Sir Julian Pauncefote to Mr. Blaine.
Washington, January 8, 1892. (Received January 9.)
Sir: With reference to my note of the 5th instant on the subject of the case of John Gibbons and his family. I have the honor to inform you that I have learned with great satisfaction from her Majesty’s Consul-General in New York that they have been held in New York pending a further consideration of their case, and I take this opportunity of conveying to you my best thanks for the courtesy and promptness with which my request was attended to.
In continuation of my above-mentioned note, I have the honor to lay before you the following additional details in relation to this case, which I have received from Mr. Booker.
Gibbons is an able-bodied man with a healthy wife and five healthy children. The eldest girl who has been allowed to land has already procured a situation, and Gibbons’s brother, who lives in Jersey City, can procure for him employment at once. The wife is represented as a woman quite capable of taking care of her family and herself.
Commutations of pensions are only granted by the war office in England as a favor and on the application of the pensioner that he intends to leave the country and settle abroad. In this case only a sufficient sum out of the commutation money is advanced him to pay his passage, and the balance is sent to an official at the foreign or colonial port to which the pensioner is going, to be given him on landing.
The money which he receives for the payment of his passage and on landing at the port of destination is his own property, but it is paid to him in this manner by the war office as a guarantee for its safety. He can not, therefore, I venture to submit, be regarded in any way as an [Page 268] assisted emigrant, and the only reasons for returning the Gibbons family under the act of March 3, 1891, would appear to be if they were paupers or likely to become a public charge. But as I have before stated they are a healthy family in possession, of about $1,000 and ready and eager to obtain employment, and I can not think that the exclusion of people of this description was contemplated by the above-mentioned act.
I accordingly venture to express the hope that the Secretary of the Treasury, when he becomes acquainted with all the details of this case, will give a favorable consideration to my request that Gibbons and his family be permitted to land.
I have, etc.,