Awaiting your communication to me of the decision which the Government of the United States shall see fit to take in regard to this proposition, I offer you, Mr. Secretary of State, the expression of my very highest consideration.
J.B. Pioda.
Department of State,
Washington, May 9, 1898.
Sir: Upon receiving your note of the fourth instant, in reply to mine of the twenty-fifth of April, concerning the proposition of the Government of the Swiss Confederation that the United States and Spain adopt as a modus vivendi, pending the entire duration of the war, the articles of October 20, 1868, additional to those of the convention of Geneva on August 22, 1864, I communicated all the papers in the case to the Secretary of the Navy, calling his attention to the form of the modus vivendi adopted during the Franco-German war, which your government was pleased to suggest as a precedent to be followed during the existing war. The printed paper you enclose, besides giving the text of the original additional articles of October 20, 1868, contains the correspondence had in 1868 and 1869 concerning the interpretation of Articles IX and X of the said additional convention and thus establishes the precise nature of the understanding to which France and the North German States respectively acceded.
As so expressed, the Government of the United States finds no difficulty in acceding to the suggestion of the Government of Switzerland. It had, in fact, anticipated it, so far as concerns its own conduct of hostilities and its own purpose to observe the humane dictates of modern civilization in the prosecution of warfare upon the sea as well as upon land by fitting out and equipping a special ambulance ship, the “Solace,” in conformity with the terms of the additional convention aforesaid, thus confirming emphatically its adhesion to the principles of that beneficient arrangement without regard to the absence of its formal ratification by the various signatories.
I am happy, therefore, to advise you, and through you the Government of the Swiss Confederation, that the Government of the United States will for its part, and so long as the present war between this country and Spain shall last, treat as an effective modus vivendi the fourteen additional articles of October 20, 1868, with the interpretations of the ninth and tenth articles thereof appearing in the publication you communicate to me. While it is proper to adopt this course on its own account, and without reference to such action as Spain may take, this government would nevertheless be glad to hear that the representations made by your government to that of Spain had met with a favorable response in order that the two parties to the present contest may stand pledged to the same humane and enlightened conduct of naval operations as respects the sick and wounded as was recognized and adopted by the respective parties to the Franco-Prussian war.
Should the Government of Spain likewise accede to the Swiss proposition, I should be much gratified to be apprised of the fact, and also that the Spanish accession contemplates acceptance of the interpretations of Articles IX and X which were adopted by France and the North German States and which are embraced in the proposition of your government.
Accept, etc.
William R. Day
Swiss Legation,
Washington, D.C., May 9, 1898.