EDWARD BIRKBECK, Chairman of the Executive Committee to Charles R. Lowell, November 16, 1883

Mr. Birkbeck to Mr. Lowell.

Sir: I am desired by his royal highness the Prince of Wales, the president, and by the members of the executive committee of the International Fisheries Exhibition, to request your excellency to convey to the Government of the United States the special expression of their gratitude for the admirable manner in which the Government of the United States have so effectively and generously responded to the appeal for cooperation in the past exhibition.

It has been a matter generally acknowledged by all classes of the community that it was impossible to conceive a better interpretation of the wishes of the promoters of this exhibition than that so methodically and so ably rendered by the learned and experienced staff of gentlemen who were charged by Prof. Spencer F. Baird to give the benefit of their experience and advice to us. The rapid organization and the specially successful arrangement and decoration of the United States court have been the theme and the general admiration of the public, and I trust that we may be allowed to request you to bring under the notice of your Government the eminent services of the learned Prof. G. Brown Goode, who has so worthily and actively represented the Commission of Fish and Fisheries. His services have not only been of an administrative character, but the active part which he has taken in the conference and in the discussions which have taken place throughout the exhibition were acknowledged to be of very great benefit and advantage to all those concerned.

We would wish also to bring under your excellency’s notice the service of the assistant commissioners, Messrs. Earll, Bean, Clark, and Captain Collins, and the gentlemen in charge of the special exhibits, who have so ably carried out the duties intrusted to them by your Government. And further, we cannot conclude without expressing our gratitude for the eminent services rendered in the jury department, for the whole of the exhibition, by the following gentlemen, namely, Messrs. Earll, Hitchcock, Russell, and Clark, and also Captain Collins and Lieutenant McLellan, who were so good as to undertake the onerous duties of the jury work.

I have, &c.,