Charles Francis Adams to The Right Honorable Loud Stanley, May 9, 1868

Mr. Adams to Lord Stanley

The undersigned, envoy extraordinary and minister plenipotentiary of the United States of America, has the honor to inform the right honorable Lord Stanley, her Majesty’s principal secretary of state for foreign affairs, that he has been intrusted with the delivery of a letter addressed to her Majesty the Queen by the President of the United States, granting him the permission, which he had solicited, to retire from the public service. In consequence thereof, the undersigned, in transmitting to his lordship a copy of that letter, would respectfully request that his lordship would be kind enough to procure for him the honor of an audience of her Majesty for the purpose of delivering the original and assuring her Majesty of the sincere desire which has animated the President to foster and extend the amicable intercourse subsisting between the two nations.

The undersigned has the honor to further acquaint Lord Stanley that he has been instructed to leave the archives of the mission in charge of Mr. Benjamin Moran, the secretary of legation, to whom, for the present, such communications as may be necessary can be addressed.

The undersigned, in closing the labors of a mission more arduous and extended than has fallen to the lot of any one of his predecessors at this court, would do violence to his feelings if he did not seize this last occasion to express his high sense of the courtesy and kindness he has uniformly experienced in his intercourse, as well with the two eminent noblemen who have, during his residence, successively preceded Lord Stanley as with his lordship himself.

The undersigned avails himself of this last opportunity to tender to Lord Stanley the assurances of his highest consideration and esteem.