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 Newark

To his Excellency Andrew Johnson, President of the United States:

Sir: We, the mayor, aldermen and burgesses of the borough of Newark, in the county of Nottingham, England, in council assembled, desire through you to express to our brethren in America, on our own behalf, as well as of the inhabitants of the town of which we are the municipal representatives, our deep commisseration on the melancholy event which has so suddenly and unexpectedly placed you in your present high and difficult position, and our profound abhorrence of the dastardly crime, which, at so important a period of his valuable, life, has deprived his country of the services of your distinguished predecessor.

Although the perpetrator of an act of unparalleled atrocity appears hitherto to have escaped detection, we trust that he may soon receive the just reward of his villany, and that through Divine assistance, you may be enabled by a wise and beneficent policy, to effect the object which at the time of his premature removal, appeared nearest the heart of Abraham Lincoln, namely, the restoration to peace and prosperity of your magnificent but now afflicted country.

Given under our common seal at the council chamber, in the Town Hall of the said borough, the 2d day of May, 1865.

[l. s.]

JOHN GILBIET,

Mayor.