As to the complaints touching the Nassau The Nassau Trade. trade, the British Counter Case referred to the charge made by the United States that the colonial government rescinded a previously existing prohibition against the transshipment of cargoes in order to facilitate blockade running. This charge, said the British Counter Case, was based on "a loosely worded sentence occurring in a letter purporting to be written by a Confederate agent," which letter was said to be one of a large number "captured at the taking of Richmond and at other times." Her Majesty's government had ascertained that the statement was erroneous. The fiscal regulations of the colony prohibited the transshipment of goods

the Confederate government, for a ship of war can only be used or owned legitimately by a government. But with munitions of war the case is different. They are bought and sold by private merchants for the whole world, and it is not in the power of governments to prevent it. Besides, your own government have laid down repeatedly the doctrine that it is no part of the duty of governments to interfere with such transactions for which they are not in any way responsible. I was, therefore, very sorry that Mr. Adams had persisted in raising an objection to these transactions in which, by the way, the North has been quite as much involved as the South. If you have read the debate in the House on the occasion when Mr. Foster brought up the subject last week, you will see how Sir Roundell Palmer, the solicitor-general, and Mr. Laird, the shipbuilder, availed themselves of this opening to divert attention from the real question at issue-the building of war ships to the question of selling munitions of war-in which latter practice it was shown you in the North were the great participators. You must really keep the public mind right in America on this subject. Do not let it be supposed that you have any grievance against us for selling munitions of war. Confine the question to the building of ships, in which I hope we shall bring up a strong feeling on the right side here." (Am. Hist. Rev. II. 309–310.)

In another letter, of May 22, 1863 (Id. 311), Cobden said: "I can not too often deplore the bungling mismanagement on your side which allowed the two distinct questions of selling munitions of war and the equipping of privateers to be mixed up together. It has confused the thick wits of our people, and made it difficult for those who were right on this side on the foreign enlistment act to make the public understand the difference between what was and what was not a legal transaction. In fact, your foreign office played into the hands of our politicians by affording them the means of mystification. If a plain, simple, short and dignified reclamation had been at first made against the fitting out of ships of war, with clear statement of the law, and a brief recital of what your government had done under similar circumstances, to us, it would have been impossible for our government to have resisted it. But when you opened fire on us for not stopping the export of arms and munitions of war, you offered an easy victory to our lawyers, and gave them an opportunity of escaping in a cloud of dust from the real question at issue."

unless they were landed for examination; but this prohibition, which had generally been suspended as a matter of course in the case of goods stated to be in transit, might in any case be dispensed with by permission of the receiver-general, which was frequently accorded during the war. The prohibition itself was not removed or modified, and no change was made in the regulations. That cargoes were in fact frequently transshipped, either with or without an intermediate landing, Her Majesty's government had no doubt. Yet the statement of the administrator of the Bahamas, of November 20, 1861, that no warlike stores had been received at Nassau for shipment to the Confederate States, was not "the announcement of an imaginary condition of affairs," but the truth at the time. The first arrival of a vessel suspected of being loaded with arms and munitions of war for the Confederate States was on December 9, 1861. But this fact did not call for inquiry on the part of the British Government. "To repress the trade, so far as it was not a bona fide trade between neutral ports carried on in neutral ships, was the business, not of Great Britain, but of the United States; and they did repress it accordingly by a strict and rigorous exercise of the belligerent rights of blockade, visit, search, and capture."

Hospitalities to Confederates.

The complaints in the Case of the United States of "excessive hospitalities" on the part of the British authorities to Confederate cruisers and of "discourtesies to vessels of war of the United States" the British Counter Case examined with minuteness and pronounced to be groundless. "During the course of the civil war," said that document, "ten Confederate cruisers visited British ports. The total number of such visits was twentyfive, eleven of which were made for the purpose of effecting repairs. Coal was taken in at sixteen of these visits, and on sixteen occasions the limit of stay fixed by the regulations was exceeded. On the other hand, the returns which have been procured of visits of United States vessels of war to ports of Great Britain and the colonies, though necessarily imperfect, show an aggregate total of 228 such visits. On thirteen of these repairs were effected; on forty-five occasions supplies of coal were obtained; and the twenty-four hours' limit of stay was forty-four times exceeded. * * It is dif ficult, indeed, to avoid the conclusion that these complaints spring from imperfect information. When, for example, it was asserted that the cruisers of the United States were virtually

excluded from the chief port of the Bahama Islands in favor of the Confederate cruisers, and we discover that these islands were thirty-four times visited by the former, while Nassau was but twice visited by the latter; or, when the quantity of coal obtained by Confederate ships is made a matter of complaint, and we find that a single United States vessel, within six weeks, contrived to procure from three British ports more than two-thirds of the amount ascertained to have been purchased within Her Majesty's dominions by all the Confederate ships together during the whole course of the war, can we doubt that the Government of the United States is laboring under serious misapprehensions?"

