Hoppin to Granville Leveson-Gower, October 12, 1883

Mr. Hoppin to Lord Granville.

My Lord: Referring to Mr. Lowell’s note of the 6th of September, and to your lordship’s reply of the 12th of September last, in relation to the existence of foot-and-mouth disease among the cattle of the United States, I have the honor to acquaint you that a dispatch has been received to-day at this legation from Mr. Frelinghuysen, in which he incloses a copy of a letter to the Department of State from the Acting Secretary of the Treasury, referring to a statement alleged to have been made recently in the House of Commons by Mr. Dodson, chancellor of the duchy of Lancaster, to the effect that the American quarantine system in reference to cattle diseases gives no security against the conveyance of the disease by men attached to quarantine stations and by articles taken out of quarantine yards, and that the system takes into consideration only the animals themselves. The Acting Secretary of the Treasury calls attention to the report of the Treasury Cattle Commission of the 21st of July last in regard to the foot-and-mouth disease among the cattle of the United States, which, while it admits that this disease did exist in herds of cattle imported from Great Britain, emphatically denies its present existence among American cattle.

A copy of this report was inclosed in Mr. Lowell’s note to your lordship of the 6th of September last.

I have the honor to forward herewith a copy of this letter from the Acting Secretary of the Treasury, dated on the 20th of August last, of the letter from the same officer dated on the 1st of August last, and of the two circulars accompanying the former communication; and I beg leave, in compliance with Mr. Frelinghuysen’s instructions, to invite the special attention of Her Majesty’s Government to the stringent regulations governing the quarantine of cattle which are established by those documents.

I have, &c.,