The claimant pressed his claim persistently to the State Department; and in the year 1884, when Mr. Frelinghuysen was Secretary of State, a protocol was entered into between him and Mr. Preston, then minister plenipotentiary of the republic of Hayti, by which this claim, with another large claim in behalf of A. H. Lazare against the republic of Hayti, was submitted to an international arbitrator,--the Hon. William Strong, formerly a justice of the Supreme Court of the United States. The republic of Hayti retained Charles A. de Chambrun and myself as counsel for the defence. This hearing occupied one year of time, and the documents and the testimony taken covered two thousand printed pages. The investigation showed that Pelletier was born at Fontainebleau in France in the year 1819. At the age of fourteen he ran away from his home and country and came to the United States, where he found employment on board a ship, which was owned and navigated by one Blanchard of the State of Maine. From about the year 1835 to the year 1850, Pelletier was employed upon shipboard in various menial capacities, until finally he became master of several small vessels, which were employed on short voyages in the Caribbean Sea and on the coast of South America. About the year 1850 he appeared in the city of New York, and between that time and 1859 he was in the city of Chicago, where on one occasion and as the representative of some local party he was a candidate for alderman. He was also engaged for a time in the manufacture of boots and shoes at Troy, New York.