Washington on the 5th day of June A. D. 1854, having examined the Delaware River, separating the State of New Jersey from the State of Delaware, United States, do hereby agree and decide that a line bearing N. 68° 30 E. Magnetic, drawn from Goose Point on the western shore, to Ben Davis Pt. on the opposite shore, as shown on Plan 56, Record Book No. 2, shall mark the mouth or outer limit of said river, and that all the waters within or to the northward of said line shall be reserved and excluded from the common right of fishing therein, under the 1st and 2d articles of the treaty aforesaid. "Dated at the city of Washington, United States, this thirteenth day of February, A. D. 1866. "E. L. HAMLIN, U. S. Commissioner. "JOSEPH HOWE, H. M. Commissioner. "NO. 55.-RIVER EXPLOITS. "We, the undersigned, Commissioners under the Reciprocity Treaty between the United States and Great Britain, concluded and signed at Washington on the 5th day of June, A. D. 1854, having examined the River Exploits on the northern coast of the Island of Newfoundland, do hereby agree and decide that a line bearing S. 58° 45′ E. Magnetic, drawn from the Rocky Islet on the west bank, to Burnt Arm Pt. on the opposite shore, as shown on plan 57, Record Book No. 2, shall mark the mouth or outer limit of said river, and that all the waters within or to the southward of said line shall be reserved and excluded from the common right of fishing therein, under the 1st and 2d articles of the treaty aforesaid. "Dated at the city of Washington, United States, this thirteenth day of February, A. D. 1866. "E. L. HAMLIN, U. S. Commissioner. "JOSEPH HOWE, H. M. Commissioner. "NO. 56.-RIVERS GAMBO AND TERRA NUEVA. "We, the undersigned, Commissioners under the Reciprocity Treaty between the United States and Great Britain, concluded and signed at Washington, on the 5th day of June, A. D. 1854, having examined the Gambo River, flowing into Freshwater Bay and the Terra Nueva River falling into the middle arm of Bloody Bay, on the eastern coast of the Island of Newfoundland, do hereby agree and decide that the following described lines, as shown on Plan 58, Record Book No. 2, shall mark the mouths or outer limits of said rivers, and that all the waters within or to the westward and southward of said lines shall be reserved and excluded from the common right of fishing therein under the 1st and 2d articles of the treaty aforesaid. "Gambo River.-A line bearing S. 14° W. Magnetic, drawn from the North Shore to a point on the opposite bank, as shown on plan 58, Record Book No. 2. "Terra Nueva River.-A line bearing S. 58° 30′ E. Magnetic, drawn from the extremity of the long point on the western shore, to a point on the opposite bank, as shown on Plan 58, Record Book No. 2. "Dated at the city of Washington, United States, this thirteenth day of February, A. D. 1866. "E. L. HAMLIN, U. S. Commissioner. CHAPTER XIV. THE GENEVA ARBITRATION. Situation at Close of At no time since the year 1814 had the relations between the United States and Great Britain worn so menacing an aspect as that which they assumed after the close of the civil war in the United States. At various times during the intervening period of half a century controversies had arisen and had been the occasion of sharp contention, but they did not have their origin in a deep and pent-up feeling of national injury such as that which the conviction that the British Government had failed to perform its neutral duties during the civil war produced in the mass of the people of the United States. Nor did the claims growing out of the civil war constitute the only subject of dispute between the two governments. The controversy as to the San Juan water boundary, which was in train of settlement before the war began, was now revived. Moreover, on the 17th of March 1865, before the war had yet been concluded, notice was given to the British Government, pursuant to a joint resolution of Congress, of the intention of the United States to consider the treaty of June 5, 1854, in relation to reciprocity and the fisheries, as terminated, in accordance with its provisions, at the expiration of twelve months from the date of the notification. The termination of this treaty brought the two governments face to face with old controversies, which had themselves at times seemed to threaten hostilities; and, as if further to complicate the situation, there came the outbreak of Fenianism, dragging with it the vexed question of expatriation, which had formed a subject of contention in the disputes that led up to the war of 1812. But of all the subjects in controversy the most difficult was that which related to Great Britain's conduct as a neutral, a subject that embraced not only I Dip. Cor. 1868, part 1, pp. 93, 259; 15 Stats. at L. 566. V the question of the rightfulness of her recognition of the Confederate States as a belligerent, but also the question of her liability for the depredations on American commerce, which gave rise to the claims generically known as the Alabama claims. tion of Arbitration. During the existence of the civil war the Earl Russell's Rejec- United States had the good fortune to be represented at London by a minister who, besides inheriting the name, possessed much of the ability and more than the tact and self-control of our first diplomatic representative at the Court of St. James. From the moment of his assumption of his office, Charles Francis Adams had, with ability and persistent firmness, sought to impress upon the British Government the views held by the United States as to that government's failure to perform its neutral duties. In a note to Earl Russell of October 23, 1863, Mr. Adams, referring to the differences then developed, said: “I am directed to say there is no fair and equitable form of conventional arbitrament or reference to which they (the United States) will not be willing to submit." Almost two years later, after the close of the the war, Earl Russell, when replying to a statement by Mr. Adams of the grievances of the United States, recalled this remark and said: "It appears to Her Majesty's Government that there