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the Convention, requiring the Commissioners to hold their sessions in London, important advantages are secured in favour of the British Government and claimants over those of The United States, by means of far greater facilities and readiness in communication existing between their public offices and the Commissioners. These inequalities are beyond our control, and are only adverted to as a reason why we should not desire farther to increase them, in the organization of the Commissioners, unless imperative necessity requires it.

I trust a full and candid consideration of the various views I have presented will induce you to concur in opinion with me as to the direction in which we should look for the choice of an umpire.

If we can harmonize to the extent, I should have but little doubt we might readily arrive at a conclusion that would satisfy all parties, and would conduce to the best interests of both Governments. I shall be happy to receive a reply from you at your earliest convenience.

With the highest respect, &c.

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SIR,

No. 2.

Mr. Hornby to Mr. Upham.

London, September 27, 1853. I BEG to acknowledge the receipt of your letter of the 22nd instant, in which, after expressing your opinion of the importance attaching to the selection of an umpire whose position and character would secure respect for, and cheerful acquiescence in, his decisions, and your disinclination to resort to the alternative pointed out in the Convention under which the Commission is constituted, in the event of our not being able to agree upon the same individual, you trust that I shall be induced, by the reasons you offer me, to concur in opinion with yourself as to the direction in which to look for such an umpire as we jointly desire to find.

In your letter you also recapitulate the arguments urged by yourself in the several conversations which we have held upon this subject, and in the force of these arguments, so far as they have reference to the qualifications which an umpire should possess, I have never hesitated to express my concurrence. But I submit to your consideration whether the conclusions drawn from these arguments are fairly deduced, when you tell me that we ought not to hesitate in naming some person, from the class represented by Mr. Peabody, or, in other words, and in default of your suggesting any other person, Mr. Peabody himself.

For the reasons I have assigned in conversation with you, I concur in thinking that "any umpire appointed should be favourably known in America, and have an established reputation there for impartiality and integrity" as well as here; and I also consider it desirable that he should be easily accessible and possess an intimate acquaintance with the English language. With respect, however, to your allusion to the limited compensation to be allowed for the umpire, and which you urge as an argument against appointing any individual who may not be in England, I would observe, that by the Convention the compensation is not fixed, the matter being left open to be determined by mutual consent at the close of the Commission; and the higher we look in the social scale the more probable does it become that pecuniary compensation will be a secondary consideration. But although I agree with you upon the desirableness of the umpire being in London and thoroughly acquainted with the English language, yet these points are very secondary, in my opinion, to the all important one of the umpire's possessing the qualification of being entirely free from bias either by reason of nationality, connection, or of any possibility of interest in the matters or questions to be determined.

Feeling, therefore, as strongly as you can do upon this subject, and echoing every argument which you have made use of to demonstrate the expediency of our agreeing upon one and the same individual to fill the office of umpire, as

much for the purpose of securing public approval for the organization of similar tribunals under like circumstances in the future, as for investing the decisions of the Commissioners in the present with a certain moral effect, I have endeavoured, in presenting for your consideration and approbation the names of several gentlemen, to select such only as possessed all the qualifications we both feel to be desirable; and who, from the independence of their station in society, their high character, varied acquirements and world-wide reputation, would be approved of by our respective Governments,and have the entire confidence of the several claimants. Permit me to recall their names to your recollection: Count Strzelecki, M. Van de Weyer, the Chevalier Bunsen, the Duke de Broglie, the Duke de Nemours, Prince Joinville, M. Guizot, and M. Lamartine. Even now I am loth to think that the objection, which you imply would be felt by your countrymen to the appointment of an European not an Englishman, is one which can, or ought to be, brought against those individuals whose names I have already brought under your notice. I cannot conceive that they are not "quite as well known across the Atlantic as here." None of them "have come into collision with their own Governments" that I am aware of, or have conceived prejudices "against existing forms of Governments in Europe, or the mode of their exercise."

