No 24.
General Schenck to Mr. Fish.
Lord Granville proposes the following as the introductory part of the note submitted to you by my telegram of the 30th ultimo:
I have laid before my colleagues the dispatch addressed to you by Mr. Fish on the 16th ultimo, of which you furnished me with a copy on the 1st instant. I informed you, in my letter of the 20th of March, that Her Majesty’s Government, in communicating to you the grounds on which they hold that the claims for indirect losses are excluded from the scope and intention of the reference to the Tribunal of Arbitration at Geneva, did not wish to commence a diplomatic controversy, but merely to comply with the desire substantially expressed by the Government of the United States to be advised of the reasons which bad prompted the declaration made by me on behalf of Her Majesty’s Government on the 3d of February. Her Majesty’s Government are still of the same mind; and although they cannot admit the force of the partial rejoinder which Mr. Fish has made to that statement of their reasons, they agree with Mr. Fish in seeing no advantage in the continuance of an argumentative discussion on the subject. It will, however, be understood that, if I do not review the matter of Mr. Fish’s dispatch, it is not from an assent to his positions, but from the hope that a way may he found, without prejudice to the arguments heretofore advanced by Her Majesty’s Government, to avoid further controversy. In the full expectation, therefore, that an arrangement satisfactory to both countries will be accepted by the Government of the United States, I proceed to state the views of Her Majesty’s Government.