Mr. Portman to Mr. Seward.
No. 13.]
Legation of the United States in
Japan,
Yedo,
April 11, 1866.
Sir: I have the honor to transmit herewith, No.
1, copy of a memorandum signed on the 4th instant, relative to the
remittance to London of the first instalment of five hundred thousand
dollars ($500,000) of the Simonoseki indemnity, at the fixed British
official rate of exchange of four shillings and three pence per dollar,
producing in sterling money one hundred and six thousand and two hundred
and fifty pounds, (£106,250.)
Copy of the correspondence on the subject of the division of this
indemnity money with Mr. Bigelow at Paris has been shown me by the
British minister, and, in view also of the unanimous opinion of the
representatives of Great Britain, France, and the Netherlands, I readily
assented to the transfer of the amount named to the British treasury in
London, where it will be held subject to the conjoint order of the four
powers who were represented in the convention of the 22d October,
1864.
I transmit herewith, No. 2, copy of the joint letter addressed to the
managers of the Oriental Bank Corporation, and of the chartered
Mercantile Bank of India, London, and China, at Yokohama. The transfer
to her Britannic Majesty’s commissariat chest of the amount named has
now, I learn, been made by those two branch banks.
At any moment I may receive the receipt for the full amount from her
Britannic Majesty’s commissariat at Yokohama, in time, I hope, for
transmission by this mail.
I have the honor to be, sir, very respectfully, your most obedient
servant,
A. L. C. PORTMAN, Chargé d’ Affaires ad
interim in Japan.
Hon. William H. Seward,
Secretary of State, Washington, D. C.
[Memorandum.]
The undersigned, representatives of Great Britain, France, the United
States of America, and the Netherlands, having considered the
communications that have passed between their respective
governments, at London, Paris, and the Hague, relative to the mode
in which the first instalment of the Simonoseki indemnity, amounting
to five hundred thousand dollars, which was received from the
Japanese government by the undersigned on the 4th of September last,
should be remitted to Europe, are of opinion that the proposal of
her Britannic Majesty’s government that this sum should be paid into
the British commissariat chest, at Yokohama, and that its equivalent
in sterling money should be held available by her Majesty’s treasury
in London, for distribution among the four powers, is
unobjectionable, and may be adopted with advantage to the interests
of their respective governments.
They therefore approve of the transfer of this sum from the Yokohama
branch banks of the Oriental Bank Corporation and the chartered
Mercantile Bank of India, London and [Page 202] China, to the British commissariat chest, at the
British official rate of exchange of four shillings and three pence
per dollar, the equivalent of the said sum in sterling money being
accordingly one hundred and sixty thousand and two hundred and fifty
pounds, (£160,250.)
Signed at
Yokohama
this 4th day of
April, 1866.
HARRY S. PARKES, H. B. M.’s Envoy
Extraordinary and Minister Plenipotentiary in
Japan.
LEON ROCHES, Ministre Plenipotentiare de
S. M. l’Empereur du Français an Japon.
A. L. C. PORTMAN, Chargé d’ Affaires ad
interim of the United States in Japan.
D. DE GRAEFF VON POLSBROEK, H. N. M.’s
Political Agent and Consul General in
Japan.
