Done at Washington this first day of March in the year of our Lord one thousand eight hundred and eighty-two, and of the Independence of the United States the one hundred and sixth. (Seal.) CHESTER A. ARTHUR. By the President. FRED'K T. FRELINGHUYSEN, _Secretary of State_. The same day the president of the American Association sent by cablegram to President Moynier, of the International Committee at Geneva, the glad tidings that the United States had at last joined in the great humane work of the world by ratifying the treaties of the Red Cross; and on the twenty-fourth of the same month, President Moynier replied as follows: COMITE INTERNATIONAL DE SECOURS AUX MILITAIRES BLESSES, GENEVA, _March 24, 1882_. MISS CLARA BARTON, _President of the American Society of the Red Cross, Washington_: MADEMOISELLE: At last, on the seventeenth instant, I received your glorious telegram. I delayed replying to it in order to communicate its contents to my colleagues of the International Committee, so as to be able to thank you in the name of all of us and to tell you of the joy it gives us. You must feel happy too, and proud to have at last attained your object, thanks to a perseverance and a zeal which surmounted every obstacle. Please, if opportunity offers, to be our interpreter to President Arthur and present him our warmest congratulations. I suppose your government will now notify the Swiss Federal Council of its decision in the matter, and the latter will then inform the other Powers which have signed the Red Cross Treaty. Only after this formality shall have been complied with can we occupy ourselves with fixing the official international status of your American society. We have, however, already considered the circular which we intend to address to all the societies of the Red Cross, and with regard thereto we have found that it will be necessary for us as a preliminary measure to be furnished with a document certifying that the American society has attained the second of its objects, _i.e._, that it has been (officially) recognized by the American Government. It is important that we be able to certify that your government is prepared to accept your services in case of war; that it will readily enter into co-operation with you, and will encourage the centralization under your direction of all the voluntary aid. We have no doubt that you will readily obtain from the competent authorities an official declaration to that effect, and we believe that this matter will be merely a formality, _but we attach the greatest importance to the fact in order to cover our responsibility, especially in view of the pretensions of rival societies which might claim to be acknowledged by us_.