Memorandum.
Pursuant to instructions of its Government the legation of Belgium had the honor to submit to the favorable consideration of the Secretary of State, on the 11th of March last, a claim of the Compagnie Générale des Philippines, a Belgian corporation recognized in the Philippines.
That company set forth in that document the reasons why it was an act of equity on the part of the United States to reimburse it in the amount of a fine of $30,000, Mexican, which it had to pay by reason of an act of the Philippine firm, Mendoza & Co., to which its steamer Belgika had been chartered.
The legation had the honor to recall this matter to the attention of the Secretary of State on the 20th of October last, and your excellency answered in your communication of the 30th of October last, that you had called upon the Secretary of War for a report on the case.
Baron Moncheur is in receipt of another letter from the minister for foreign affairs at Brussels inquiring urgently concerning the status of the matter.
Mr. Thieupont, a deputy in the Belgian Parliament and director of the company, in a letter addressed to the department of foreign affairs, lays stress on the circumstance that the Belgian company was constrained, in order to secure the release of its vessel, the Belgika, to [Page 76] pay a fine on account of an offense charged on a third party, viz, the Mendoza firm that had chartered the Belgika.
That firm now being bankrupt, the Belgian company can not even seek its remedy against it for the repayment of the sum paid on its account.
The minister of Belgium ventures to hope that these considerations of equity will induce the Government of the United States to grant to the Belgian company the refundment of the fine that it paid on account of an act that it could in no wise be charged with.