125.655/66: Telegram
The Ambassador in Great Britain (Harvey) to the Secretary of State
[Received 8:11 p.m.]
63. Your 43, February 28, 7 p.m.2 Note from the Foreign Office acknowledging receipt of our note of February 28th on Newcastle case3 states:
“With regard paragraph 3, I venture to observe that Your Excellency is under a misapprehension in stating that His Majesty’s Government ‘has been fully informed’ of the thorough investigation made by officers of the United States Government. Such is not the case. A member of my Department was informed verbally in October last that such an investigation had been held and the statement was made in Your Excellency’s note number 446 of November 9th last4 that two separate inquiries into the facts were instituted by the United States Government. His Majesty’s Government were not informed of the proceedings in the inquiries, nor shown the evidence submitted, although His Majesty’s Government had furnished their evidence to the United States Government in my note to Your Excellency of August 28th last.5
As regards the accuracy of the parallel with the cancellation of the exequaturs of certain British consuls in the United States in 1856, I venture to refer Your Excellency to the quotation by the legal adviser to the [President] on that occasion from the commercial convention of July [3,] 1815,6 Article IV, of which provides, ‘In case of illegal or improper conduct towards the laws or government of the country to which he is sent, such consul may either be punished according to law, if the laws reach the case, or be sent back, [Page 308] the offended government assigning to the other the reasons for the same’. Reference was made to Mr. Cushing’s advice to the President7 in my note above mentioned.”