Papers Relating to the Foreign Relations of the United States, Transmitted to Congress, With the Annual Message of the President, December 3, 1888, Part I

No. 355.
Mr. Bayard to Mr. McLane.

Department of State,
Washington, December 28, 1887.

No. 285.]

Sir.: Four dispatch No. 520, of the 16th instant, reporting your intervention in behalf of Mr. Albert F. Gendrot, an American citizen impressed into the French military service, has been received.

Your course in regard to this case is approved, and you are instructed to continue to use your good offices to obtain his relief from any claims that may be made on him for military service in France. You will, however, advise him that his remaining in France after he becomes of age may be regarded as an election of French nationality (see Wharton’s Digest, Vol. II, § 183, pp. 396–7, 2d edition), and that his only method of electing and maintaining an American nationality is by a prompt return to this country.

I am, etc.,

T. F. Bayard.