on the shipping of those powers, by privateers which issued from American ports. It is also true that the construction put by the English government on the then foreign enlistment act, was identical with that put by American judges and jurists on the act of Congress on which our statute was modeled. But, as Sir Roundell Palmer observed, "the real truth of the matter is, that this country does not like to be at variance with the United States. Whatever might be the measure of our obligations, whatever the legal view of it, this country most deeply regretted what had occurred, and we preferred to waive a strict examination of the question on legal and international grounds, in order to get a settlement which should bring security for the present and peace and good will for the future."

Expediency, as distinguished from strict justice, was taken for a guide by the gov ernment of which Lord Stanley was the foreign minister; and although, when the Reverdy Johnson treaty was rejected by the United States Government, we might have fallen back on our strict rights, the liberal administration, which succeeded to office in this country, rightly followed in the footsteps of their predecessors, and addressed themselves to the task of settlement with the exclusive object of healing a serious difference and laying down rules to prevent its recurrence.

And it must be allowed that, as a set-off against the unquestionable sacrifice which we make by the treaty of Washington, we secure the inestimable gain of establishing-certainly between ourselves and the United States, and most probably universally, by the early adoption by other maritime powers-rules of international law whose observance will go far to diminish the not unfrequent risks of misunderstandings between neutrals and belligerents. The essential fault of the treaty which it had been the intention of Lord Stanley and Mr. Reverdy Johnson to conclude was that it simply provided for the settlement of the particular claims then advanced by the Government of the United States, without making any provision for the avoidance of similar misunderstandings in future; and those who entertain the opinion that the former treaty would have been preferable to that made at Washington will find some difficulty in replying to the objections taken to it by Sir Roundell Palmer. If the decision of the arbitrators had been in our favor, the ill-feeling which had arisen in the United States would have remained unabated, and, in the event of our being engaged in war with a European power, the United States, accepting the construction put upon our acts, would not improbably have encouraged in their ports similar evasions of the principle of the foreign enlistment act to those of which they had fruitlessly complained. On the other hand, if the decision of the arbitrators had been against us, the United States might still have maintained their original construction of their obligations under the act of Congress, and treated any complaints advanced by us at a future time as they had treated those made on former occasions by the Spanish and Portuguese governments. In other words, the issue has now been dealt with on a broad, comprehensive basis, and with a view not merely to the satisfaction of an existing difference, but the protection of our future interests. The only consideration which could exist for a departure from the line taken by Earl Russell eight years ago in the dispatch in which, on the part of Her Majesty's government, he refused to entertain the claims advanced by the American Government, must rest on the creation of some guarantee that for the future the Government of the United States will undertake the same obligations they seek to cast upon us, and this guarantee is afforded by the treaty of Washington.

The main difficulty which has always stood in the way of reconciling desirable changes in international law with the municipal law of particular states, has, in the present instance, been to a great extent overcome.

Although the sovereign may by treaty agree with the executive of another state that, as between the two powers, certain rules of international law shall obtain, still that agreement must be entirely subsidiary to the municipal law. In this country the Crown, lords, and commons constitute the legislative power, and it would therefore be incompetent for the sovereign to impose on the country international obligations at variance or inconsistent with the known laws of the realm; and if she affected to do so by treaty, they would be inoperative. In like manner, in the United States the legislative power rests with the President and Congress, and consequently the President and Senate, with whom the power of making treaties resides, could not override the general law by stipulations inconsistent with it.

Now, in our case, we, in the first instance, completely remodeled our foreign enlistment act, and then the government assented by the treaty of Washington to certain rules which, by the aid of the new statute, may be enforced by the tribunals of this country; but up to this time no change has been made by Congress in the American foreign enlistment act, and it is undoubtedly true that, if no change were made, the obligations entered into by the Executive of the United States by the recent treaty would be inoperative. In the event of our being at war, and cruisers being obtained by our enemies from American ports, under circumstances similar to those under which the Alabama quitted English waters, the American Government would be powerless to put a stop to the practice. Accordingly it will be necessary for Congress to pass an

act similar to our own, in order to enable the Executive to observe in good faith the stipulations into which it has entered.

