de HOUDETOT, President of the executive committee, for the society and by authority to Washburne, May 15, 1874

Count de Houdetot to Mr. Washburne.

Mr. Minister: I have the honor to inform your excellency that it appears from a letter addressed by his highness Prince Gortchacow to his excellency Prince Orloff, and dated Saint Petersburg, April 6, [18,] 1874, that His Majesty the Emperor of all the Russias has deigned favorably to receive the suggestions presented by the society for the amelioration of the condition of prisoners of war with the greater satisfaction, inasmuch as they harmonize with a humane thought which has long been entertained by His Imperial Majesty, and as, at the very time when this project reached the imperial cabinet, His Majesty bad already given orders for the examination of a similar project, conceived in the same spirit, but on a more general plan.

The examination of this project haying been concluded, and the imperial cabinet having just proposed to all the European cabinets to send delegates to a convention which is to meet at Brussels on the 15th [27th] of July, 1874, said delegates to be invested with full powers to discuss the principles and elaborate the details of an international agreement, embracing all the matters inherent to a state of war, the preparatory conference, which was to meet at Paris on the 18th instant, is rendered unnecessary, since its principal purpose was to induce some government to take the initiative, which has now been taken by the imperial cabinet of Russia. The project emanating from the imperial cabinet, and that which I have had the honor to communicate to your excellency in the name of the society whose president I am, will be laid before the conference at Brussels simultaneously for examination, and will serve as the basis of a general arrangement, which, if unanimously adopted by all civilized nations, would result in diminishing, as far as this is possible, the calamities of international conflicts, by precisely defining the rights of governments and armies in time of war.

As the result of an interview which I have had the honor to have with Prince Gortchacow at Stuttgart, the society for the amelioration of the condition of prisoners of war has been authorized by the imperial cabinet to beg your excellency to be pleased to inform your Government that, if it shall see fit to take part in the Brussels conference, and will notify the imperial cabinet to that effect, its delegates will be most gladly received there.

I have the honor to beg you, Mr. Minister, to be pleased to communicate the contents of this letter to your Government, and I avail myself of this occasion to thank your excellency for the favor which you have been pleased to show us.

I have the honor to be, Mr. Minister, with respect, your excellency’s very humble and very obedient servant,