Office of the Historian
No. 7.
Lord Sackville to the Marquis of Salisbury.—(Received November 12.)
Washington, October 31, 1888.

My Lord: With reference to my telegram of to-day’s date, I have the honor to inclose to your lordship herewith printed copies as published in the newspapers of the statement made by the Secretary of State, giving the reasons for the step taken by the President in sending me my passports.

As I had the honor to state to your lordship this day buy telegraph, this statement is an unjust attack upon my integrity, which I repudiate.

He states that after the publication of my letter 1 received “the representatives of [Page 1727] the press, and in frequent interviews with them, intended for publication, added to the impugnment already made of the good faith of this Government;” and he goes on to say that although he has called my attention to them, I abstained from making any modification or disavowal of them through the channels in which the statements first found publicity.

In my dispatch of the 26th instant I reported to your lordship my disclaimer to Mr. Bayard of any thought or intention of interfering in the domestic politics of the country, which he had accepted.

At a subsequent interview he alluded to remarks which I was reported to have made to a newspaper reporter impugning the action of the Executive, and I again emphatically disclaimed the meaning to my words by a newspaper reporter, and immediately wrote him a private letter, copy of which is inclosed. I conceived that it was to him alone that I could look for a proper appreciation of my conduct, and not to the public press. I felt that I had done nothing of which to be ashamed, but had been simply basely betrayed into an indiscretion, a situation which he himself had fully recognized, and appeared at the time to appreciate in a conciliatory spirit.

The exigencies of the campaign, however, and the necessity of gaining the Irish vote were paramount, and after ail that had passed between ns, Mr. Bayard does not hesitate to impute motives to me which had no existence, and which I had formally repudiated, and to make them the cause of what I venture to think your lordship will consider, under the circumstances, an almost unprecedented step on the part of the Executive Government.

I have, etc.,

Sackville.
[Inclosure 1 in No. 7.]
Lord Sackville to Mr. Bayard.
Washington, October 27, 1888.
Personal.]

Dear Mr. Bayard: Referring to an interview which is reported in the New York Tribune of the 24th instant, I remark that my words are so turned as to impugn the action of the Executive. I beg to emphasize that I had no thought or intention of doing so, and I most, emphatically deny the language which is attributed to me by other papers of “clap-trap” and “trickery,” as applied to the Government to which I am accredited. My record here has been, I trust, such as to preclude the possibility of my having used such language, but I must, I suppose, succumb to the consequences of having been made a victim to an infamous plot.

I have, etc.,

Sackville.
[Inclosure 2 in No. 7.—Extract from the New York Tribune of October 31, 1888.]
Report of the Secretary of State to the President, October 29, 1888.

(Omitted here, being printed supra, No. 5.)