News, the Saturday Review, the Spectator, the Pall Mall Gazette, the Manchester Guardian, and other British journals generally, are certainly conducted with great ability, and are second, in character and in value, to no others, in Europe. In view of which it must be confessed that the outcry which they made against the American Case seemed to me at the time to be altogether unworthy of them and of England.

It was my opinion on reading the American Case for the first time, and is my opinion now, after repeated readings, that it is not only a document of signal ability, learning, and forensic force, which, indeed, every body admits, but that it is also temper ate in language and dignified in spirit, as becomes any state paper which is issued in the name of the United States.

I do not mean to say that it is so cold a document as the British Case. Warmth or coldness of color is a matter of taste, in respect of which the United States have no call to criticise Great Britain, and Great Brit ain has no right to criticise the United States.

We may presume that, in the exercise of its unquestionable right, the Government of the United States made up its Case in the aim of convincing the Arbitrators, and not with any dominant purpose or special expectation of pleasing Great Britain.

But there is no just cause of exception to the gen eral tenor, spirit, or style of the American Case. Its facts are pertinent; its reasonings are cogent; its con clusions are logical: and in all that is the true ex planation of the emotion it occasioned in England.

Intelligent people there, on reading the American Case, then opened their eyes universally to the fact that Great Britain was about to be tried before a high court constituted by three neutral Governments. That was not an agreeable subject of reflection. Intelligent Englishmen also, on reading the American Case, began to be uneasily conscious of the strength of the cause of the United States. And that was not an agreeable subject of reflection. For a good cause, in a good court, seemed likely to result in a great international judgment adverse to England.

The specific objections preferred were quite futile. Thus, complaint was made because the Case charged the British Ministers with unfriendliness to the United States for a certain period of the Civil War. But the charge was proved by citing the declarations of those Ministers; it was not, and could not be de nied by any candid Englishman; it is admitted by Sir Alexander Cockburn in the dissenting opinion which he filed at the close of the Arbitration. And the charge was pertinent, because it explained the negligent acts of subordinate British authorities, as at Liverpool or Nassau: which acts could not be otherwise explained unless by suggesting a worse imputation, namely, that of hostile insincerity on the part of the Ministers.

If there be any person at the present day, who is inclined to call in question the truth of the foregoing remarks, he is earnestly entreated to read the Amer ican Case now, in the light of the adjudged guilt of the British Government, and he will then see ample

cause to approve the reason, the dignity, and the tem per of that Case.

EXPLANATION OF OBJECTIONS TO THE AMERICAN CASE.

The truth undoubtedly is, that discontent with the Treaty itself had much to do in England with objec tions to the "Case." The British Ministers had ne gotiated the Treaty in perfect good faith, and in wellfounded conviction of its wisdom, of the justice of its provisions, and of its not conflicting with the honor either of Great Britain or of the United States. Parliament had accepted the Treaty without serious op position, and with but little debate, except on the very trivial party question whether it was more or less favorable to Great Britain than the conventions negotiated by Lord Stanley and the Earl of Clarendon. And Great Britain, as a nation, had, beyond all peradventure, heartily approved and welcomed the conclusion of the Treaty.

But, on reading the American Case, and reflecting on the constitution of the proposed Tribunal, many Englishmen yielded to a sentiment of undue estimate of English law and English lawyers, as distinguished from the laws and the lawyers of Continental Europe and of Spanish and Portuguese America. England has good reason to be proud of her legal institutions and of her jurists, and, of late years, she has learned to regard the common law with some abatement of that fetichism of devotion which was taught by Coke and by Fortescue. But the statesmen appointed by the three neutral Governments to act as Arbitrators

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at Geneva, and who, it was clearly seen, would be the effective judges in the cause, were not likely to share the English opinion of the common law of England. And these three Arbitrators were persons outside of the range of the observation, knowledge, or apprecia tion of most Englishmen, who felt undefined distrust of men whom they did not and could not know as they knew Englishmen and Americans. Nay, Englishmen were heard to say, in conversation, that they would prefer a tribunal made up of Englishmen and Americans. We shall fully comprehend how strong this sentiment was among average Englishmen, when we remember that expression was given to it in the House of Lords by the Marquess of Salisbury, who, notwithstanding his high intelligence, and the cosmopolitan experience which men of his rank possess, could characterize as unknown, and, therefore, as ob. jectionable, an actual Embassador in France, an exPresident of Switzerland, and a Senator and ex-Minister of Italy with fame as a jurist and historian per vading Europe. It was a sentiment which Sir Alex ander Cockburn betrayed in his deportment and language at several meetings of the Tribunal.

These, however, were but the transitory incidents of popular emotion and public discussion, and of sec ondary significance.

AGITATION RESPECTING THE NATIONAL CLAIMS.

But the agitation which soon followed, on the subject of certain of the claims set forth in the Case of the United States, arose at once to national impor

tance. I allude, of course, to what was frequently spoken of as the question of "indirect claims."

The expression is incorrect, and, if admissible as a popular designation, it must not be permitted to pro duce any misconception of the true question at issue. It would be less inaccurate to speak of them as "claims for indirect or constructive losses or damages," which is the more common phrase in the diplomatic papers; and less inaccurate still to say "remote or consequen tial losses and damages." But, in truth, none of these expressions are correct, and the use of them has done. much to obscure the actual point of controversy, and to divert the public mind into devious paths of argu. ment or conclusion.

When, in the instructions to Mr. Motley of Septem ber 25th, 1869, President Grant caused the British Government to be informed, through the Secretary of State, of the nature of the grievances of the United States, he employed the following language:

"The President is not yet prepared to pronounce on the question of the indemnities which he thinks due by Great Britain to individual citizens of the United States for the destruction of their property by rebel cruisers fitted out in the ports of Great Britain.

"Nor is he now prepared to speak of the reparation which he thinks due by the British Government for the larger account of the vast national injuries it has inflicted on the United States.

"Nor does he attempt now to measure the relative effect of the various causes of injury, whether by untimely recognition of belligerency, by suffering the fitting out of rebel cruisers, or by the supply of ships, arms, and munitions of war to the Confederates, or otherwise, in whatsoever manner.