File No. 861.00/3163
The Ambassador in Spain ( Willard) to the Secretary of State
[Received 11.05 p.m.]
2039. Department’s circular September 20, 6 p.m. Foreign Office replies as follows:
His Majesty’s Government, which could not fail to receive with most lively sympathy the note to which I have the honor to reply, takes pleasure in informing your excellency, with the request that it be transmitted to your Government, that inspired by the same sentiments which served as the base of the attitude of the Washington Government, His Majesty’s Government has fully approved the [Page 716] conduct of the Spanish Chargé d’Affaires in Petrograd, who on September 3 last agreed with his colleagues to visit representative of the Commissioners of the People in that city, and to set forth without intention of interfering with internal affairs of the country, his strong protest and reprobation of the acts of violence which were being committed, and begging that the bloodshed cease. Two days later, on September 5, the Spanish Chargé d’Affaires signed a collective note reiterating this request, and expressing profound indignation at the régime of looting, imprisonment en masse and continuous shootings, assassinations. These declarations, communicated to the Commissioners of the People by the diplomatic representative of Spain, constitute an eloquent proof of the impression made upon His Majesty’s Government by the situation through which Russia is passing, and are accordingly a testimony of the feelings that the acts committed there have aroused in the Spanish nation.