to set the standard of public expectation as to the terms that would be exacted by the United States as the final conditions of an amicable settlement. It is therefore important to understand the precise grounds on which the argument of Mr. Sumner proceeded.

In the first place, Mr. Sumner objected to the convention on the ground that, for the "massive grievance" under which the country had suffered for years" and "the painful sense of wrong planted in the national heart," it offered "not one word of regret, or even of recognition," nor "any semblance of compensation." The convention was, he said, obviously made for the setlement of private claims, and even if the "aleatory proceeding" of choosing an umpire by lot were a proper device for the umpirage of private claims, it was strangely inconsist ent with the solemnity which belonged to the present question. The convention, Mr. Sumner declared, made "no provision for the real question;" and he then proceeded to set forth the "true grounds of complaint" of the United States against Great Britain. In this catalogue the first article was the concession to the Confederacy of "ocean belligerency," which was described as "the first stage in the depredations on our commerce." Next came "the building of the pirate ships, one after another," and their escape with so much of negligence on the part of the British Government as to "constitute sufferance, if not connivance," and "the welcome and hospitality accorded" to them. Summing up these articles of complaint, Mr. Sumner said:

"Thus at three different stages the British Government is compromised: First, in the concession of ocean belligerency, on which all depended; secondly, in the negligence which allowed the evasion of the ship, in order to enter upon the hostile expedition for which she was built, manned, armed, and equipped; and, thirdly, in the open complicity which, after this evasion, gave her welcome, hospitality, and supplies in British ports. Thus her depredations and burnings, making the ocean blaze, all proceeded from England, which by three different acts lighted the torch. To England must be traced, also, all the widespread consequences which ensued."

Mr. Sumner also referred to the "multitudinous blockade runners from England" as "kindred to the pirate ships," since

1 Mr. Pierce, in his Life of Sumner (IV. p. 389), quotes from Harper's Weekly, March 16, 1872, the statement that this was "the most popular speech that he (Mr. Sumner) ever delivered."

they "were of the same bad family, having their origin and home in England," and since they could not have sailed without "the manifesto of belligerency." Proceeding then to the reparation due from England, Mr. Sumner estimated the private claims at about $15,000,000; but he said that, even in respect of these, nothing was admitted by the convention; no rule for the future was established; while nothing was said "of the indignity to the nation, nor of the damages to the nation."

"National Claims."

The damages due to the nation Mr. Sumner described as follows:

"How to authenticate the extent of national loss with reasonable certainty is not without difficulty; but it can not be doubted that such a loss occurred. It is folly to question it. The loss may be seen in various circumstances: as, in the rise of insurance on all American vessels; the fate of the carrying trade, which was one of the greatest resources of our country; the diminution of our tonnage, with the corresponding increase of British tonnage; the falling off in our exports and imports, with due allowance for our abnormal currency and the diversion of war. Beyond the

actual loss in the national tonnage, there was a further loss in the arrest of our natural increase in this branch of industry, which an intelligent statistician puts at five per cent. annually, making in 1866 a total loss on this account of 1,384,953 tons, which must be added to 1,229,035 tons actually lost. The same statistician, after estimating the value of a ton at forty dollars gold, and making allowance for old and new ships, puts the sum total of national loss on this account at $110,000,000. Of course this is only an item in our bill. * This is what I have to say for the present on national losses through the destruction of commerce. These are large enough; but there is another chapter, where they are larger far. I refer, of course, to the national losses caused by the prolongation of the war, and traceable directly to England. * * * No candid person, who studies this eventful period, can doubt that the rebellion was originally encouraged by hope of support from England,-that it was strengthened at once by the concession of belligerent rights on the ocean,that it was fed to the end by British supplies,-that it was encouraged by every well-stored British ship that was able to defy our blockade,-that it was quickened into frantic life with every report from the British pirates, flaming anew with every burning ship. Not weeks or months, but years, were added in this way to our war, so full of costly sacrifice. * The sacrifice of precious life is beyond human compensation; but there may be an approximate estimate of the national loss in treasure. Everybody can make the calcula

tion. I content myself with calling attention to the elements which enter into it. Besides the blockade, there was the prolongation of the war. The rebellion was suppressed at a cost of more than four thousand million dollars, a considerable portion of which has been already paid, leaving twenty-five hundred millions as a national debt to burden the people. If, through British intervention, the war was doubled in duration, or in any way extended, as can not be doubted, then is England justly responsible for the additional expenditure to which our country was doomed; and whatever may be the final settlement of these great accounts, such must be the judgment in any chancery which consults the simple equity of the case.”

