The United States claim interest on the whole amount at 7 per cent. per annum up to the day of payment, according to the terms of the Treaty.

XV.-REPLY OF THE AGENT OF THE UNITED STATES TO THE NEW MATTER INTRODUCED BY THE AGENT OF HER BRITANNIC MAJESTY ON THE CALL OF THE TRIBUNAL FOR ELUCIDATION IN RESPECT TO THE TABLES PRESENTED BY THE TWO GOVERNMENTS.

The tables presented to the Tribunal by the agent of Her Britannic Majesty on the 19th and 26th instant, under the call for a comparative statement of the British and American tables then already presented, are new, in substance as well as form, and contain new criticisms on the American tables. The agent of the United States makes no exception to this liberty taken by the British agent.

His Government courts a free discussion of all its claims, and has no desire to shut out criticism by technical objections. He claims, however, his right, under the Treaty, to reply to the new matter introduced under the call for elucidation made at the request of the Viscount d'Itajubá.

I. THE QUESTION OF GOLD OR PAPER.

It is several times stated in the papers presented by the British agent that the claims of the United States are made in paper-money. This is a mistake. They are made in gold, unless when expressly stated to be made in paper. The proof of this is multifarious.

(a) The Treaty provides that the award is to be paid in gold. The claims are submitted under the provisions of the Treaty. The strong presumption is, therefore, that the claimants stated their claims in the currency in which the judgment is to be made, viz, coin.

(b) This presumption is strengthened by the fact that during the war the merchants on the Atlantic coast engaged in foreign trade, and many or most of the large insurance companies on that coast, and all persons engaged in business on the Pacific coast, kept their books and accounts in coin.

(c) It is also strengthened by the fact that the cruises of many of the vessels destroyed began before the paper-money of the United States had depreciated.

(d) It is also strengthened by the internal evidence contained in the Revised List of Claims filed April 15, 1872.

The subject is mentioned under the heads of the following vessels captured by the Alabama:

1. The Amanda, (page 7.)-The insurance deducted from the claim of Isaiah Larrabee, £179 sterling, is stated to amount to $866.36. This is the exact sum of coin which the sterling should yield with exchange at par, viz, $4.84 to the pound.

2. The Brilliant, (page 27.)-The claim for freight, £3,415 98. 8d. is stated to amount to $16,531.03. This also is the exact sum in coin which the sterling should yield at par.

3. The Chastelaine, (page 28.)-Here a claim in gold is converted into currency, showing expressly that the whole claim is in currency.

4. The Martaban, (page 64.)-The loss (80,000 rupees) is stated to amount to $35,600. This is undoubtedly stated in gold.

5. The Nora, (page 65.—The claims are stated in gold.

6. The Sea Lark.-The claim of F. M. and Mary Jane Rawlins (page 82) is stated with an insurance deduction of "$1,565 gold." This shows that the whole claim is in gold. It also shows that the insurances were paid in gold. Under the head of the Florida some claims are expressly advanced in gold, e. g., under the Commonwealth, the claims of Hortsman, Page, Buchman, and Myer, (page 136.) Independently of the general considerations already presented, this offers the best reason for supposing that the other claimants also have made their claims in gold. See also Williams's claim, under the Jacob Bell, page 182.

(e) A payment, even in gold, a year hence, at the full rate of the claims, will not enable the individual claimants to restore to the United States the full measure of the national wealth destroyed by the Florida, the Alabama, and the Shenandoah after leaving Melbourne, because, as is well known, the purchasing power of gold has diminished about 50 per cent. within the last ten or twelve years. Therefore the same amount of coin now would not represent the same amount of values in ships and their equipments, and in cargoes, which it did in 1863. And as these proceedings have no relation to contracts, in which the representative of values is to be restored to the claimant rather than the values themselves, but relate to injuries which are to be compensated to the full measure of the damage-that is, to a measure which will restore the sufferer to the condition in which he was before the injury was inflicted—these considerations should be regarded by the arbitrators. And even should they come to the conclusion that some exceptional claims are stated in paper-currency, they will also see that the loss in the purchasing power of gold since the injury took place is greater than the difference between gold and paper at the time of the injury, so that a payment a year hence, even in gold at the rates claimed, will not, and in the nature of things cannot, be a restoration to the United States of the national wealth destroyed through the fault of Great Britain.

II.

The allegation that new claims have been introduced into the United States tables is not true in the sense in which the Agent of the United States understands the rights of his Government under the Treaty.

(a) It has already been shown to the Tribunal that the United States in their case made claim for all "their direct losses growing out of destruction of vessels and their cargoes by insurgent cruisers," (Am. Case, page 469,) under which they classified "claims for damages or injuries to persons growing out of the destruction of each class of vessels," (ibid.,) and that they asked the Tribunal, "from the data which were furnished to ascertain the names and the tonnage of the different vessels destroyed, and to form an estimate of the number of hardy but helpless seamen who were thus deprived of their means of subsistence, and to determine what aggregate sum it would be just to place in the hands of the United States on that account," (ibid., page 471.)

