No. 392.
Count Zannini to Mr. Fish.

[Translation.]

Sir: Count Corti, in obedience to orders received from my government, had the honor to address your excellency by his notes of May 2, [Page 629] June 9, and September 20 of the current year, requesting the government of the United States to be pleased, until the adoption of an international method of admeasurement, and by way of reciprocity, to admit into its ports Italian vessels admeasured according to the Moorson system, or English method, without subjecting them to any new admeasurement, the net register-tonnage given in the ship’s papers being considered as equivalent to the net register-tonnage of American vessels.

Count Corti in his note of September 20 expressed the hope of seeing his proposal definitively adopted, and requested your excellency to be pleased to transmit to this legation a few copies of such instructions as might be issued in relation to this matter by the Treasury Department.

Having since then received no reply on this subject, I am obliged, in obedience to the orders of my government, to have recourse to your excellency’s extreme kindness, and to reiterate this request. The date, on and after which Italian vessels may have been furnished with the new certificate of admeasurement, is the same as that of the royal decree, two copies of which Count Corti has already had the honor to transmit to your excellency, and on which the proposition made by my government is based.

I offer your excellency my warmest thanks in advance, and I avail myself of this occasion to renew to you the assurances of my very high consideration.

ZANNINI.