Mr. Seward to Mr. Tassara
Sir: On the 9th of June last, your excellency, then feeing in the city of New York, had the goodness to address to Mr. William Hunter, then Acting Secretary of State of the United States, a very kind note, in which you informed him, in the name of her Most Catholic Majesty’s government, that the news which had been then lately received of the assassination of the late President, and an attack upon the person of the Secretary of State, had excited a profound sense of horror and indignationon the part of the Crown, the representatives, and the people of Spain.
Your note was accompanied by a copy of a communication which had been addressed to yourself by her Catholic Majesty’s secretary of state, together with a copy of two resolutions, relating to the painful subjects before mentioned, which resolutions had been unanimously adopted by the Cortes. Subsequently to the receipt of your communication at this department, your excellency had the goodness to ask a personal audience of the President, and in the audience thereupon granted you were pleased to give an eloquent oral expression to the same just, honorable, and generous sentiments which were expressed in the communications to which I have before referred. These proceedings on the part of her Catholic Majesty’s government and the people of Spain deserve an immediate written acknowledgment on the part of the President of the United States and the American people. I was charged with the duty of making those acknowledgments. I beg you therefore to convey to your government an assurance that the President received the communications referred to with sentiments of the most profound gratitude and sincere appreciation. They have served to awaken on the part of the American people, affections which,, in the earliest stage of their existence, induced on their part an especial attachment to Spain. I am sure they will serve to invigorate a friendship between the two nations, which no minister has ever more assiduously cultivated than your excellency.
The papers which I now acknowledge will be deposited in the national archives, and will ori the assembling of Congress be submitted to the legislature.
I pray your excellency to have the goodness to make known to your government the personal circumstances, well understood by yourself, which, to the President’s sincere regret, have so long delayed this communication.
I avail myself of this occasion to offer to your excellency a renewed assurance of my most distinguished consideration.
Señor Don Gabriel Garcia Y. Tassara, &c., &c., &c., Washington.