Mr. Olney to Baron von Thielmann.
Washington, April 28, 1896.
Excellency: I beg to acknowledge your favor of the 24th ultimo, and to say in reply that I have directed payment to your embassy of the sum of 5,321 marks (equivalent to $1,267.10), being “one third of the expense incurred by the deportation and maintenance of the Samoan chiefs interned in Jaluit.”
I inclose the check of the disbursing clerk of this Department for the sum mentioned and a receipt in duplicate, one copy of which after signature should be returned to this Department.
In making this payment, pursuant to the obligations of the treaty of June 14, 1889, between the United States, Great Britain, and Germany, [Page 535] this Government in no way recedes from the position already announcced by it, viz, that the treaty is unsatisfactory to the United States, and is one which its interests require to be essentially modified or altogether abrogated.
Accept, etc.,