Papers Relating to the Foreign Relations of the United States, For the Year 1887, Transmitted to Congress, With a Message of the President, June 26, 1888

No. 40.
Mr. Bounder de Melsbroeck to Mr. Bayard.

[Translation.]

Belgian Legation,
Washington, January 19, 1887. (Received January 19.)

Sir: One Emile Dewaele, born in 1867, at Sinay, Flanders, Belgium, belongs by age in the next conscription of militia. The young man, to avoid military duty in Belgium, invokes the naturalization conferred on his father, Charles. Dewaele, the 17th September, 1880, by the circuit court of Roscommon County, Mich.

The certificate produced for that purpose is signed by the clerk of the court; but this signature is not certified to in any way.

Under these circumstances my Government has charged me to ask your excellency if Mr. Charles Dewaele is really a citizen of the United States.

It is also important for my Government to know officially whether, according to the laws of the United States, the effects of naturalization are extended to the children of the naturalized person (1) When they live with him (in the U. S. A.); (2) When they reside abroad.

Thanking your excellency for enabling me to answer these questions,

I am, etc.,

Th. de Bounder de Melsbroeck.