File No. 841.857M331/67
The Ambassador in Great Britain (Page) to the Secretary of State
[Received 6.15 p. m.]
5337. Your 4162, December 11, 5 p. m. In reply to note based thereon Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs replies:
His Majesty’s Government were in no way interested in the voyage on which the vessel was engaged at the time she was attacked. She would, however, on her return journey have brought a deck load of horses for His Majesty’s Government, but these would have formed only a small part of her homeward cargo.
The Marina was utilized for this purpose on each voyage from the United States to the United Kingdom from October 1916, to the last voyage from the United States before she was sunk. She was not employed by His Majesty’s Government in any other way at any time.
Mr. Balfour begs leave to add that the vessel was at no time “in the service of His Majesty’s Government” in any sense in which she was not in the service of any other regular shippers of the cargoes she carried.
The precise method of employment was explained to Doctor Page in Vis-count Grey’s note of the 6th instant.2
- Repeated to the Ambassador in Germany with instructions to bring immediately to the attention of the German Government (telegram No. 3692, December 20, 1916).↩