File No. 412.11/5.

The Acting Secretary of State to the American Ambassador.

No. 422.]

Sir: The Department has received your No. 692 of the 30th ultimo in which, in connection with the preparation of claims [etc.].

Your action in this matter is approved by the Department, and in accordance with your request fifty copies of the claims circular are herewith enclosed, together with a copy of an identic instruction sent to the consular officers in Mexico.

You are instructed to advise persons communicating in the future with the Embassy in regard to claims, in the sense of the enclosed instruction.

You will retain two copies of each of the claims, prepared in accordance with the Department’s claims circular and filed in the Embassy, and forward the other copy to the Department. On receipt of instructions from the Department you will transmit a copy of each claim to the Foreign Office. In the meantime you will, in cases where such action has not already been taken, submit a brief statement to the Foreign Office in regard to each claim which has been filed in the Embassy, setting forth the name of the claimant, the amount of the claim and the grounds on which it is based.

In this connection you are referred to the Department’s instruction No. 376 of June 16, 1911, which you will observe, owing to recent developments pertaining to the matter of the settlement of the claims in question, is slightly modified in so far as concerns, first, the information which you will furnish persons addressing you in regard to claims, and, secondly, the action to be taken by you with reference to papers filed in the Embassy by claimants.

I am [etc.]

Huntington Wilson.