Papers Relating to the Foreign Relations of the United States, 1894, With the Annual Message of the President, Transmitted to Congress, December 3, 1894

Mr. Pringle to Mr. Gresham.

Legation or the United States,
Guatemala , April 24, 1894 . (Received May 10.)

No. 88.]

Sir: With reference to my dispatch No. 85 of April 10, 1894,^* to the Department of State, inclosing the letter from the Provisional President of Honduras to the President of the United States, I beg leave to say that I am informed by my colleagues, the Spanish and the Italian ministers, as well as the German minister, that they do not consider it in accordance with diplomatic etiquette or usage for the Provisional President of Honduras to address an autograph letter to their respective sovereigns until such time as he should have been elected the constitutional President of that Republic.

The Italian and Spanish ministers have not seen fit to transmit the letter to their respective Governments. The German minister took the same view that I did, namely, that he was not authorized to withhold any communication that came to his legation, and forwarded it.

I merely wish to call the Department’s attention to this fact so that it can take such action as it deems advisable in the premises.

I have, etc.,

D. Lynch Pringle,
Chargé d’Affaires ad interim.

1. Not printed.