Office of the Historian

No. 362.
Mr. Welsh to Mr. Evarts.

Legation of the United States,
London, August 13, 1879. (Received August 28.)
No. 347.]

Sir: I have the honor to acknowledge the receipt of your most important dispatch No. 34, of the 1st instant, containing the statement of the claims of the owners of twenty-two fishing vessels for loss and damage arising from the conduct of certain inhabitants of Newfoundland, at Fortune Bay, in January, 1878.

As this instruction did not arrive until yesterday, and as I am to present my letter of recall to Her Majesty to-morrow, I have no time to embody its statements and arguments in a separate note to Lord Salisbury. I think, besides, that it is so full, clear, and convincing in its present shape that I should weaken its force by changing its form.

I have taken the liberty, therefore, to send a copy of it to-day to Lord Salisbury with a note, of which I inclose a transcript.

As the details of the losses contained in the printed pamphlet which accompanied your instruction appeared to me to be important, and as there was not sufficient time to copy them, I have sent the appendix to the pamphlet, and also the original account of the owners of the New England and Ontario, to his lordship for his information, with a request that he should return them to this legation at his entire convenience. I think it desirable that additional copies of these papers should be furnished to us by the Department of State.

I have to add that I have also this day sent to Lord Salisbury the statement of a claim for damages on behalf of the owners of the schooner Mist, agreeably to your instruction No. 346, of the 1st instant.

I have, &c.,

JOHN WELSH.
[Inclosure in No. 347.]

Mr. Welsh to the Marquis of Salisbury.

Legation of the United States,
London, August 13, 1879.

My Lord: I have just received a very important dispatch from Mr. Evarts, stating the claims for damages, amounting to $105,305.02, sustained by certain citizens of the United States, owners of twenty-two vessels, in Fortune Bay, Newfoundland, in the month of January, 1878, which claims have already formed the subjects of a previous correspondence with your lordship.

As the argument for the payment of these by Her Majesty’s Government is presented by Mr. Evarts in a very full, clear, and forcible manner, I have thought it proper to submit his instruction to me in its original form to your lordship, asking for it an early and favorable consideration.

I have, &c.,

JOHN WELSH.