Sir Julian Pauncefote to Mr. Blaine.
Washington, April 14, 1892.
Sir: I have the honor to acknowledge the receipt of your note, undated, but received this evening, in which you complain of delay on the part of the Marquis of Salisbury in accepting the form of convention for a renewal of the modus vivendi in Behring Sea, which you proposed in your note to me of the 7th instant. That complaint does not appear to me to be well founded, for the following reasons:
Before framing the convention for the renewal of the modus vivendi it was agreed that certain private and unofficial interviews and discussions should take place, in order, if possible, to shorten the official correspondence and to expedite matters.
Those private and unofficial discussions resulted in your official note to me of the 7th instant, inclosing a proposed draft for the consideration of Lord Salisbury. Immediately on receipt of that draft I telegraphed its substance to Lord Salisbury, who authorized me to accept it, subject to certain verbal amendments, which I certainly thought would have been at once accepted by your Government, especially as you refer to them in your note under reply as being “of no special value.” But not only were those amendments rejected, but you informed me that the President desired a certain alteration in one of the articles of the draft as proposed by you. I at once telegraphed to Lord Salisbury the rejection of his suggested amendments, as well as the alteration desired by the President, and I trust that on the receipt of his lordship’s reply we shall be able to agree to such amendments in the draft as will make it acceptable to both Governments.
As I have had the honor to inform you verbally, Lord Salisbury is in the south of France at the present time, which fully accounts for his reply not having yet arrived. But under the circumstances I can not admit that “the text of the convention is mutually and fully established,” or that my Government in any are way responsible for the delay of which you complain.
I have, etc.,