Papers Relating to the Foreign Relations of the United States, Transmitted to Congress, With the Annual Message of the President, December 1, 1873

No. 255.
Mr. Fish to Mr. De Long.

Department of State,
Washington, March 10, 1873.

No. 182.]

Sir: Your dispatch of the 22d January last, relating to a rumor that Peru is about to send an armed expedition to Japan for the purpose of demanding redress for the Maria Luz affair, has been received.

The Department is without any information whatever regarding the expedition above referred to; and it approves the course taken by you in the matter.

In my instruction No. 175, of the 28th ultimo, I informed you of a conversation with the Peruvian minister to this Government, on the subject of the affair of the Maria Luz, but from that conversation I drew no inference of any military or hostile expedition. It was a commission of which the minister spoke, and, as he gave me to understand, for the purpose of explanation.

I am, &c.,

Hamilton Fish.