Governor Amarol to Mr. Jones.
[Translation.]
Macao, June 23, 1865.
No. 72.]
Sir: I have the honor to acknowledge the receipt of your official letters, with date of yesterday, communicating to me, in one, your receipt of official confirmation from your government of the death of his Excellency Abraham Lincoln, President of the United States, and, in the other, notifying me that the sloop-of-war [Page 513] of your nation anchored in this port desires to make the usual funereal demonstrations for such a sad event to-morrow, 24th, current.
At the first intelligence of this disgraceful event I expressed immediately to you the profound grief of which I was possessed. Repeating now this manifestation, I am sure that you will receive the same as a sincere expression of the good and cordial friendship existing between the peoples of the United States and Portugal, and no less as witness of my personal and lively sympathy toward your noble nation.
That was a doubly deplorable attempt which deprived a great country of its worthy chief just at the time when he had achieved the end of a civil war which had for so long a period ravaged it.
This fatal occurrence will serve, however, to render still more grateful and cherished the memory of his Excellency Abraham Lincoln to his countrymen for the eminent services which he bestowed, even to the sacrifice of his own life.
Furthermore, expressing my sorrow that his excellency the Secretary of State, Mr. Seward, and his son, Frederick Seward, should have been made victims of this attempt, I congratulate with you over the comforting intelligence that they are thought to be beyond peril of life.
It remains for me to say to you that to-morrow the forts of the city and the lorcha-of-war Amazona will have their ensigns at half-mast, and the Guia fort will accompany this demonstration of grief with discharges of cannon, a gun every half hour.
God preserve you.
Governor of Macao.
W. E. Jones, Esq., Consul dos Estados Unidos em Macao.