Special Message

To the Senate of the United States:

I transmit to the Senate an "agreement," signed at Lima on the 5th of June last by Mr. Francis Thomas, envoy extraordinary and minister plenipotentiary of the United States, and Mr. Jose de la Riva Aguero, minister for foreign affairs of Peru, providing for an extension of the time for the exchange of the ratifications of the treaty of friendship, commerce, and navigation and the treaty of extradition between the United States and Peru of the 6th and 12th of September, 1870, respectively. The limit of the proposed extension is to be nine months from the time when the Senate of the United States may approve thereof. The expediency of this approval is consequently submitted to the consideration of the Senate. The instruments themselves were approved by that body on the 31st of March, 1871, and they were ratified by me in order that our ratifications might be ready for exchange for those of Peru. The omission of the latter seasonably to perform that act is understood to have been occasioned solely by the delay in the meeting of the Congress of that Republic, whose sanction, pursuant to its constitution, was necessary.

U.S. GRANT