Mr. Gresham to Mr. Tyler.

No. 72.]

Sir: I am in receipt of your No. 113 of the 12th ultimo, inclosing correspondence relating to renewed persecution of Jews at Hamadan and the forcible removal of a man who had taken refuge in the house of the Rev. James Hawkes, an American missionary at that place.

With regard to the invasion of Mr. Hawkes’s premises by the Persian authorities and the forcible arrest of a fugitive therein, it is regretted that this act should have been brought about by an untenable assertion of asylum for a Persian subject. This Government does not claim that its official agents have the right to afford asylum.

By the seventh article of the treaty of 1856 between the United States and Persia, it is stipulated that—

The diplomatic agent or consuls of the United States shall not protect, secretly or publicly, the subjects of the Persian Government, and they shall never suffer a departure from the principles here laid down and agreed to by mutual consent.

The domiciliary rights of citizens of the United States in Persia may not be expanded to embrace the protection by them of Persian subjects, when such protection is explicitly disclaimed by the Government of the United States, and when its assertion by their diplomatic and consular representatives is positively inhibited.

I am, etc.,

W. Q. Gresham.