File No. 819.001 P 82/4.

The Secretary for Foreign Affairs to the Secretary of State.

[Translation.]
No. 3210.]

Mr. Secretary: Accompanied by the customary copy, I have the honor to transmit to your excellency the autograph letter which His Excellency Dr. Belisario Porras addresses to His Excellency W. H. Taft, President of the United States, announcing to him that he has assumed the presidency of the Republic of Panama.

I beg your excellency to be kind enough to have the mentioned sealed envelope reach its high destination and to accept for it my most cordial thanks.

I avail [etc.]

E. T. Lefevre.
[Inclosure.—Translation.]

The President of Panama to the President.

Great and Good Friend: I fulfill the pleasant duty of communicating, to Your Excellency that, having been called ‘by the vote of my fellow citizens to occupy the First Magistracy of the Republic, I have to-day assumed the Supreme Command, beginning thus the constitutional period of my Government.

In bringing this act to the knowledge of Your Excellency I take pleasure in declaring to you that, in the fulfillment of my duties, I shall take especial pains to bind more closely the ties of sincere friendship which happily unite our respective countries.

I present [etc.]

B. Porras.