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

The University of Cambridge

Address to his excellency the Hon. Charles Francis Adams, minister of the United States of America at the court of her Majesty the Queen of Great Britain and Ireland.

Sir: We, the chancellor, masters, and scholars of the University of Cambridge, desire to assure you, as the representative in this country of the United States of America, that we cordially share those sentiments of indignation and abhorrence which have been called forth throughout England by the intelligence of the assassination of President Lincoln. Removed, as we are, from the arena of political discussion, we still cannot forbear to say that crimes of this nature are essentially opposed to the interests of peace and civilization. The circumstances of peculiar atrocity which characterized the murder of President Lincoln must ever stigmatize it as a most foul blot on the history of our times.

We beg leave to request your excellency to make known in some suitable manner to your countrymen this respectful tribute of our sympathy and condolence with them on the great loss which they have sustained.

Given under our common seal, in our senate house at Cambridge, this 11th day of May, in the year of our Lord 1865.

[seal.]