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

Inhabitants of Plaistow

Plaistow, undated

From the inhabitants of Plaistow, Essex, England, in public meeting assembled.

To Mrs. Lincoln:

Dear Madam: Many words in your present grief would be an intrusion. “We have expressed in another form our sympathy with the loss sustained by the United States as a nation. Here, and to you, we would only say that, as men and women of kindred race to your own, and, therefore, of the same Christian family, we fully share in the grief felt by those more immediately near to you. Distance does not create division in a common sorrow; may that sorrow felt most keenly by yourself be assuaged by the Great Healer, and to his tender mercy we affectionately commit you and yours.

Signed on behalf of the meeting:

JOHN FOSTER,

Chairman.