are but two questions by which the claim of compensation could be tested; the one is, Have the British Government acted with due diligence, or, in other words, in good faith and honesty, in the maintenance of the neutrality they proclaimed? The other is, Have the law officers of the Crown properly understood the foreign enlistment act, when they declined, in June 1862 to advise the detention and seizure of the Alabama, and on other occasions when they were asked to detain other ships, building or fitting in British ports? "It appears to Her Majesty's Government that neither of these questions could be put to a foreign government with any regard to the dignity and character of the British Crown and the British nation. Her Majesty's Government are the sole guardians of their own honor. They can not admit that they have acted with bad faith in maintaining the neutrality they professed. The law officers of the Crown must be held to be better interpreters of a British statute than any foreign government can be presumed to be. Her Majesty's Government must therefore decline either to make reparation and compen sation for the captures made by the Alabama, or to refer the 1 Dip. Cor. 1865, part 1, p. 565. question to any foreign state. Her Majesty's Government conceive that if they were to act otherwise they would endanger the position of neutrals in all future wars. "Her Majesty's Government, however, are ready to consent to the appointment of a commission, to which shall be referred all claims arising during the late civil war, which the two powers shall agree to refer to the commission."1 These declarations of Earl Russell led Mr. Seward not only to decline his proposition for the creation of a joint commission, but also to say that whatever the United States had thought or might still think as to "umpirage between the two powers," no such proposition as that made in 1863 would thenceforward "be insisted upon or submitted to by this government." In a subsequent instruction to Mr. Adams, marked "confidential," Mr. Seward said that there was not a member of the government, nor, so far as he knew, any citizen of the United States, who expected that the country would in any case waive its demands upon the British Government for the redress of wrongs committed in violation of international law.3 Earl Russell's absolute and abrupt refusal to Feeling in England. discuss the question of liability for the Alabama claims was felt in England to have been a mistake. It was perceived that the subject was one that involved something more than the construction of British statutes and the question of indemnities-that it involved substantial questions of law and practical questions of international conduct which Her Majesty's Government might consider without abating anything of "the dignity and character" of the Crown, and without ceasing to be "the sole guardians of their own honor." In the summer of 1866 the House of Representatives of the United States unanimously passed a bill to repeal the inhibitions in the neutrality laws against the fitting out of ships for belligerents. The avowed object of this measure was to gauge the future neutrality of the United States by the course of conduct which resulted in the issuance of the Alabama and other Confederate cruisers from British 1 Dip. Cor. 1865, part 1, p. 545. 2 Mr. Seward to Mr. Adams, September 20, 1865, Dip. Cor. 1865, part 1, p. 565; same to same, November 4, 1865, id. 630; see also Dip. Cor. 1865, part 1, p. 613, and Dip. Cor. 1866, part 1, pp. 1-28. 3 Mr. Seward to Mr. Adams, February 14, 1866, Dip. Cor. 1866, part 1, p. 66. 4 Mr. Adams to Mr. Seward, February 15, 1866, Dip. Cor. 1866, part 1, ports to prey on American commerce. The ultimate consequences of such a form of retaliation it was impossible to estimate; but it did not require much reflection to show that they might be most disastrous.? As time wore on these obvious considerations of interest, as well as the sincere desire felt by many persons in England for more cordial relations with the United States, began to find public expression. Late in August 1866 a letter, probably written by Mr. Olyphant, a member of Parliament, who had lately been in the United States, appeared in the London Times, in which the writer, referring to the action of the House of Representatives and to the refusal of Earl Russell to arbitrate the Alabama claims, expressed the hope that it was not yet too late to retrieve that statesman's errors.3 At this time Earl Russell was no longer Official Expression. foreign secretary, and his successor, Lord Stanley, was understood to be favorable to the amicable settlement of the pending differences. By November 1866 the question of reopening the Alabama claims had not only become a topic of general discussion in the English press, but it was announced that the government contemplated the appointment of a royal commission to inquire generally into the operation of the British neutrality laws. Indeed, Lord Derby, the prime minister, at the inauguration of the lord mayor of London, at Guildhall, on the 10th of that month, intimated that a proposition for the arrangement of the differences touching the Alabama claims would be favorably entertained, and this intimation was followed by leading articles in the Times, in which it was suggested that Earl Russell's rejection of Mr. Adams's demands proceeded on a "somewhat narrow and onesided view of the question at issue," which would in the end make neutrals the sole judges of their own obligations, and that the claims would not be forgotten by the American people till they had been "submitted to some impartial adjudication." 1 Dip. Cor. 1866, part 1, pp. 156-166. 2 Bemis's American Neutrality: Its Honorable Past, Its Expedient Future (Boston, 1866), ably expressed the objections to the repeal of the neutrality laws, and argued for their consolidation and improvement. 3 Mr. Adams to Mr. Seward, August 23, 1866, Dip. Cor. 1866, part 1, p. 174. Dip. Cor. 1866, part 1, pp. 147, 166, 177–203. 5 Id. 212. 6 Id. 210. 7 Dip. Cor. 1867, part 1, pp. 1-3. 8 Id. 43; London Times, January 9, 1867. |