File No. 763.72112/189
The Acting Secretary of State to the Ambassador in Great Britain (Page)
Washington, October 22, 1914, 4 p.m.
[Telegram]
373. Your No. 864, October 19, Declaration of London.
Inasmuch as the British Government consider that the conditions of the present European conflict make it impossible for them to accept without modification the Declaration of London, you are requested to inform His Majesty’s Government that in the circumstances the Government of the United States feels obliged to withdraw its suggestion that the Declaration of London be adopted as a [Page 258] temporary code of naval warfare to be observed by belligerents and neutrals during the present war; that, therefore, this Government will insist that the rights and duties of the United States and its citizens in the present war be defined by the existing rules of international law and the treaties of the United States irrespective of the provisions of the Declaration of London; and that this Government reserves to itself the right to enter a protest or demand in each case in which those rights and duties so defined are violated or their free exercise interfered with by the authorities of His Britannic Majesty’s Government.