Office of the Historian

EXHIBIT U.

[Translation.]
No. 157.]
Ministry of Foreign Affairs,
First Department,
March 13, 1899.

Mr. Ambassador: I have not failed to transmit to the competent authorities the contents of the note of the Embassy dated January 27 (February 8), of the current year, on the subject of the affair of the seizure by the Russian cruiser of the American schooners Cape Horn Pigeon, James Hamilton Lewis, C. H. White, and Kate and Anna.

It appears from the reply which the Ministry of Marine has just sent me that it does not find it possible to depart from the point of view expressed by it previously, and which the Imperial ministry had the honor to communicate to the Embassy of the United States in its notes of June 12, 1893, No. 2187; of August 26, 1895, No. 3498; of October 12, 1895, No. 4038; as well as of October 19, 1898, No. 4587. The Ministry of Marine considers:

1.
That the damages suffered by the owner of the Cape Horn Pigeon after the seizure would be reimbursed by a sum not exceeding $2,500.
2.
The compensation for the seal skins confiscated on the Kate and Anna ought to be fixed at a sum less than $1,767, demanded at the commencement of the affair by the proprietor.
3.
As to the seizure of the C. H. White and James Hamilton Lewis, the ministry of marine considers that it was justified, and could not consent to a compromise in settlement of that affair.

Please accept, Mr. Ambassador, the assurance of my high consideration.

Count Mouravieff.

His Excellency Mr. Charlemagne Tower,
Ambassador of the United States, etc.

Embassy of the United States of America,
St. Petersburg, Russia.

I, Herbert J. Hagerman, second secretary of the embassy of the United States of America at St. Petersburg, Russia, do hereby certify that I have compared the foregoing copy of a note received by the said embassy from the Imperial Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, dated March 12, 1899, with the original now remaining on file in this said Embassy, and that the same is a correct transcript therefrom and of the whole of said original.

In testimony whereof I have hereunto set my hand and affixed the seal of the embassy of the United States this 20th day of February, in the year 1900.

[seal.]
Herbert J. Hagerman,
Second Secretary United States Embassy.