In respect of the claims for compensation, Measure of Damages. the British Counter Case maintained that only those could be taken into account which had directly arisen from the capture or destruction, by one or more of the cruisers enumerated in the British Case, of ships or property owned by the United States or by citizens of the United States, and that the extent of liability of Great Britain for such losses could not exceed that proportion of them which might justly be attributed to some specific failure or failures of duty in respect of such cruiser or cruisers; that the arbitrators should, in determining these questions, take into account not only the loss incurred, but the greater or less gravity of the default itself, and all the causes which might have contributed to it, and particularly whether the loss was in whole or in part due to a want of reasonable activity and care on the part of the United States; that claims for money alleged to have been expended in endeavoring to capture or destroy any Confederate cruiser were not admissible; that claims for interest were not admissible; and that, if the tribunal should award a sum in gross, that sum ought to be measured by the extent of the liability which the tribunal might find to have been incurred by Great Britain on account of any failure or failures of duty proved against her.

American Case.

When, soon after its presentation at Geneva, Criticism of the the contents of the American Case became public from copies distributed in the United States and in England, it naturally became the subject of comment in the columns of the press. In the English journals the chapter on "unfriendliness" was made the subject of

1 Papers Relating to the Treaty of Washington, IV. 4-7.

special animadversion. The chapter on claims seemed at first to attract less notice; it certainly was subjected to less criticism. On December 28, 1871, the Morning Post said there was "an unpleasant rumor, as yet whispered only in unusually well-informed circles,' "" that the American Case included a claim for "prolongation of the war" and certain other claims, which the writer described as Mr. Sumner's "indirect claims." "The extravagant nature of these demands," said the Morning Post, "is the best assurance that the arbitrators, a majority of whom are to make an award which is to be final, will refuse to entertain them. But that they should be made, when their rejection is certain, is not a pleasant circumstance." The Times of January 2, 1872, said that all these "large" and "boundless questions" might be "considered as before the arbitrators at Geneva;" that, although, the United States had not estimated these damages, Great Britain could not let judgment go by default; and that the safest as well as the most dignified course would be "to stand upon sound legal principles, and to demur to any such claims for indirect damage." On January 3 the Daily News, which subsequently became one of the most extreme advocates of a withdrawal from the treaty, said: "Happily claims such as these are no longer matter of controversy between England and the United States. Confident in our own rectitude, and in the substantial justice of our cause, we have consented to refer it to a tribunal so constituted as to insure the confidence of the world. We do not anticipate its decision, but we shall be ready to accept its justice."

Alarm as to the "Indirect Claims."

The first real alarm sounded in regard to the indirect claims, and the first suggestion of opposition to their arbitration, appeared in the Morning Advertiser of January 4, 1872. "Had Great Britain," asked this journal, "ever agreed to refer such demands to arbitration?" "If we have not," continued the writer, "then it [the Case of the United States] must either be at once withdrawn, or we must withdraw from the treaty. If we have-if imbeciles and fools have so conducted our negotiations as to have put it in the power of any authority whatever, ever by possibility, to award our national degradation and financial ruin-it becomes still more necessary that the nation should resume a faculty it has so fatally delegated to such crass incompetency, and repudiate a jurisdiction it should never have acknowledged." The Daily Telegraph, the Spectator, the Times, the Globe, the Pall Mall Gazette, the Observer, the Standard, and other journals took

up the discussion, some of them deprecating any violent agitation, but all finally concurring in the view that something should be done to avert all possibility of an award of damages on the indirect claims.

British Government's
Action.

It seems that at one time the cabinet had under consideration the propriety of asking for the withdrawal of the American Case, probably on account of certain statements in the chapter on "unfriendliness." But it was not until February 3, 1872, that Her Majesty's government, in a note addressed by Earl Granville to General Schenck, announced the opinion that it was not within the province of the tribunal of arbitration at Geneva to decide upon the claims for indirect losses. On the opening of Parliament on February 6 the Queen's speech contained the following announcement:

"The arbitrators appointed pursuant to the Treaty of Washington, for the purpose of amicably settling certain claims known as the Alabama claims, have held their first meeting at Geneva.

"Cases have been laid before the arbitrators on behalf of each party to the treaty. In the Case so submitted on behalf of the United States, large claims have been included which are understood on my part not to be within the province of the arbitrators. On this subject I have caused a friendly communication to be made to the Government of the United States."

of Lords.

In the debate on this announcement in the Debate in the House House of Lords, Lord De La Warr declared that the indirect claims were "utterly inadmissible and could not be for one moment entertained." Viscount Powerscourt "trusted that the so-called Alabama claims would soon be settled, and that a friendly understanding might be arrived at."

Earl Granville referred to the statement which he had previously made on the subject, and said he trusted that he should be able, when the proper time came, if it should be necessary, to show "by reference to the particular words of the protocols and treaty, to the statements of the commissioners, and to former correspondence on the subject, not only what was our intention, but also what we had reason to suppose was the intention of the United States Government, and lastly, that the claims objected to are excluded by the words of the treaty."

5627-40

Hansard, CCIX. 33.