The Acting Secretary of State to Minister Russell.

Sir: I have to acknowledge the receipt of your unnumbered dispatch dated Washington, the 25th ultimo. You report interviews with the minister for foreign affairs prior to your departure from Bogota touching the strained relations between Colombia and Venezuela growing out of the closing of the Orinoco to Colombian commerce, and inclose a memorandum handed to you by the Colombian minister for foreign affairs bespeaking the good offices of the United States to urge upon Venezuela recognition of the principle of the free navigation of rivers.

The subject as presented in your dispatch and the accompanying papers has had attentive consideration. Should a favorable occasion present itself after your arrival at Caracas, you may express to the minister for foreign affairs in a friendly and unofficial way the great satisfaction with which the United States would view the adoption and proclamation by Venezuela of the broad principle of the free navigation of rivers and fluvial arteries of communication common to neighboring countries, a principle which this government has advocated and in its relations with its neighbors maintained for upward of fifty years.

In your conversation with the minister for foreign affairs it should be made entirely plain that this government does not seek to intervene or mediate in any way in the relations between Venezuela and Colombia, but in touching upon this matter is merely interested in the universal triumph of a policy so beneficial to the commerce of the world at large.

I am, etc.,

Alvey A. Adee.