PORTMAN, Chargé d’ Affaires ad interim in Japan to William H. Seward, April 11, 1866

Mr. Portman to Mr. Seward.

Sir: I have the honor to transmit herewith, No. 1, copy of a memorandum signed on the 4th instant, relative to the remittance to London of the first instalment of five hundred thousand dollars ($500,000) of the Simonoseki indemnity, at the fixed British official rate of exchange of four shillings and three pence per dollar, producing in sterling money one hundred and six thousand and two hundred and fifty pounds, (£106,250.)

Copy of the correspondence on the subject of the division of this indemnity money with Mr. Bigelow at Paris has been shown me by the British minister, and, in view also of the unanimous opinion of the representatives of Great Britain, France, and the Netherlands, I readily assented to the transfer of the amount named to the British treasury in London, where it will be held subject to the conjoint order of the four powers who were represented in the convention of the 22d October, 1864.

I transmit herewith, No. 2, copy of the joint letter addressed to the managers of the Oriental Bank Corporation, and of the chartered Mercantile Bank of India, London, and China, at Yokohama. The transfer to her Britannic Majesty’s commissariat chest of the amount named has now, I learn, been made by those two branch banks.

At any moment I may receive the receipt for the full amount from her Britannic Majesty’s commissariat at Yokohama, in time, I hope, for transmission by this mail.

I have the honor to be, sir, very respectfully, your most obedient servant,