John Welsh to Robert Gascoyne-Cecil, November 21, 1878

Mr. Welsh to Lord Salisbury.

My Lord: I have been instructed by the President of the United States to tender to Her Majesty’s Government the sum of five millions five hundred thousand dollars in gold coin, this being the sum named by the two concurring members of the Fisheries Commission (lately sitting at Halifax, under authority imparted thereto by the Treaty of Washington) to be paid by the Government of the United States to the Government of Her Britannic Majesty.

I am also instructed by the President to say that such payment is made upon the ground that the Government of the United States desires to place the maintenance of good faith in treaties and the security and value of arbitration between nations above all question in its relations with Her Britannic Majesty’s Government as with all other governments.

Under this motive the Government of the United States decides to separate the question of withholding payment from the considerations touching the obligation of this payment which have been presented to Her Majesty’s Government in correspondence and which it reserves and insists upon.

I am, besides, instructed by the President to say that the Government of the United States deems it of the greatest importance to the common and friendly interests of the two governments in all future treatment of any questions relating to the North American fisheries that Her Britannic Majesty’s Government should be distinctly advised that the Government of the United States cannot accept the result of the Halifax Commission as furnishing any just measure of the value of a participation by our citizens in the inshore fisheries of the British provinces, and it protests against the actual payment now made being considered by Her Majesty’s Government as in any sense an acquiescence in such measure or as warranting any inference to that effect.

I have, &c.,