File No. 2413/59.
The Chinese Minister to the Secretary of State.
Washington,June 17, 1907.
Sir: I have the honor to acknowledge the receipt of your valued note of the 15th instant, in which, by authority of the President, you inform me, with reference to the revision made by the different executive departments of your Government concerned, of the estimate and account against which the payments on account of the indemnity allotted to the United States by the protocol signed at Peking, September 7, 1901, have been made and are to be made by China, that, in pursuance of that revision, the President, at the next session of the Congress, will ask for authority to reform the agreement with China under which the indemnity is fixed, by remitting and canceling the obligation of China for the payment of all that part of the stipulated indemnity which is in excess of the sum of $11,655,492.69 and interest at the stipulated rate of 4 per cent per annum.
I have lost no time in communicating by cable to my Government the welcome information with the request that it be laid immediately before the Emperor.
I take this first opportunity to express to you the grateful thanks of my Government for this signal act of generosity shown by the United States toward China, which can not fail to bind the two countries into closer and more friendly relations, and which affords another conspicuous proof of the high sense of justice that has always actuated the Government of the United States in its intercourse with China.
Accept, etc.,