Mr. White to Mr. Hay.

No. 1791.]

Sir: I have the honor to report that, immediately after my recent return to Berlin, I included in the usual notification to the foreign office a request for an audience with the Emperor, in order to make [Page 192] known to him the special message of good will which the President had personally instructed me to convey.

As a result, I was invited to dine last evening with their majesties at Potsdam, audience being previously given me.

Having heard the message from the President expressing his hearty good feeling toward the Monarch and his Empire, His Majesty responded very cordially, declaring that he fully reciprocated the feeling the President had expressed, and referring to the President’s career and character in terms which showed that he had studied both with care and highly appreciated them. He also referred to the recent elections in New York City and elsewhere, as proving that the President’s courage and intelligent earnestness had given a strong impulse to men of like character throughout the country, and among these he especially named, with admiration, Mr. Seth Low.

In this, as well as in the conversation at table and afterwards, the Emperor dwelt upon the wonderful progress made by the United States in sundry great enterprises and industries and especially in shipbuilding, discussing this and kindred subjects with remarkable thoroughness and knowledge of detail. He referred to the fact that he had sent suitable persons to the United States to study our canal systems and internal waterways generally. He also expressed his pleasure at the honor done the imperial ambassador, Dr. Von Hollenben, by Harvard University, and said that, in recognition of this courtesy, he had ordered a collection of casts of the more curious and interesting sculptures and works of art from various public monuments and collections within the Empire to be especially prepared and sent to the Germanic Museum at that institution.

Both at the audience and in the conversation afterwards, the Emperor showed that he was realty pleased with the message which the President had sent him, both with its assurances of a political nature and with its more personal and special details.

I am, etc.,

Andrew D. White.