The Acting Secretary of State to Minister Bowen.
Washington , January 22, 1904. .
Sir: I have to acknowledge the receipt of your No. 242, of the 9th instant,a in which you report a conversation which you recently had with the President of Venezuela and state that you handed him a memorandum “showing how much money this government owes on [Page 1004] the Hancox and mixed claims and requested him to continue the payments to this legation without delay.”
No payment has been made to these claimants, who received their awards through the commissions of 1890 and 1895, since August, 1901.
The Department has been extremely considerate in its attitude toward the Venezuelan Government in respect to these payments, which seem to have been unreasonably deferred, and deferred, too, in violation of specific promises.
You are instructed to insist upon prompt payment of all sums now due claimants who received awards on acccount of the Hancox claim and other claims of the commission of 1890.
I am, etc.,
- Printed in Foreign Relations, 1904, p. 869.↩