Mr. Seward to Mr. Burnley
Sir: I have the honor to acknowledge the receipt of your note of the 21st instant, informing me that Lord Lyons’s health having obliged him to retire definitively from the post which he has held for the last six years as her Majesty’s envoy extraordinary and minister plenipotentiary at Washington, the Queen has been graciously pleased to appoint Sir Frederick Bruce, now her Majesty’s envoy extraordinary and minister plenipotentiary at Pekin, to be his lordship’s successor in that character; that you are instructed to notify this appointment to ment and to say that Sir Frederick Bruce will be instructed to repair to Washington so soon as he can make arrangements for so doing, and that her Majesty’s government trust that the appointment will be in every way acceptable to the President of the United States.
In reply, I have the honor to state that before your note was received Mr. Adams had already informed us of the appointment, and that he had been in structed to express to Earl Russell the regret of this government for the retire ment of Lord Lyons, and our satisfaction with the appointment of Sir Frederick Bruce.
I have the honor to be, with the highest consideration, sir, your obedient servant,
J. Hume Burnley, Esq., &c., &c., &c.