That such an act will be speedily passed we have a right to expect, and indeed we entertain no doubt that Congress will fulfill the engagement which has been impliedly contracted in its name; but until this course is taken, that security which we look for at the hands of the Americans will not be afforded, nor will the price of the sacrifice we have made be duly paid.

[From the Daily Telegraph, Monday, August 7, 1871.]

Those among our countrymen who are well acquainted with the United States are sometimes lost in wonder that Englishmen of cultivation and thoughtfulness should betray such ignorance and indifference, regarding all topics which affect our relations with the great republic, as we had to note in the debate of Friday last, on the Washington treaty. The "long session" of 1871 is already identified in the minds of English politicians with the abolition of purchase in the army, the introduction of vote by ballot, or the state visit to Ireland of the Prince of Wales and his brother and sister. If an intelligent man who has never left the shores of England, were asked to name the public measures by which Mr. Gladstone is most likely to gain immortality, he would probably instance the disestablishment of the Irish church, the abolition of army purchase, or some other act of purely domestic legislation. None, however, who have studied history with advantage, can fail to be well aware that the measures which have most deeply affected the commonwealth of England have not unfrequently passed through Parliament without notice or comment. The biographer of that strange and brilliant being, Charles Townshend, tells us that never was there so languid a debate on so vital a topic as when, in 1765, George Grenville made the famous proposal to tax North America, by introducing to Parliament his fatal stamp act. No other debate of the last century is read to-day with such mournful interest as that in which Charles Townshend spoke of the Americans as "children planted by our care and nourished by our indulgence;" provoking from Colonel Barré the angry retort that they were "children planted not by your care, but by your oppression-they fled from your tyranny to a then uncultivated land." The politicians of all countries are too ready to imagine that everything which is close to their eyes, and is long and loudly debated, must necessarily be of gigantic magnitude. They resemble children who, gazing upward at night, find it impossible to believe that the moon is not the largest of all the heavenly bodies. But the man who extends his range of vision, and contrasts the position of Great Britain-reconciled, as she now is, to her transatlantic children-with the position in which she stood only six short months ago, will not be disposed to damn with faint praise the treaty of Washington, or to regard it as a measure of which everybody is glad and nobody proud. "That it is a diplomatic triumph," testily observes one of our contemporaries, "no one will pretend." Yet no treaty to which England has ever been a party, in her thousand years of history, was fraught with more advantages to mankind than the treaty of Washington. We do not claim, on behalf of Lord Ripon and his colleagues, that they out-finessed or out-maneuvered their American collaborateurs. In 1871, happily, a "diplomatic triumph" means a very different thing from what the words implied when mendacious tricksters like Talleyrand or Pozzo di Borgo tried conclusions across a board of green cloth. But we emphatically assert that, long and distinguished as we hope the public career of Lord Ripon and Sir Stafford Northcote will be, no prouder words will be inscribed in their memorial than, "One of the framers of the treaty of Washington."

In order rightly to estimate the significance of that great instrument of reconciliation, let us briefly call to mind what were the probabilities of success before the high commissioners of Great Britain, when they landed at New York in the beginning of last March. We must not forget the annual message which the President of the United States communicated to Congress in December last. Although it excited little public attention at a moment when Paris was beleagured by the Prussians, that document was undoubtedly one of the most pronounced state papers that ever issued from the head of a great nation. President Grant animadverted, in very outspoken terms, upon the "unneighborly and unfriendly" conduct of Canada in regard to the fishery dispute, and proceeded to speak, with an acerbity scarcely dignified, of the still unadjusted Alabama claims. "The time is probably not far distant," he continued, "when the European political connection with this continent will cease;" and he advised that the policy of the United States should be so shaped as to accord with that coveted end. Six months ago it was the scarcely concealed hope of every ordinary American politician that England would, in transatlantic phrase, "foot the balance" of the Alabama claims by withdrawing her flag from the North American continent. It was useless for Englishmen to affirm that they claim no feudal ownership over a reluctant province, but that the Union with the British Crown is maintained by the Canadians, the Nova Scotians, New Brunswickers, and British Columbians themselves. Despite the

