France. Its consul-general breaks off relations with the Haitian government over the Dubrac affair.
On 25 November, M. Levasseur, consul-general of France, wrote from Port-au-Prince to the secretary of state for Foreign Relations, general Hyppolite, to demand of him, on behalf of Dubrac, forty thousand gourdes, representing the losses Dubrac had suffered, and in addition the sum of five thousand gourdes by way of compensation for the ill treatment of which he had been the victim.
On 28 November, President Pierrot signed a letter, dispatched from Le Cap to the consul-general of France, in which he set out the reasons for the expulsion of Dubrac, who had been denounced as having sought to sow civil war and division between the Black and the yellow men by arming the one against the other.
He declared in the letter that it had been repugnant to him to have Dubrac tried and condemned, and that he had preferred to expel him from the country by notifying him to leave it within 24 hours.
Besides, Pierrot showed himself merciful often enough; on his accession to power, one of his first acts had been to pardon a Frenchman who, under President Guerrier, had been condemned to death for smuggling and counterfeiting. President Pierrot had the papers concerning Dubrac handed on 15 December to the Council of the Secretaries of State, that it might report on them, while finding the claims of the consul-general of France greatly exaggerated. The Council of the Secretaries of State and the councillors of state present at Le Cap made their report to the President of Haiti on 18 December. They established that Dubrac could be entitled only to an indemnity of 5000 gourdes for the ill treatment he had undergone, but that nothing was owed him on account of losses, since he had suffered none, and that he had kept the enjoyment of his property, which his agent administered. The Council added that if the agent had closed Dubrac’s establishments, it was not by the orders of the Government, but by those of the commander of the Tonnerre; and that the honor of France was in no way engaged in this private affair. The Council of the Secretaries of State concluded that there was no ground for granting the consul-general of France the reparations he demanded.(i)
M. Levasseur rejected with the deepest displeasure the conclusions of the Council of the Secretaries of State and of the Council of State, and on 30 December gave notice of his withdrawal and of the breaking off of his relations with the Government by the following act: