it was to run, also needed to be ascertained before it could be computed. The problem before the Tribunal, as bearing upon this question of interest, may be very simply stated.

The injuries for which Great Britain is to make indemnity, happened in the years 1863 to 1865. The Treaty of Washington provides that the sum for their indemnity, as fixed by the Tribunal, shall be paid within one year after the award.

What sum, payable as of this date, will be an indemnity for destruction of property occurring seven, eight, and nine years ago?

Manifestly, the question whether Great Britain should pay interest is an inseparable part of the question whether it is to make indemnity. (c) But it is said that for a certain period of time the United States are responsible for the delay of payment by Great Britain, and for that period Great Britain should be exempted from interest. This period is put as from the failure of the Johnson-Clarendon Convention, negotiated in London January, 1869, but not ratified by the United States. If this means anything, it means that Great Britain, in January, 1869, was ready then to pay to the United States the sum that this Tribunal shall find reason to fix under the Rules of the Treaty of Washington, and so notified the United States. The intervening delay, consequently, in the receipt of the money is chargeable to the United States. Thus put, the proposition is intelligible, but utterly unsupported by the facts of the case.

Great Britain has never admitted its liability to the United States in the premises for a single ship destroyed by any one of the cruisers, nor is it pretended to the contrary. Of what value is it then to say, that if Great Britain and the United States had been able to agree upon different and earlier arbitration there might have been an earlier award, and so interest should cease from a date when Great Britain was ready to accede to an arbitration upon certain terms which the United States rejected? Certainly the efficacy of this novel limitation on the running of interest must date from the probable period of the award under the failing arbitration. Upon no reasonable conjecture could the commission of claims arranged by that convention have produced its award at all in advance of what may be expected from this Tribunal.

We leave out of consideration, as wholly irrelevant, the suggestions that it was to the non-concurrence of the Senate of the United States that the failure of the previous attempt at arbitration was due. That arbitration failed because the United States did not ratify the convention. But to give any force to this argument, it should appear that the United States in the present Treaty have simply, at a later date, concurred in what they then refused. This is not pretended. Indeed, it is to the presence of the Three Rules of the Treaty of Washington as the law of this Arbitration that Great Britain seems disposed to attribute its responsibility to the United States, if, in the judgment of this Tribunal, it shall be held responsible. We respectfully submit that there is no support, in fact or in reason, for this attempted limitation on the period of interest to the date of the Johnson-Clarendon Convention.

(d) The argument of the learned Counsel concludes with a criticism upon the cases under the Jay Treaty, and under the Treaty of Ghent, and the case of the Canada, as decided by Sir Edward Thornton, all of which were adduced by us in our principal argument as pertinent on the question of interest, (p. 220.) We must think, with great respect to the observations of the learned Counsel upon these cases, that their authority remains unshaken. We respectfully submit herewith a

statement, showing what computation of interest we suppose would rightly satisfy the demands of the United States in this behalf.

In conclusion, we may be permitted to repeat, in reference to this element of computation of a just indemnity, what we have said on the general measure of indemnity:

This principal question having been determined, if Great Britain is held responsible for these injuries, the people of the United States expect a just and reasonable measure of compensation for the injuries as thus adjudicated, in the sense that belongs to this question of compensation, as one between nation and nation. (American Argument, p. 225.)

It is a matter of the greatest interest to both nations that the actual injuries to private sufferers from the depredations of the cruisers, for which Great Britain shall be held responsible, shall be fairly covered and satisfied by that portion of the award what shall be applicable to and based upon them. That this cannot be expected without an allowance of interest, is obvious.

A recognized right to indemnity, and a deficient provision of such indemnity, should be the last thing to be desired as a solution of this great controversy between these nations.

WM. M. EVARTS.
C. CUSHING.
M. R. WAITE.

NOTE TO THE REPLY.

Summary of the American claims, with interest at 7 per cent. added.

In case the Arbitrators reject column 5, under the heading Shenandoah, the total amount of claims will be

(a) Interest is calculated above at the rate of 7 per cent. a year. (b) It is calculated for the true average of time of the captures by each cruiser, namely: By the Alabama, for ten years and two months; by the Florida, for ten years and one month; by the Shenandoah, for eight years and five months.

Golconda

Names of vessels.

Nora

Starlight

Baron de Castine.

Add one-sixth in order to increase the rate to 7 per cent

The average time for the computation of interest on the value of the property destroyed by the Alabamais about ten years and two months. We have, consequently, the following comparative results:

Whatever be the sum fixed by the Tribunal as a base for the computation of interest, and whatever may be the rate that it decides to allow, the average time for the computation should be the same in all cases; that is to say, ten years and two months.

Names of vessels.

Rienzi...

Ada..

Elizabeth Ann.

Marengo.

Rufus Choate..
Wanderer...

Anglo Saxon.

Avon

B. F. Hoxie.

Greenland..

Southern Cross.

William C. Clark,

Mary Alvina..

Add one sixth in order to increase the rate to 7 per cent...

465,394 40

3,257,760 85

The average time for the computation of interest on the value of property destroyed by the Florida and her tender is (about) ten years and one month.

Whatever may be the sum fixed by the Tribunal as a base for the computation of interest, and whatever may be the rate that it shall decide to allow, the average time for the computation should be the same in all cases, namely, ten years and one month.