ignorance which on both sides of the Atlantic prevailed as to the subjects in dispute and also despite the minatory language employed in December by President Grant there were two men-Sir Edward Thornton and Mr. Secretary Fish-who deemed the moment propitious for an attempt at reconciliation. It would be unjust to deny that not a few Englishmen, well acquainted with the American sentiment, did not share the hopes of the British minister at Washington. In like manner most of the Washington politicians sneered at Mr. Fish for having brought the five British high commissioners across the Atlantic to no purpose. Mr. Sumner, for example, made no concealment of his conviction, during the whole of March and the first half of April, that the negotiations of the joint high commission would "resemble one of those rivers in Africa which have no mouth, but which, flowing away from the sea, are lost among infinite deserts of sand." It would be absurd, therefore, to ignore the fact that Sir Edward Thornton ran some risk when he invited the home government to send British commissioners to Washington, and that Mr. Gladstone and Lord Granville ran a still greater risk when they lent a favorable ear to Sir Edward Thornton's invitation. The characteristic courage in which Mr. Gladstone so far emulates his great master, Sir Robert Peel, was never more markedly displayed; nor has it failed to reap a rich reward. And although the treaty thus owes its origin to Sir Edward Thornton and to a Canadian statesman now resident in London-Sir John Rose-while Mr. Gladstone and Lord Granville deserve high praise for their courage in adopting the views of their transatlantic advisers, only the ignorant or the most prejudiced would assert that the treaty itself is“ no diplomatic triumph." The somewhat lengthened sojourn in Washington of four Englishmen so conciliatory, so intelligent, and honest as Lord Ripon, Sir Stafford Northcote, Professor Bernard, and Lord Tenterden, smoothed away every difficulty; and the happy result was a treaty which will write its name deeper on the page of international history than that of Utrecht or of Vienna.

For these reasons, the short debate in the House of Commous on Friday will not improbably be read hereafter without surprise, as one of many which indicate the shortsightedness of statesmen. Out of the nine speakers who took part, three only appeared to have a just perception of the value of an international instrument which will probably convert the year 1871 into the great diplomatic date of the present century. Even Mr. Gladstone spoke as if on the defensive about a treaty which will not impossibly be the most beneficial and best-remembered measure of his life. It is desirable that Englishmen who grumble over the concessions which Lord Ripon and his colleagues made "for the sake of peace," should remember what, in the same interest, Mr. Fish, General Schenck, and the American commissioners gave up. For the sake of a comparatively trivial payment in money, they abandoned what to three-fifths of the American nation seemed the most precious of possessions-the treasured hope of revenge. Sir Charles Adderley began the discussion with a regret that England should have sued as a petitioner in a matter which was more important to the United States. Has he reflected upon the misapprehension which these words imply? To a nation so rich and powerful as the great republic, what could it signify whether less than £3,000,000 were added or not added to a debt which at the close of the war exceeded £500,000,000? President Grant could not have more thoroughly gratified a majority of his countrymen, when, on his accession to office in 1868, the war passions were still unallayed, than by paying the losses charged to the Alabama and her sister pirates, and including the amount in the national debt, with an intimation that he or his successors would, at the right moment, hold England responsible. In such a case, the very smallest war in which England was engaged would have meant also war with the United States. It may not be generally known, that during the English expedition against King Theodore, some American politicians urged that envoys should be sent to obtain letters of marque from the Abyssinian savage. But for his inaccessibility, and for the fact that he owned no ports, the sea might have been covered with Americo-Abyssinian Alabamas. Against the recurrence of such a danger, Lord Ripon, and Sir Stafford Northcote have guaranteed us. But those achievements are matters of detail. The grand result of the negotiations at Washington is, that English and American statesmen have joined, with the deliberate approval of the two powerful countries, in laying the basis for a system of arbitration which may hereafter save wars more gigantic and more wasteful than any we have yet witnessed; and that they have also initiated such a method of improving the relations between foreign states as may develop a genuine international law. Thus, whatever may be the opinion of cotemporaries in 1871, we believe that in 1971 the treaty of Washington will be regarded as England's greatest diplomatic triumph during the nineteenth century.

