t fail to
transmit to my Government immediately upon their receipt your note of
May 28 in reply to my note of May 15, and your supplementary note of
June 1, setting forth the conclusions so far as reached by the
Imperial German Government concerning the attacks on the American
steamers Cushing and Gulflight. I am now instructed by my Government
to communicate the following in reply:

The Government of the United States notes with gratification the full
recognition by the Imperial German Government, in discussing the cases
of the Cushing and the Gulflight, of the principle of the freedom of
all parts of the open sea to neutral ships and the frank willingness
of the Imperial German Government to acknowledge and meet its
liability where the fact of attack upon neutral ships "which have not
been guilty of any hostile act" by German aircraft or vessels of war
is satisfactorily established; and the Government of the United States
will in due course lay before the Imperial German Government, as it
requests, full information concerning the attack on the steamer
Cushing.

With regard to the sinking of the steamer Falaba, by which an American
citizen lost his life, the Government of the United States is
surprised to find the Imperial German Government contending that an
effort on the part of a merchantman to escape capture and secure
assistance alters the obligation of the officer seeking to make the
capture in respect of the safety of the lives of those on board the
merchantman, although the vessel had ceased her attempt to escape when
torpedoed. These are not new circumstances. They have been in the
minds of statesmen and of international jurists throughout the
development of naval warfare, and the Government of the United States
does not understand that they have ever been held to alter the
principles of humanity upon which it has insisted. Nothing but actual
forcible resistance or continued efforts to escape by flight when
ordered to stop for the purpose of visit on the part of the
merchantman has ever been held to forfeit the lives of her passengers
or crew. The Government of the United States, however, does not
understand that the Imperial German Government is seeking in this case
to relieve itself of liability, but only intends to set forth the
circumstances which led the commander of the submarine to allow
himself to be hurried into the course which he took.

Your Excellency's note, in discussing the loss of American