The Secretary of State to the French chargé d’affaires.
Washington , October 19, 1900 .
The Government of the United States is gratified to learn that all the interested powers have adhered to the essential principle of the [Page 324] French note of October 4, and trusts that such reservations as they have suggested will, like those mentioned in the reply of the United States, prove no embarrassment to the progress of the negotiation, in the course of which they can be frankly discussed with a view to a common agreement.
Holding, as it does in accord with the French Government, that the essential thing now is to prove to the Chinese Government that the powers are ready to meet it in the path of peaceful negotiation, and that they are united in their repeatedly declared decision to respect the integrity of China and the independence of its Government, while equally united in the resolve to obtain rightful satisfaction for the great wrongs they and their nationals have suffered, this Government has instructed its minister in Pekin to concur in presenting to the Chinese plenipotentiaries the points upon which we are agreed as the initial step toward negotiations and toward the reestablishment of the effective power and authority of the Imperial Government.
The Government of the United States believes that the happy influence upon the determinations of the Chinese Emperor and of his Government, which the Government of the French Republic anticipates as the result of this step, would be still further induced if the powers were to include as part of their initial declaration a collective manifestation of their determination to preserve the territorial integrity and the administrative entirety of China, and to secure, for the Chinese nation and for themselves, the benefits of open and equal commercial intercourse between the Chinese Empire and the world at large.