Papers Relating to Foreign Affairs, Accompanying the Annual Message of the President to the Second Session Thirty-eighth Congress, Part IV, Appendix to diplomatic correspondence of 1865; the assassination of Abraham Lincoln, late president of the United States of America, and the attempted assassination of William H. Seward, Secretary of State, and Frederick W. Seward, Assistant Secretary, on the evening of the 14th of April, 1865; expressions of condolence and sympathy inspired by these events

Municipal Council of Sydney, New South Wales

Address of the municipal council of the city of Sydney, N. S. W.

Madam: We, the municipal council of the city of Sydney, in the British colony of New South Wales, desire, on behalf of the citizens of this city, to express to you our deeply felt sympathy on the lamentable occurrence which has led to the untimely death of your husband, the late President of the United States of America.

If any consolation can be experienced on such an occasion, when the almost universal feeling is that of the deepest sorrow, it must arise from the knowledge that in the history of your country there does not exist a name which, from its association with the momentous events of his time, will be more honored and reverenced than that of Abraham Lincoln.

The unostentatious simplicity and uprightness of his character in private life; the wise and useful influence which he exercised over the public institutions of his country; his worthy ambitious desire to support and maintain the Constitution of the state, and the undeviating firmness and admirable sagacity which he evinced during the extraordinary struggle of the past few years, have exhibited to the world one of those great and attractive characters which commands the profoundest respect from every rank of life. The unhappy event which has removed such a man from the social circle, and has deprived the nation of such valuable aid and guidance, must excite the most heartfelt sympathy for the relatives and friends who mourn his disastrous fate, and the deepest regret that his country should have lost so noble and devoted a patriot.

We earnestly hope that the condolence which has been offered you from all parts of your own land and from foreign nations may tend in some degree to assuage your great affliction, while we are confident that the people whom your husband so wisely governed will bear his name in honored remembrance, and that it will stand side by side with the greatest in the history of the New World.

[seal.]

JOHN WOODS,

Mayor of the City of Sydney.

Adopted by the municipal council of the city of Sydney, this seventeenth day of July, A. D. 1865.

CHARLES W. WOOLCOTT,

Town Clerk.

Mrs. Lincoln.