Office of the Historian

Mr. Woodford to Mr. Sherman.

[Telegram.]
Legation of the United States,
Madrid, February 14, 1898.

Telegram received. I have written the following letter to Spanish minister for foreign affairs. I repeat the text:

On the afternoon of last Thursday, the 10th day of February, and after the adjournment of His Majesty’s council of ministers I had the honor to call upon your excellency and to read to you a copy of a telegram which I had received that morning from my Government and which related to a letter written by the Spanish minister [Page 1012] at Washington. I then stated that I would communicate to my Government at once by telegraph such answer as your excellency might make, and I left with you a copy of such telegram and statement. I understood your excellency to reply that the Spanish Government sincerely regretted the indiscretion of the Spanish minister at Washington and that his resignation had been asked and accepted by cable before our then interview. I telegraphed to my Government at once that the resignation had been asked and accepted by cable before our then interview. It is possible that I misunderstood your excellency in what was said about the minister’s resignation having been asked for by your Government, It is now the fourth day since I had the honor of calling upon your excellency and I have not yet had the satisfaction of receiving any formal indication that His Majesty’s Government regrets and disavows the language and sentiments which were employed and expressed in such letter addressed by the Spanish minister at Washington to a distinguished Spanish citizen. It is my hope and pleasure to believe that the Spanish Government can not have received the text of the letter written by Señor Dupuy de Lôme to Señor Canalejas in regard to which I called upon your excellency last Thursday, and it therefore becomes my duty to acquaint your excellency with the following extracts from such letter which are notably objectionable to my Government.

Here follow two Spanish extracts as telegraphed by the Department.

I beg to point out to your excellency the insulting character of the first passage and the insincerity which underlies the suggestions of the second.

Customary conclusion.

Woodford.