1851-May-05: British Consul Thomas Ussher reported with alarm from Port-au-Prince that Robert Walsh’s private language suggested a hidden American agenda.

1851-May-05: British Consul Thomas Ussher reported with alarm from Port-au-Prince that Robert Walsh’s private language suggested a hidden American agenda. According to Ussher, Walsh spoke of “parties in the U.S. who are bent upon obtaining a footing” in the eastern part of the island (the Dominican Republic) with or without their government’s official consent. Walsh allegedly proposed inducing Dominican President Buenaventura Báez to encourage the immigration of 5,000 to 6,000 Americans to serve as “colonists and auxiliaries” against the Haitians. Ussher viewed these proposals as “insidious” maneuvers that would inevitably lead to the subjugation and annexation of the Dominican Republic by the United States.