Mr. Dupuy de Lôme to Mr. Sherman.
Washington, November 3, 1897.
Mr. Secretary: In reply to your polite note of the 1st instant, I have the honor to inform your excellency that I doubtless did not have the good fortune to explain myself with sufficient clearness in my note of the 26th ultimo relative to the Donna T. Briggs and the Sommers N. Smith.
In therein stating that I would instruct the lawyers and consular officers I did not mean that data and evidence were to be hunted up, but that they were in existence, and would be presented whenever the law officers of the United States should think that they were necessary for the better and more speedy administration of justice.
With respect to the Donna T. Briggs, there is evidence before the court at Wilmington, in the case of the Laurada, which, in my opinion, is sufficient to warrant proceedings against that schooner; and as to the same vessel and the tug Sommers N. Smith, which jointly effected three landings of men and munitions of war in Cuba, the Department of Justice, and probably also the Treasury Department, have received the information which, in pursuance of my instructions, must have been laid before them by Mr. Calderon Carlisle, counsel of this legation.
Trusting that these explanations will be sufficient to elucidate the meaning of my note of October 26, and hoping that the violators of the laws in this case will be held responsible,
I avail myself, etc.,