Mr. Bayard to Baron Fava .
Washington , April 13, 1885.
My Dear Sir: I regret exceedingly that my engagements to-day will not allow me the pleasure of the special interview proposed in your note of this morning.
If you consider that the subject to which your note relates cannot be deferred until next Friday, the day set apart for my reception of the ministers of foreign Governments, I will have pleasure in seeing you at 1 o’clock on Wednesday, the day after to-morrow.
Enough, however, is disclosed by your note to induce me in all frankness to state that this Department cannot make the editorials of a newspaper, [Page 551] having no connection whatever with the Government, in relation to the alleged utterances, confessedly made unofficially some fourteen years ago, of a gentleman selected and approved by the Government of the United States to represent it in a foreign country, the basis of discussion with the minister of that country here resident.
In selecting Mr. Keiley as envoy extraordinary and minister plenipotentiary to Italy this Government has sought to fulfill its honorable and amicable duty towards the Government you represent, and cannot enter into discussion in respect of its action.
It is unnecessary for me to suggest that, having performed our full duty in proffering a gentleman of the highest personal character and intelligence, and one who entertains no other sentiments toward your Government than those of entire respect and friendship, to represent the Government of the United States in Italy, nothing further devolves upon this Government, and believing that Mr. Keiley will prove in all respects agreeable and acceptable as persona grata to the Government of Italy, we must leave that Government to the exercise of its own and sole discretion in receiving him in the same spirit of friendship and respect in which he is sent forth.
I am, &c.,