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

Municipal Council of Forfar

Unto the government and people of the United States of America—the address of the provost magistrates and town council of the royal burgh of Forfar, in Scotland.

We beg to approach you with heartfelt regret upon the atrocious deed recently perpetrated, through which you have been so suddenly and cruelly bereaved of the wise and patriotic counsels of your honored chief. We have watched his career since he was first elected President of your great country, and he has more and more proved that his subdued firmness and energy, steadfastness to truth and morality, calm and foreseeing practical wisdom and kindly forgiving nature, fitted him for his high office, and specially qualified him for rightly steering the vessel of the state in its present perilous trials. It is, therefore, that we, in common with our countrymen, mourn his loss. We hope and trust that, chastened by the sad event, and guided by and following his noble example, you will in this time of affliction treat tenderly with all who have departed from the path of loyalty, and through your clemency command the admiration of the civilized world, heal shattered and embittered feelings, and engender kindly intercourse, so long rudely dislocated.

Signed in name and behalf of the council, in council assembled, by me, provost Forfar, and the seal of the burgh attached, this first day of May, eighteen hundred and sixty-five.

[seal.]

JAMES CRAIK, Jr.,

Provost and Chief Magistrate.