No. 21.
Mr. Jay to Mr. Fish.

No. 843.]

Sir: I have received from the Department two copies of the President’s message.

Finding that the passage relating to Spain and Cuba, which, as reported by the cable, had misrepresented the language of the President, and had called forth remarks and criticism entirely inapplicable to the text, I inclosed a copy to Mr. del Mazo, the Spanish minister, with a brief note, and to-day his excellency called in person to make his acknowledgments, and he expressed his great satisfaction in finding the telegraphic report so completely contradicted by the President’s own words.

I have also directed an extract from the text of the message to be sent to some of the leading Vienna journals.

By the people and the press of the continent the first abstract of the President’s message, which comes by the cable, is generally accepted as the substance of the message itself, and when the text arrives a fortnight later the subject has usually been displaced by the immediate occurrences of the day. Should the Department, in view of this fact, deem it advisable in future to prepare an official abstract of the message, it would, I think, afford a more accurate idea of the executive policy than that which Europe now receives through irresponsible telegraphic agencies, and which, judging from the last example, may be, to a degree, inaccurate and delusive.

The opportunity afforded on such occasions of deceiving the world in regard to the position of the country and the views of the President appears to me to be full of inconvenience, if not of danger, and I am inclined to think that an official abstract, however brief, would be welcomed by European capitalists and statesmen as forestalling all misrepresentations, whether accidental or intentional.

I have, &c.,

JOHN JAY.