shall we say of the conditions which made possible the treatment
which he and his friend received? I am glad B---- wrote the very
sensible and manly letter to the Embassy, which you mention.
After I have had an opportunity to converse with him, I shall be
in better position to reach a conclusion in regard to certain
matters about which I will not now express an opinion.

I would only add that I do not in the least share your
complacency in regard to the treatment which my son received. The
very fact that, as you say, no charges were made and that he was
detained on suspicion for many weeks after the Commission passed
on his case and reported to the Minister of the Interior that he
ought to be released, leads me to a conclusion exactly opposite
to that which you express. It seems to me impossible to believe
that any well-ordered government would fail to acknowledge such
action to have been unreasonable. Moreover, "detention on
suspicion" was a small part of what actually took place. To take
a single illustration, you will recall that after many weeks'
persistent effort to secure information, the Embassy was still
kept so much in the dark about the facts, that it cabled the
report that my son had embarked on The Antilles and was reported
lost. And when convinced of that error, the Embassy cabled that
it was renewing efforts to locate my son. Up to that moment, it
would appear that the authorities had not even condescended to
tell the United States Embassy where this innocent American
citizen was confined; so that a mistaken report of his death was
regarded as an adequate explanation of his disappearance. If I
had accepted this report and taken no further action, it is by no
means certain that he would not be dead by this time.