Mr. Dun to Mr. Gresham.

No. 181.]

Sir: I have the honor to acknowledge the receipt of your instruction of the 22d ultimo relative to the two Japanese boys under arrest at Shanghai charged as spies.

[Page 376]

In connection with the last paragraph of your instruction, in which you inform me that the Chinese minister at Washington “agreed that the two alleged Japanese spies should not be tried until Colonel Denby returned to China,” I regret to say that the young men in question were executed at Nankin on the 8th instant, before the colonel had reached Shanghai.

I have, etc.,

Edwin Dun.