Papers Relating to the Foreign Relations of the United States, Transmitted to Congress, With the Annual Message of the President, December 1, 1890

Mr. Wharton to Mr. Lincoln.

Department of State,
Washington, July 25, 1890.

No. 320.]

Sir: On the 14th of May last the wife of the Rev. J. N. Wright, at Salmas, Western Persia, was assassinated by an Armenian named Minas, who had been employed as ateacher in the mission. The crime was brought to the knowledge of our minister by a telegram from Colonel Stewart, the British consul-general at Tabriz, to Sir Henry Drummond Wolff, the British minister.

Owing to the active and efficient exertions of Colonel Stewart, acting under instructions from the British minister, who promptly tendered his aid in the matter, the assassin was arrested and committed to prison. I inclose for your information some extracts from Mr. Pratt’s dispatches^* relative to the subject.

You are instructed to express to the foreign office the Department’s high appreciation of the very valuable services which the above-named officers rendered in securing the arrest of the criminal and to request that the thanks of this Government may be conveyed to them through the proper channel.

I am, etc.,

William F. Wharton,
Acting Secretary.

1. For inclosures, see dispatches No. 456 of May 24, and No. 459 of June 3, 1890, from United States minister to Persia.