Papers Relating to Foreign Affairs, Accompanying the Annual Message of the President to the Second Session Thirty-eighth Congress, Part IV, Appendix to diplomatic correspondence of 1865; the assassination of Abraham Lincoln, late president of the United States of America, and the attempted assassination of William H. Seward, Secretary of State, and Frederick W. Seward, Assistant Secretary, on the evening of the 14th of April, 1865; expressions of condolence and sympathy inspired by these events

Mr. Rogier to Mr. Sandford

[Translation.]

Brussels, April 29, 1865.

My Dear Minister: While I transmit to Washington the expression of the sentiments of the government of the king, on account of the horrid crime perpetrated upon your venerable President, I must inform you of our astonishment at the sad news that has resounded through the entire country, and beg you to be the medium of our sentiments to your government.

I also take the liberty of asking you to have the kindness to be my interpreter with the family of Mr. Seward, for whom I have always professed a particular regard. The news given by the papers leave some hope for the recovery of the eminent statesman, and it is my dearest wish that he may be restored to perfect health, and give peace to a country so long desolated by the calamities of a war greatly to be deplored by all friends of liberty.

Accept, my dear minister, the new assurance of my very high and affectionate consideration.

CH. ROGIER,

Minister of Foreign Affairs.

H. S. Sanford, Esq., Minister of the United States.