ated a legitimate debt, flatly refused to accept the responsibility for the frauds which had been committed in the floating of the Domingue loan, and the National Assembly undertook to investigate the matter. This important inquiry proved that there could not exist the least doubt as to the well-founded attitude assumed by Haiti; it was found out that she owed neither the 58,000,000 of francs which were originally claimed, nor the 40,000,000 which France wanted her to acknowledge as the amount due. By Decree of July 11, 1877, the National Assembly admitted, in the name of the country, a debt of 21,000,000 francs, bearing interest at 6 per cent per annum. In this manner the Haitian Republic incontestably proved her desire to safeguard her interests without sacrificing those of her legitimate creditors.
Consequently, France, which had in the mean time been brought to a clear understanding as to the true facts of the case, resumed her official relations with Haiti by sending in December, 1878, a Minister Plenipotentiary to Port-au-Prince. The cordial intercourse which formerly existed between the two nations was restored and the Haitians were enabled to come to a just and reasonable agreement with the bond-holders.
Whilst Boisrond Canal's government was in the midst of its difficulties with France it was suddenly threatened with graver complications with Spain, which, being unable to subdue the Cuban insurrection, seemed bent on making Haiti her scapegoat. On the 3d of December, 1877, the man-of-war Sanchez Barcaiztegui anchored in the harbor of Port-au-Prince; her Commander, Antonio Ferry y Rival, was commissioned to make an inquiry as to the legality of the sentence passed on one Jose Santisi by the Haitian criminal court. She left the port without having caused any trouble. But a few days later, on the 14th of December, Commandant Jose Maria Autran arrived on the man-of-war Jorge Juan, and at once gave rise to a situation fraught with much danger. On the 17th he sent an ultimatum to the Secretary of Exterior Relations of Haiti allowing seventy-two hours for the settlement of the alleged