The circumstance, also, of Mr. Van de Weyer and the Chevalier Bunsen being the Representatives of foreign nations at this Court, ought not, I submit, to be weighed in the scale, when their literary and social reputation entitles them to take rank amongst that class of citizens of the world in whom every nation takes a pride, whose fame is the common property of all, and whose feelings, sympathies, and interests may be fairly considered as not confined to one place or people, but equally and indifferently spread over the whole world.

Nor, permit me to state, do the exceptions which you have taken on the score of the possibility "that similar claims may exist between the United States' Government, or the British Government, and the Government of the party

who may be selected, or his official position at this Court," appear to me to be well founded. It is not, I venture to suggest, to be presumed that the mere fact of an official position here, or the possibility of there being outstanding claims between these countries and the Governments of Great Britain and the United States, would influence, for a moment, the judgment of men of such standing and repute as either M. Van de Weyer or the Chevalier Bunsen; and I think you will admit, that such men as the French Princes, the Duke de Broglie, MM. Strzelecki, Guizot, and Lamartine, can have no bias upon matters of such little political moment as the claims in question.

In objecting to Mr. Peabody, as an individual not possessing the desirable qualifications which we both think are essential in an umpire, I do not mean, for a moment, to cast the slightest shadow on the reputation of that gentleman, either as a citizen of The United States, or as an American merchant residing here. He has honourably earned a high character for integrity and uprightness, and reflects credit on the country of his birth; but he is essentially an American, standing at the head of the American commercial firms in this country, and looked upon here as, par excellence, the representative of the Amerian commercial community in this country. To take him, therefore, from his proper sphere, and to erect him into an impartial arbitrator between the Government of this country and the very class of whom, as I have stated, he is considered the fitting and honourable head, would be to place him in an invidious position--to throw a suspicion over the proceedings of the Commission, and to generate a feeling (likely enough to arise in the mind of a disappointed claimant, and by him to be communicated to a public almost equally disposed to sympathize with wrongs, real as well as imaginary), however unfounded such a feeling might be, that impartiality was not sufficiently secured in an organization in which the ultimate appeal was left to an individual connected by birth-possessing all the natural sympathy which most men bear to the institutions and society of their fatherland-owing allegiance to, and being

long engaged in extensive commercial transactions with, the country of one of the two sets of claimants.

Having myself a strong feeling of doubt, whether, in any case, our choice should fall upon a British subject, an American citizen, or upon any person engaged in commercial pursuits, I abstain from officially referring to individuals, natives of this country. At your request,

however, and as an earnest of my sincere desire to agree with you in appointing one individual, instead of "resorting to the contingency of lot to constitute one" I furnished you with a list of the names of such gentlemen - Englishmen, whose character, reputation, independent station, and social position place them above all suspicion. I again refer you to it for your consideration. Amongst these names you will see those of Lords Brougham, Truro, and St. Leonards, Ex-Lord Chancellors of Great Britain; Mr. Justice Patteson, Ex-Judge of the Queen's Bench; Thomas Babington Macaulay, George Grote, and Mr. Thomas Baring, names which I will venture to say are sufficient guarantees for the justice and impartiality of any judgment they may be called upon to give. At the same time I beg you to believe that my opinion remains unaltered, and that it is amongst foreigners, entirely indifferent to both countries as regards birth and connections, but equally acceptable to each on the ground of friendly relations, that we ought to look for the individual who is to decide upon all questions upon which we may not (as I trust will seldom, if ever, be the case) be able to agree.

It will be with great regret, should the necessity arise (a necessity which I feel must, if possible, be avoided) for our having to proceed to the nomination of two umpires, to be appointed in each case by lot, I trust we shall still find some person in whose judgment and impartiality we shall have full confidence, and whose social position and high reputation will justify us in nominating him to the responsible and honourable office in question between us.

No endeavour, I can assure you, shall be wanting on my part; and feeling that you desire to carry out the object of

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