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James Burness & Sons
138, Leadenhall Street

London, 22nd November 1918
Messrs Worms & Co. - Paris

Dear Sirs,
Messageries C° at Colombo. Further in reference to the paragraph in your letter of the 18th inst. under this heading we are very sorry to find that the suggestion which was contained in ours of the 7th inst. has not in the meantime commended itself to your friends in Marseilles for the reasons which they mention, but we had nothing whatever to do with the sale to them of the coal in question which we believe was carried through by the Agency of Messrs Bullard King & Co's London House (the Coal Shippers from Natal) directly with the Agent of the Messageries Co. here. As a matter of fact we knew the sale had been made some months back but we had no knowledge whatever of the price or any details thereof. However, now that the Messageries Co. have raised the question with you and we see that the carrying-out of the arrangement has not given them satisfaction, we have taken steps to inform ourselves of the terms arranged and of the correspondence which passed between the interested parties upon the subject. We think we cannot do better than send you a copy of the whole of the correspondence which we do herewith, and we are in hopes you will agree with us that there are two sides to the question, and that our friends were not guilty of any laches inasmuch as their contention is that the coal was sold for prompt shipment and under the arbitrary ruling of the Government pooling arrangement they were not allowed to retain coal for anybody, so that the fact of their being entirely out of stock when the "Porthos" arrived was due to no shortcoming of theirs and we venture to think they fairly submit that it comes under the category of 'force majeure'.
In any case we are extremely sorry that owing to your intervention on our behalf you should unfortunately have to defend for our friends, Messrs Delmege, Forsyth & Co. a matter in which neither you nor we had any interest, but we venture to hope that the facts which are set forth in the enclosed correspondence may enable you to demonstrate to them that there are two sides to the question and that their own local representative was brought under the circumstances to admit that the contract in question 'should be 'considered void'.
For your private information we may mention that we understand the P. & O. Co. have received an application from the Messageries Co. for the sale or loan of coal at Colombo and that they have made them a proposal, but what the result of same may be we are not at present aware.
We are, Dear Sirs,
Yours truly,

James Burness & Sons