In behalf of his principals, he gives notice of payment made on a consignment
to him, and also of other cargoes coming. Having referred the matter of the
presentment of such demands for your instructions, I will not at present do
more than acknowledge the receipt of Mr. Seefelder’s communication.
[Inclosure in No.
262.—Translation.]
Mr. Seefelder to
Mr. Wallace.
Constantinople, August 7,
1883.
Sir: I, the undersigned, A. Seefelder, the
representative in this, city of Messrs. Meissner, Ackermann & Co.,
merchants, of New York, have the honor to remind you of the
protestations and reservations that I have made on several occasions
against the pretension of Sami Bey and partners to oblige merchants to
deposit petroleum arriving in Constantinople in the depots of Tchiboukli
and to make one pay for such storage exorbitant and arbitrary taxes. I
have shown that these exigencies violate at the same time treaty rights
and principles of justice and commercial liberty, and that they end in a
vexatious speculation upon all the merchants by some persons, without
any advantage to the public and to the great detriment and injury to the
petroleum trade.
I have now to inform you that, having received from consignors in New
York a cargo of petroleum by the sailing vessel Drina, which arrived at
Constantinople on the 18th of July last, I am prevented from landing
five hundred cases of the cargo which are intended for the
Constantinople market, and have been obliged, in order to avoid greater
damages, to pay Sami Bey and his associates a tax of 90 paras per case, amounting to the sum of £11
(Turkish) and 25 piastres.
In denouncing, Mr. Minister, this flagrant violation of treaties, I have
to declare, in the name of my principals, that I protest in the most
formal manner against the illegality and abuses committed to their
prejudice, and I beg you to claim, in the manner you may deem best, the
immediate repayment of the sum which I have been wrongfully compelled to
pay.
I beg at the same time that you will be pleased to notify this protest
and claim to the Ottoman ministry of foreign affairs, and use your good
offices at the Sublime Porte to stop the further intolerable exigencies
of Sami Bey and his associates.
I must also, to protect still more effectually the interests of my
employers, inform your excellency that it is all the more urgent to
obtain a definitive solution of this grave question as my principals
have already sent two other large cargoes of petroleum, one of 13,000
cases and the other of 24,000, which will arrive shortly at
Constantinople, and that under these circumstances it is of interest to
them to be guaranteed at once against all unforeseen illegal taxes
contrary to the terms of the treaties.
In placing with confidence the rights and interests of my principals,
citizens of the United States, under your protection,
I have, &c.,
