No. 316.
Mr. Evarts to Sir Edward
Thornton.
Washington, September 16, 1879.
Sir: I have the honor to acknowledge the receipt of your note of the 13th instant, stating that you had been directed by the Marquis of Salisbury to inquire whether this government had approved of a convention concluded by the minister of the United States at Bogota with the Colombian minister for foreign affairs relative to the custody of ships’ papers. The inquiry is made because that convention is supposed to have been the basis of an act of the Colombian Congress upon the subject, the third section of which is regarded by Her Majesty’s minister at Bogota as specially objectionable.
In reply, I have the honor to state that the convention adverted to has not been formally approved by this Department. The third section of the Colombian law, however, to which you refer, appears to have been framed pursuant to section 4211 of the Revised Statutes of the United States, with the exception that the penalty imposed upon a consul for delivering the papers of a vessel to the master without a clearance from the custom-house, is, under our law, a fine instead of a threat of cancelling the exequatur of the consul.
I have, &c.,