SIR: Shortly before Sir Edward Thornton sailed for Europe, he sug gested the name of Count Corti, the Italian minister to this Government, as the commissioner under Article XII of the treaty of May 8, 1871, to be named by the President of the United States and Her Bri tannic Majesty conjointly. He stated that this suggestion was made on his own responsibility, without the instruction of his government. The President accepted the suggestion, and agreed to name Count Corti, on his part, if the British government proposed it. Sir Edward subsequently informed me that his government approved the nomination, and he went to Newport, where the Count is passing the summer, and on the eve of his sailing for England telegraphed to me that the Count consented to serve on the commission if his government would approve. I have had no other official communication on the subject, and as the time is advancing within which the joint appointment must be made, I have sent to Mr. Marsh the telegram of which a copy is inclosed. It was submitted to Mr. Pakenham before it was dispatched, and a copy of it was given to him.

Inclosed herewith is a copy of a telegram sent to you on the 9th instant.* The President has appointed Mr. Charles Francis Adams the arbitrator to be named by him under Article I of the treaty on the Tribunal of Arbitration to meet in Geneva, and you were aware before you left the United States that he had appointed Mr. J. C. Bancroft Davis, the Assistant Secretary of State, the agent on the part of the United States to represent this Government generally in all matters connected with the arbitration. These appointments have not yet been officially made public; that of Mr. Davis has been unofficially authorized to be announced. It is probable that both will be authoritatively made public very shortly.

If the British government will give you the name of the arbitrator appointed in their behalf, you will at once announce to them the appointment of Mr. Adams.

If they are not prepared, or not willing to name the arbitrator on their part, you will exercise your own judgment in communicating the appointment of the American arbitrator.

The appointment of Mr. Davis you may communicate at once. The President has also named Mr. Robert S. Hale, of New York, as the agent of this Government to attend the commissioners to be appointed under the Article XII of the treaty. This appointment you will communicate to Her Majesty's government.

I am, &c.,

HAMILTON FISH.

Mr. Fish to Mr. Marsh.
[Telegram.]

WASHINGTON, August 9, 1871.

MARSH, Minister, Rome:

Referring to article twelve of the treaty with Great Britain of 8th May, the President and Her Majesty the Queen of Great Britain have conjointly agreed to receive Count

* For inclosure see page 482.

Corti as the third commissioner, to be appointed under that article, if the Italian government consent to his serving. You will see your British colleague, and arrange with him for a contemporaneous request to the Italian government for its consent, and inform Department of answer by telegraph.

FISH, Secretary.

No. 341.]

No. 216.

Mr. Moran to Mr. Fish.

LEGATION OF THE UNITED STATES,

London, August 17, 1871. (Received August 31.)

SIR: I have the honor to send herewith, copy of a telegram to General Schenck from Mr. Davis, in regard to the appointment of the British arbitrator under the treaty of Washington, the original of which was received and answered by his excellency on the 13th instant. A copy of the answer is also inclosed.

I also send herewith a report from the Times of the 12th instant, of Lord Granville's announcement in the House of Lords on the 11th instant, of the appointment of the lord chief justice of England as arbitrator, and of Sir Roundell Palmer as counsel for Great Britain under the above-mentioned treaty.

I am, &c.,

Alexander Cockburn, Lord Chief Justice, appointed Arbitrator. Sir Roundell Palmer, counsel.

SCHENCK.

[From the London Times, August 12, 1871.]

Parliamentary Intelligence-House of Lords, Friday, August 11.

The lord chancellor took his scat on the woolsack at 5 o'clock.

PETITIONS.

The earl of Shaftesbury presented petitions from Bridport and Framlingham for the repeal of the contagious diseases acts.

THE ALABAMA CLAIMS.

Lord Redesale asked whether the question as to the right of the United States to per severe in their demand for an indemnity on account of the Alabama claims since the reconciliation of the Southern with the Northern States would be distinctly raised before the arbitrators, inasmuch as the damage for which such indemnity is claimed was inflicted by the Southern States, who now joined in the application. He reminded their lordships that on his putting a question earlier in the session it was stated that the point had not been raised previously, and that it was too late to bring it before