I beg to refer in this connection to Senate Executive Document No. 273, first session of the Fiftieth Congress, and especially to page 3 thereof.

Believing the information contained in said document answered the purposes of said Senate resolution, no separate and explicit answer was made thereto.

But in my message of October 1, 1888, the tenor and purport of a cipher dispatch from our minister in China to the Secretary of State, dated September 21, 1888, was given instead of attempting to transmit a copy of the same.

For greater precision, however, and with the object of answering in more exact terms the resolution of the Senate, I transmit with this, in paraphrase of the cipher, a copy of the said dispatch.  I also transmit copies of two notes which accompanied my message of October 1, 1888, one from Mr. Shu Cheon Pon, charge d’affaires of the Chinese legation in this city, dated September 25, 1888, to the Secretary of State, and the other being the reply thereto by the Secretary of State, dated September 26, 1888, both of which will be found in Senate Executive Document No. 273.

The dispatch and notes above referred to comprise, in the language of the Senate resolution, “all communications and correspondence” the transmission of which is therein requested.

GROVER CLEVELAND.

[Footnote 24:  See p. 610.]

[Footnote 25:  See pp. 630-635.]

EXECUTIVE MANSION, January 3, 1889.

To the Senate and House of Representatives: 

I transmit herewith for the consideration of the Congress a report of the Secretary of State, with accompanying papers, recommending an appropriation for the relief of Japanese subjects injured and of the families of Japanese subjects killed on the island of Ikisima in consequence of target practice directed against the shore by the United States man-of-war Omaha in March, 1887.

GROVER CLEVELAND.

EXECUTIVE MANSION, January 3, 1889.

To the Senate: 

I desire to supplement the message yesterday sent to your honorable body in response to a Senate executive resolution dated September 25, 1888, asking the transmission of certain communications and correspondence on the subject of the recent proposed convention with China and the reported failure of the Government of China to finally agree to the same, by adding to said response two telegrams I omitted therefrom, which were sent in cipher by the Secretary of State to our minister at Peking, and which may be considered by the Senate relevant to the subject of its inquiry.

One of said dispatches is as follows: 

  WASHINGTON, September 4, 1888.

  DENBY,
    Minister, Peking: 

  Rejection of treaty is reported here.  What information have you?

  BAYARD.

Two replies to this dispatch were made by our minister to China, dated, respectively, September 5 and September 6, 1888.  They were heretofore, and on September 7, 1888,[26] sent to the Senate, and are printed in Senate Executive Document No. 271.