onditions, prospects, and resources of the Island.
From its tenor the negotiation of a treaty was not at that time
anticipated by the State Department. General Babcock's mission finally
resulted however in a treaty for the annexation of the Republic of
Dominica, and a convention for the lease of the bay and peninsula of
Samana,--separately negotiated and both concluded on the 29th of
November, 1869. The territory included in the Dominican Republic is
the eastern portion of the Island of San Domingo, originally known as
Hispaniola. It embraces perhaps two-thirds of the whole. The western
part forms the Republic of Haiti. With the exception of Cuba, the
island is the largest of the West India group. The total area is about
28,000 square miles,--equivalent to Massachusetts, New Hampshire,
Vermont and Rhode Island combined.

President Grant placed extravagant estimates upon the value of the
Territory which he supposed was now acquired under the Babcock
treaties. In his message to Congress he expressed the belief that the
island would yield to the United States all the sugar, coffee, tobacco,
and other tropical products which the country would consume. "The
production of our supply of these articles," said the President, "will
cut off more than $100,000,000 of our annual imports, besides largely
increasing our exports." "With such a picture," he added, "it is easy
to see how our large debt abroad is ultimately to be extinguished.
With a balance of trade against us (including interest on bonds held
by foreigners and money spent by our citizen traveling in foreign
lands) equal to the entire yield of precious metals in this country,
it is not easy to see how this result is to be otherwise accomplished."
He maintained that "the acquisition of San Domingo will furnish our
citizens with the necessities of every-day life at cheaper rates than
ever before; and it is in fine a rapid stride towards that greatness
which the intelligence, industry, and enterprise of our citizens
entitle this country to assume among nations."

Earnest as General Grant was in his argument, deeply as his personal
feelings were enlisted in the issue, thoroughly as his Administration
was committed to the treaty, the Senate on the 30th of June (1870), to
his utter surprise, rejected it. The vote was a tie, 28 to 28, as was
afterwards disclosed in debate in open Senate. Though the votes of
two-thirds of the senators were required to confirm the tre