Robert C. Schenck to Granville Leveson-Gower, June 11, 1872

General Schenck to Earl Granville.

My Lord: I had the honor to receive late last night your note of yesterday, referring to the present state of the negotiations between the Government of the United States and Her Majesty’s Government in relation to the proposed supplementary Article, or to an adjournment of the arbitration at Geneva; and informing me that Her Majesty’s Government will now have to consider what may be the course most consistent with the declarations they have heretofore made, most respectful to the Tribunal of Arbitration, and the most courteous to the United States. Your Lordship then proceeds to state that the British Arbitrator will repair to Geneva, where the British Agent, at the meeting of the Tribunal, will be directed to present them a statement to the effect that the difference between the two Governments referred to in the note which accompanied the presentation of the British Counter Case, not having been removed, although negotiations to that end have been engaged in and continued down to the present time, Her Majesty’s Government do not abandon the hope that if further time were given for that purpose such a solution might be found practicable. And that, under these circumstances, the course which Her Majesty’s Government would respectfully request the Tribunal to take is, to adjourn for such a period as may enable a supplementary convention to be still concluded and ratified between the High Contracting Parties. And you further inform me that, in the mean time, the High Contracting Parties not being in accord as to the subject-matter of the reference to arbitration, Her Majesty’s Government regret to find themselves unable to deliver their written argument under the Vth Article of the Treaty, although that argument is duly prepared and in the hands of their Agent, or to take any other step at the present time in the intended arbitration. And you add that it will of course be understood by the Tribunal that while Her Majesty’s Government would consider the Tribunal to have full power to proceed at the end of the period of adjournment, if the difference between the High Contracting Parties should then have been removed, notwithstanding the non-delivery on that day of the argument by the British Agent, they will continue, while requesting this adjournment, to reserve all Her Majesty’s rights in the event of an agreement being finally arrived at, in the same manner as was expressed in the note which accompanied the British Counter Case.

This note, my Lord, in its full text, I transmitted this morning to my Government at Washington, where I have no doubt it will be received and considered in the friendly spirit in which it is intended, and as a sincere effort yet to preserve the Treaty between the two countries; and I will not fail to communicate to you at the earliest moment the answer which may come from Mr. Fish.

I have the honor to be, with the highest consideration, my Lord, Your Lordship’s most obedient servant,