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

Atlantic Telegraph Company

The directors of the Atlantic Telegraph Company, while occupied on the eve of accomplishing their enterprise for drawing closer the ties of friendship and cordial intercourse between the two kindred nations of America and the British empire, have heard with horror of the atrocious and recent acts by which the people of the United States have been deprived of their Chief Magistrate, in the person of their estimable and patriotic President, and have lost for a time the active services of Mr. Seward, who is one of their foremost ministers and statesmen.

The directors desire to record their deep sympathy with the people of the United States on this calamitous occasion, and hoping that these wicked and disastrous crimes will be traced to individual malignity, wholly foreign and abhorrent to the feelings of any section of the American people, they share with them in the sorrow and indignation which they have excited in this kingdom, and throughout the civilized world.

The directors further desire respectfully to tender to Mrs. Lincoln, and the bereaved families and friends of the eminent men who have thus fallen and suffered under the hands of assassins, their joint and individual condolence on their cruel bereavement and sorrows.

Given under the common seal of the Atlantic Telegraph Company, at the offices of the company, within the city of London, this 8th day of May, 1865.

[seal.]

GEO. SAWARD,

Secretary.