(b) The real question raised by the agent of Her Britannic Majesty is, therefore, not whether the United States have presented new figures which were not contained in their former statements, (although advanced in the gross in those statements as forming part of their losses,) but it is this, viz: whether the Tribunal, in the exercise of the power to award a sum in gross, conferred upon it by the seventh article of the Treaty, should limit itself by the rules and modes of proceedings prescribed for the assessors in the tenth article.

(c) The assessors are to be allowed by the Treaty two and one-half years to conclude their examinations, and they are required to examine each claim separately and to render their decision in each case on the proofs adduced.

(d) But the Tribunal is to make its decision on a gross sum, if possible, in three months from the submission of the argument, having first exhausted the most of the time in determining, separately as to each vessel, whether Great Britain is responsible for its acts; and there is nothing in the Treaty requiring them to make their decision on the examination of proofs furnished by the parties.

(e) The gross sum which the Tribunal may award is to be accepted by the United States as a satisfaction of "all the claims referred to it, (Art. VII,) not of all the claims presented by them.

(f) It is therefore manifest that the Treaty contemplated that the individual Arbitrators, in reaching such a gross sum as they might see fit to award, should have regard to all considerations of damage or injury to the United States within the scope of the arbitration, whether presented in detail or not, and that they should be at liberty to award such sum as justice might require, without a minute examination of detailed proofs. (g) Respecting the wages claimed in our tables, the Arbitrators will find in the volumes of the American Appendix statements of the numbers of the officers and crews of several of the vessels destroyed by the insurgent cruisers, and in the proofs statements of the wages of such persons. From these particular proofs they will be able to determine whether the estimates in our table of the amount of the claims presented originally in the American Case are, or are not, correct. Respecting the claims for effects, the same proofs show that, in cases in which such claims have been actually presented in detail, they equal or exceed the average claims in our tables. The Arbitrators have therefore the means of determining, with the reasonable accuracy contemplated by the Treaty, the amount of the injury suffered by the United States in each of these respects.

(h) The agent of the United States assumes that the Arbitrators will not regard the vessels destroyed by the cruisers as phantom ships, without officers or crews. On the contrary, he supposes that they will assume that they were officered and manned, and that from the general proofs in the case, and from their own knowledge, and from any other sources of information within their reach, they will determine whether the statements in our tables regarding these numbers are, or are not, probably correct.

(i) A gross sum, made up without regard to these classes of losses, would not be a due compensation to the United States for the injuries complained of before this Tribunal.

III.-PROSPECTIVE CATCH.

On this subject it is only necessary to repeat what has already been said on the part of the United States.

In the memorandum accompanying the tables presented by the agent of the United States on the 10th instant, it was said, (see page 168:) "In the American statement, particularly in the claims growing out of the destruction of whalers, prospective profits, or prospective catch, enter into the computation of damages." (See Note D, American Argument.)

"In accordance with the suggestions of some of the Arbitrators, we have eliminated from these tables the claims for prospective catch,

amounting to $4,009,302.50, but we do not intend to retire these claims nor to suggest that we do not think them just. On this subject we refer the Arbitrators to the note from the American Argument cited above."

And in the note accompanying the statement made by the American Agent on the 26th instant, it was stated that "the claims for whalers and fishermen's wages, for vessels destroyed or detained by the Alabama, by the Florida, or by the Shenandoah, (with the correction of the errors noted in the memorandum accompanying our tables,) estimated from the proofs presented, were $588,247.50;" and it was said that "this amount should be deducted from the total amount in the annexed summary, if the Tribunal allow the whalers' claims for prospective catch or interruption of the voyage." And it was further said in that memorandum that if the Tribunal should be of the opinion that the prospective catch should not be allowed, then "we ask, as an equivalent, an allowance of 25 per cent. on the value of the vessel and the equipment," and in the said note we gave the amount so to be added at $400,127.91. It cannot therefore be said with truth that the United States abandon the claims for prospective catch or prospective profits, or that they present them as double claims.

IV. FREIGHTS.

In the memorandum above referred to it was said that," according to the arbitrary assumption of the British statements, the freight claimed by the United States in the name of their mercantile marine is gross freight, and those statements reject all claims for freight; while on our side, in the absence of all evidence to the contrary, we assume that these reclamations are for net freight." And in the note above referred to it is said that "in all cases in which the Tribunal is satisfied that the freight claimed is net freight, the claim for wages should be allowed, but in all cases in which the Tribunal is satisfied that the claim for freight is for gross freight the claim for wages should be disallowed.”

It cannot be said, therefore, that we either make double claims in this respect or do not indicate to the Tribunal the questions for their investigation.

V.-DOUBLE CLAIMS.

The Agent of the United States has thought that it did not become him to assume the province of the Tribunal by deciding in advance what claims for insurance are and what are not double claims. He has, instead of such a course, indicated in the tables presented by him such claims as, in his opinion, are clear from doubt, such claims as may or may not be double, and such claims as on their face appear to be double, but which yet deserve the scrutiny of the Tribunal. These columns are thus referred to in the memorandum accompanying the tables: "Column three shows the claims for insurance, which are clearly not double claims. Column four shows the claims for insurance about which the evidence is silent. It is possible that some of these should be withdrawn from the aggregate of column two. This can only be determined by the examination of the particular facts in each case. Column five shows other claims for insurance in which the owners of the property destroyed claim at the same time full indemnity for their losses without regard to the insurance embraced in this column."