Fitzgerald to Merivale (Permanent Under-Secretary)

With reference to your Letter of the 20th ultimo, I am
directed by the Earl of Malmesbury to transmit to you, to be
laid before Secretary Sir Edward Bulwer Lytton, Copies of a
Despatch and of it's inclosures from Her Majesty's Minister at
Washington reporting the refusal of the United States'
Government to 
give any preference over those of ordinary
Creditors of that Government to the claim of Governor Douglas
for the expense of certain Military Stores which he furnished in
the year 1856 to the Authorities of Washington Territory.