811.6331/84
The Chargé in Portugal (Magruder) to the Secretary of State
[Received August 22.]
Sir: With reference to the Legation’s telegram No. 16 of August 8, 5 P.M.13 reporting that the Minister had been received by the Minister for Foreign Affairs this afternoon, I have the honor to quote the following memorandum of the interview, prepared by Mr. Caldwell:
“The Minister for Foreign Affairs spoke with evident enthusiasm of the suggestion of a bilateral agreement with the United States. He said in this connection: ‘I regard general agreements involving many nations as inevitable chimaeras. The hope of better trade relations lies in agreements between individual nations. There will be no difficulty in this matter’.
“It is very probable that the strained commercial relations with France which have been fully reported on by the Legation make the government here especially anxious to enter into some agreement which may offset commercial losses in other directions. These circumstances seem to make the time for the suggested negotiations especially propitious.”
Respectfully yours,
- Not printed.↩