposes. In the city itself the opera-house was a former church, which in its day had been very imposing, and everywhere one saw monastery estates in private hands. The authorities in Santo Domingo had simply pursued the policy so well known in various Latin countries, and especially in France, Italy, and Spain, of allowing the religious orders to absorb large masses of property, and then squeezing it out of them into the coffers of the state.

In view of this, I said to the papal nuncio that it was very important for the United States, in considering the question of annexing the island, to know what the church claimed; that if the church demanded the restoration of all that had been taken from her, this would certainly greatly diminish the value of the island in the eyes of our public men. To this he answered that in case of annexation the church would claim nothing whatever beyond what it was absolutely and actually occupying and using for its own purposes, and he offered to give me guarantees to that effect which should be full and explicit.

It was perfectly clear that the church authorities preferred to be under a government which, even though they regarded it as Protestant, could secure them their property, rather than to be subject to a Roman Catholic republic in which they were liable to constantly recurring spoliation. This I found to be the spirit of the clergy of every grade in all parts of the island: they had discovered that under the Constitution of the United States confiscation without compensation is impossible.

It also fell to my lot, as the youngest man in the commission, to conduct an expedition across the mountains from the city of Santo Domingo on the south coast to Puerto Plata on the north.

During this journey, on which I was about ten days in the saddle, it was my duty to confer with the principal functionaries, and this gave me novel experiences. When-ever our cavalcade approached a town, we halted, a messenger was sent forward, and soon the alcalde, the priests, and other men of light and leading, with a long train of functionaries, came dashing out on horseback to greet us;introductions then took place, and, finally, there was a wild gallop into the town to the house of the alcalde, where speeches were made and compliments exchanged in the high Spanish manner.

At the outset there was a mishap. As we were organizing our expedition, the gentlemen charged with purchasing supplies assured me that if we wished to secure proper consideration of the annexation question by the principal men of the various towns, we must exercise a large if simple hospitality, and that social gatherings without rum punch would be offensive rather than propitiatory. The order to lay in a sufficient spirituous supply was reluctantly given, and in due time we started, one of our train of pack-horses having on each side of the saddle large demijohns of the fluid which was to be so potent for diplomatic purposes. At the close of the first day's travel, just as our hammocks had been swung, I heard a scream and saw the people of our own and neighboring huts snatching cups and glasses and running pell-mell toward the point where our animals were tethered. On examination I found that the horse intrusted with the precious burden, having been relieved of part of his load, had felt warranted in disporting himself, and had finally rolled over, crushing all the demijohns. It seemed a serious matter, but I cannot say that it afflicted me much; we propitiated the local functionaries by other forms of hospitality, and I never found that the absence of rum punch seriously injured our diplomacy.

Civil war had been recently raging throughout the republic, and in one of the interior towns I was one day notified that a well-known guerrilla general, who had shown great bravery in behalf of the Baez government, wished a public interview. The meeting took place in the large room of the house which had been assigned me. The mountain chieftain entered, bearing a rifle, and, the first salutations having been exchanged, he struck an oratorical attitude, and after expressing, in a loud harangue, his high consideration for the United States, for its representative, and for all present, he solemnly tendered the rifle to me, saying that he had taken it in battle from Luperon, the arch-enemy of his country, and could think of no other bestowal so worthy of it. This gift somewhat disconcerted me. In the bitterness of party feeling at home regarding the Santo Domingo question, how would it look for one of the commissioners to accept such a present?