Mr. Gresham to Mr. Bun.
Washington , September 22, 1894 .
Sir: Your dispatch of the 1st instant, relative to your efforts to secure the release of two Japanese boys, under arrest at Shanghai, charged as spies, has just been received.
In exercising your good offices in Japan in behalf of Chinese subjects there you act unofficially and not officially. In this new relation you and our consuls in Japan do not sustain to China and Chinese subjects the relation which the Chinese minister and consuls in Japan sustained to them. This will appear clear enough, I think, from my instructions of August 29 and September 1, respectively, and the inclosed copy* of an instruction of the 18th instant to our chargé d’affaires at Peking.
The Chinese minister here agreed that the two alleged Japanese spies should not be tried until Colonel Denby returned to China.
I am, etc.,