The Secretary of State to Minister Bowen.
Washington, February 19, 1904.
Sir: I have received and read your dispatch No. 246, of the 1st instant, in which you state that a reprimand was conveyed to you in the Department’s instructions No. 173, of the 22d ultimo.
The instructions of which you complain set forth courteously and precisely the position of the Department in reference to the long-deferred payments of the Venezuelan Government to claimants who had received awards from the Mixed Commission of 1890, and, in the case of the Venezuelan Steam Navigation Company, commonly known as the “Hancox” claim. Neither the action of the Venezuelan Government, nor your communications to it, nor the form of them, was under consideration. No reprimand was intended, none was conveyed, and there was no warrant for the assumption by you that the Department’s instructions contained a reprimand, or for the manner in which you expressed that assumption.
I am, etc.,