After thus presenting the particulars of the national claims, Mr. Sumner, in anticipation of an objection "that these national losses, whether from the destruction of our commerce, the prolongation of the war, or the expense of the blockade," were "indirect and remote, so as not to be a just ground of claim,” argued that "by an analogy of the common law in the case of a public nuisance, also by the strict rule of the Roman law, which enters so largely into international law, and even by the rule of the common law relating to damages, all losses, whether individual or national," were "the just subject of claim." "Three times," he said, "is this liability fixed: First, by the concession of ocean belligerency, opening to the rebels shipyards, foundries, and manufactories, and giving to them a flag on the ocean; secondly, by the organization of hostile expedi tions, which, by admissions in Parliament, were nothing less than piratical war on the United States with England as the naval base; and, thirdly, by welcome, hospitality, and supplies extended to these pirate ships in ports of the British empire. Show either of these, and the liability of England is complete; show the three, and this power is bound by a triple cord.”1 On the 13th of April 1869, the day on which Mr. Summer's speech was made, Mr. J. Lothrop Motley, the eminent historian and a personal friend of Mr. Sumner, was commissioned as minister to England. Mr. Motley's instructions, however, were not completed till more than a month afterward. Mr. Sumner was consulted in regard to them, but as to the effect to be ascribed to the concession by Great Britain of belligerent rights to the Confederate States his view and that of Mr. Fish were radically variant. As has been seen, Mr. Sumner's view was that the

Instructions to
Motley.

2

Sumner's Works, XIII, 53–93.

Mr. Fish and the Alabama Claims, by J. C. Bancroft Davis, 30-37.

liability of Great Britain for the losses he described was "fixed: first, by the concession of ocean belligerency," and that on this ground alone the "liability of England" would be "complete." The view of Mr. Fish was expressed in his instructions to Mr. Motley, of the 15th of May 1869, as follows:

"The President recognizes the right of every power, when a civil conflict has arisen within another state, and has attained a sufficient complexity, magnitude, and completeness, to define its own relations and those of its citizens and subjects toward the parties to the conflict, so far as their rights and interests are necessarily affected by the conflict.

"The necessity and the propriety of the original concession of belligerency by Great Britain at the time it was made have been contested and are not admitted. They certainly are questionable, but the President regards that concession as a part of the case only so far as it shows the beginning and the animus of that course of conduct which resulted so disastrously to the United States. It is important, in that it foreshadows subsequent events.

"There were other powers that were contemporaneous with England in similar concession, but it was in England only that the concession was supplemented by acts causing direct damage to the United States. The President is careful to make this discrimination, because he is anxious as much as possible to simplify the case, and to bring into view these subsequent acts, which are so important in determining the question between the two countries."1

Mr. Motley was instructed, in his private as well as his official intercourse, to adopt this view, "and to place the cause of grievance against Great Britain, not so much upon the issuance of her recognition of the insurgents' state of war, but upon her conduct under, and subsequent to, such recognition." In regard to the future course of the negotiations touching the Alabama claims, he was instructed as follows:

"Your predecessor has already been directed to notify Lord Clarendon that the Senate has refused its advice and consent to the ratification of the convention signed at London on the 14th of January last for the settlement of all outstanding claims.

"Under some circumstances the announcement made to your predecessor of the rejection of this convention might be suffi cient. But the magnitude of the claims involved and the gravity of the questions depending between the two governments require more than the mere announcement, to which the

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S. Ex. Doc. 11, 41 Cong. 3 sess. 4-5.

delicacy of his own relation to the negotiation limited the direction to him.

"This government, in rejecting the recent convention, abandons neither its own claims nor those of its citizens, nor the hope of an early, satisfactory, and friendly settlement of the questions depending between the two governments. You will so say to Lord Clarendon, and, in your discretion, you may further proceed to communicate the views given below.

"The terms of the convention, having by accident become known to the public in this country before the action upon it by the Senate, were disproved by the people with an approach to unanimity that foreshadowed possibly even a less favorable vote on the question of its ratification than was actually given.

"This adverse judgment, while unanimous, or nearly so, in its conclusion, was not reached by any single train of argument, nor from any one standpoint of policy, nor with any single standard of estimate of the claims either of the nation or of its citizens, nor with the same degree of importance attached to various points that have been discussed in the correspondence referred to in the convention. Various sources furnished currents running through differing and widely separated channels, but meeting to form one common stream of thought.

"Both with the people and in the Senate, different minds, viewing it from different standpoints, each measuring by its own standard and judging in its own way, arrived at the one conclusion.

"The time and the circumstances under which the convention was negotiated were very unfavorable to its acceptance either by the people or the Senate.

"The nation had just emerged from its periodical choice of a Chief Magistrate, and having changed the depositary of its confidence and its power looked with no favor on an attempt at the settlement of the great and grave questions depending by those on the eve of retiring from power without consulting or considering the views of the ruler recently intrusted with their confidence and without communication with the Senate, to whose approval the treaty would be constitutionally submitted, or with any of its members.

"It is wholly unnecessary to say to statesmen of the intelligence which always marks those of the British Empire that the rejection of a treaty by the Senate of the United States implies no act of discourtesy to the government with which the treaty may have been negotiated. The United States can enter into no treaty without the advice and consent of the Senate, and that advice and consent to be intelligent must be discriminating, and their refusal can be no subject of complaint, and can give no occasion for dissatisfaction or criticism.

"On the 12th of May 1803 a convention between the United States and Great Britain for settling the boundaries of our