Mr. Gresham to Mavroyeni Bey.

Sir: I have the honor to acknowledge the receipt of your note of the 21st instant, communicating the text of a telegram you have received from the first secretary of the Sultan, expressing His Imperial Majesty’s high appreciation of the President’s message of December last.

This is regarded as a pledge of the high sense of justice and international comity which, the President is pleased to believe, must equally [Page 729] animate His Majesty, and as an assurance that the sovereign right which we have recognized in favor of Turkey will be exercised without harshness and duly tempered with friendly consideration, thus fulfilling the President’s just expectations as expressed in that message.

Accept, etc.,

W. Q. Gresham.