The American government, in its unwillingness to interfere in the internal affairs of the Dominican Republic, had suffered the Victoria administration to seize the government in Santo Domingo after the death of Caceres, and it now also condoned the violation of the fiscal convention. The American commission which went to Santo Domingo in 1912 to reconcile the warring factions, found that an essential condition of the restoration of peace and the rehabilitation of the government was the payment of pending salaries and certain other debts. Accordingly the United States consented to an increase of the Dominican public debt by $1,500,000, and the Dominican government contracted a loan to that amount with the National City Bank of New York, which took the bonds at 97-1/2 Per cent. The bonds bore 6 per cent interest, and for the service of interest and sinking fund, it was agreed that the general receiver of customs pay over to the Bank, beginning in January, 1913, a monthly sum of $30,000. This bond issue was finally liquidated in 1917. The amount so borrowed was not sufficient to pay all the indebtedness of the Dominican government. The manner of circumventing the debt increase prohibition of the convention having been discovered, the interior debt was further augmented after that time by failure to pay salaries, by hypothecating stamps and stamped paper, and by contracting other obligations, either to combat insurrections or because of less worthy motives. In addition, claims for revolutionary damages were filed against the government. The foreign debt thus consists merely of the $20,000,000 customs administration loan of 1907. The sums paid into the sinking fund of this loan have been used to purchase bonds of this issue at their market price, somewhat less than par, and the interest falling due on such purchased bonds has also gone to swell the sinking fund. The value of the assets in the sinking fund on December 31, 1917, estimating the purchased customs administration bonds at par, was $6,019,161.50, exclusive of interest accruals in 1917.