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 Axbridge

May 6, 1865

The mayor, aldermen, and common council of the borough of Axbridge to Mr. Adams.

Sir: We, the mayor, aldermen, and common council of the borough of Axbridge, in the county of Somerset, beg through you, sir, to express our deep sympathy with Mrs. Lincoln and the American nation generally under the heavy and distressing bereavement which she and they have been called on to sustain in the brutal and cowardly assassination of Mr. President Lincoln.

We earnestly pray, however, that the all-wise disposer of events may not only support Mrs. Lincoln in this the hour of her grief, but that He may, according to the purposes of His own gracious will, overrule for good the dire calamity which has thus befallen the American nation.

Given under our corporate seal at the Town Hall, in Axbridge aforesaid, this sixth day of May, one thousand eight hundred and sixty-five.

[seal.]

His Excellency Hon. Charles Francis Adams,
Envoy Extraordinary and Minister Plenipotentiary United States of America, London.