#mongkut

Great and Good Friend:

     I have received Your Majesty's two letters of the date of February 11th, 1861.

I have also received in good condition the royal gifts which

accompanied those letters, - namely, a sword of costly material and an ex-

quisite workmanship:  a photograph likeness of Your Majesty and

of Your Majesty's beloved daughter;  and also two elephants' tusks of

length and magnitude such as indicate that they could have belonged

only to an animal which was a native of Siam.

     Your Majesty's letters show an understanding that our

laws forbid the President from receiving these rich presents as  personal

treasures.  They are therefore accepted in accordance with Your Majesty's

desire as tokens of your good will and friendship for the American

People.  Congress being now in session at the capital, I have had

great pleasure in making known to them this manifestation of Your

Majesty's munificence and kind consideration.

     Under their directions the gifts will be placed among the

archives of the Government, where they will remain perpetually as

tokens of mutual esteem and pacific dispositions more honorable to

both nations than any trophies of conquest could be.

I appreciate most highly Your Majesty's tender of good

offices in forwarding to this Government a stock from which a supply

of elephants might be raised on our own soil.  This Government would

not hesitate to avail itself of a  generous an offer if the object were one

which could be made practically useful in the present condition of the

United States.

     Our political jurisdiction, however, does not reach a latitude

so low as to favor the multiplication of the elephant, and stream on land

as well as on water, has been our best and most efficient agent of

transportation in internal commerce.

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I shall have occasion at no distant day to transmit to Your

Majesty some token of indication of the high sense which this Government

entertains of Your Majesty's friendship.

     Meantime, wishing for Your Majesty a long and happy life.

and for the generous and emulous People of Siam the highest possible

prosperity, I commend both of the blessing of Almighty God

                                      Your Good Friend,

                                      Abraham Lincoln

Washington, February 3, 1862

By the President:

      William H. Seward,

      Secretary of State

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Abraham Lincoln,

President of the United State of America

To Her Majesty Dona Isabel II

By the Grace of Lord and the Constitution

of the Spanish Monarchy Queen of Spain,

                                  etc., etc.

Great and Good Friend:

     I have received the letter which Your

Majesty was pleased to address to me on the 28th of October, last, announ-

cing that Her Royal Highness the Infanta Dona Maria Christ-

ina, spouse of His Royal Highness the Infante Don Sebastian

Gabriel, had on the 20th of the preceding August Safely given birth

to a Prince upon whom at the baptismal font had been bestowed the

names of Francisco, Maria Isabel Gabriel Pedro.

     I participate in the satisfaction which this happy even has