"The Grand Chancellor, Secretary for Foreign Affairs,

"COMTE DE LA BOISSIERE."

At that time Richard Olney was Secretary of State, and in his
treatment of the protest, and of the gentleman who wrote it, he
fully upheld the reputation he made while in office of lack of good
manners. Saying he was unable to read the handwriting in which
the protest was written, he disposed of it in a way that would
suggest itself naturally to a statesman and a gentleman. As a
"crank" letter he turned it over to the Washington correspondents.
You can imagine what they did with it.

The day following the reporters in New York swept down upon the
chancellery and upon the Minister of Foreign Affairs. It was the
"silly season" in August, there was no real news in town, and the
troubles of De la Boissiere were allowed much space.

They laughed at him and at his king, at his chancellery, at his
broken English, at his "grave and courtly manners," even at his
clothes. But in spite of the ridicule, between the lines you could
read that to the man himself it all was terribly real.

I had first heard of the island of Trinidad from two men I knew
who spent three months on it searching for the treasure, and when
Harden-Hickey proclaimed himself lord of the island, through the
papers I had carefully followed his fortunes. So, partly out of
curiosity and partly out of sympathy, I called at the chancellery.

I found it in a brownstone house, in a dirty neighborhood just west