Allan A. Burton to Señor Perez, October 11, 1865

Mr. Burton to Señor Perez

The minister of the United States of America has the honor to present his most respectful compliments to his excellency Señor Santiago Perez, secretary of the interior and foreign relations of the Colombian Union, and to enclose a copy of the remarks which he will have the honor to address to his Excellency the citizen President at the audience with which he is to be honored on Thursday next.

Mr. President: The kind condolence and sympathy tendered by this nation to my country in the bereavement sustained by the death of its late President, the lamented Abraham Lincoln, having been made known to my government, I am specially charged to assure your Excellency, and to request that the same be communicated to the citizens of this republic, that the generous tribute of the Colombian government and people in connection with that melancholy event has been accepted with the most lively sentiments of friendship and gratitude by the government and people of the United States of America.

[Translation.]

Mr. Minister: It is very flattering and pleasing to the government and people of Colombia to know that the American people and government should have been gratified at the expression of sorrow and kindly sympathy emitted by us, when we heard that a crime had deprived your country of one of its most enlightened citizens, as a victim offered up on the altar of duty. And these frequent manifestation of sympathy between the two countries are very grateful to me, because they tend to strengthen the mutual esteem which ought to exist between republican peoples living on the same continent.