300.115(39) Santa Paula/32/3
Memorandum of Conversation, by the Under Secretary of State (Welles)
The British Ambassador called to see me at my request. I told him that I wanted to have an off-the-record talk with him and that I was not to be understood as making any protest even unofficially. I said that I had had word last night from one of the head officers of the Grace Line that one of the Grace Line vessels of American registry plying from the port of New York had been hailed a few hundred miles north of the coast of Venezuela by the commanding officer of a British cruiser and that the captain had been requested to give formal assurances whether there were any German passengers on board, the implication being that if the captain had not given such assurances, the officers of the cruiser would have boarded the vessel to search for German passengers and possibly might have taken some off. I told the Ambassador that I had not yet the full details of the incident and I consequently could not say whether the vessel in question, the Santa Paula, had been halted or whether the information had been requested and received by radio. I said that I was sure the Ambassador would agree with me that any act by British cruisers affecting American ships in waters so close to the United States involving possible boarding of them and taking off of civilian passengers would create a very highly unfortunate impression upon American public opinion at this time and was something thoroughly undesirable in itself, since if civilian passengers actually had been taken off, such act would be clearly counter to international law.
The Ambassador expressed his great appreciation of what I had said, emphasized that he thoroughly agreed with me, and said that he would take the necessary steps to prevent occurrences of this kind from happening.