No. 421.
Mr. Valera to Mr. Bayard.

[Translation.]

The undersigned, Minister Plenipotentiary of Spain, has received the honorable Secretary of State’s polite note of the 2d instant, and has the pleasure and the honor to return to him his warmest thanks on account of the satisfaction with which the United States Government views the amicable termination of the question concerning the sovereignty of the Caroline Islands. The undersigned also recognizes the fact that the sovereignty of Spain over those islands has never been disputed by this Republic, and he knows with what activity and friendliness many of its citizens are endeavoring to improve the condition of the inhabitants of the said islands by promoting not only their material interests, but also their intellectual cultivation.

He will consequently hasten to transmit to his Government the inquiry which the honorable Mr. Bayard is pleased to address to him on behalf of that of the United States, and he regrets that he is not authorized to make at once the pleasing reply which he hopes will hereafter be made, and which, if he may be allowed to express his own personal feelings, he would be glad to have extended to all the other possessions of Spain in Oceania, between which and these United States no less beneficial and untrammeled relations should exist than those which now exist between these States and the Kingdom of Hawaii.

The undersigned gladly avails, &c.,

JUAN VALERA.