posal. On the 7th of January 1867 Sir Frederick Lord Stanley's Pro- Bruce, the British minister at Washington, communicated to Mr. Seward a copy of an instruction of the 30th of the preceding November, in which Lord Stanley said that while it was impossible for Her Majesty's present advisers to abandoned the ground taken by former governments so far as to admit liability for the Alabama claims, they would not be disinclined to adopt the principle of arbitration, provided that a fitting arbiter could be found, and that an agreement could be reached as to the points to which the arbitration should apply. But with regard to the alleged premature recognition of the Confederates States as a belligerent power, it was, he said, clear that no reference to arbitration was possible, since the act complained of was one as to which every state must be held to be the sole judge of its duty. At the same time Lord Stanley called attention to the numerous British claims growing out of the war.' While Mr. Seward did not object to the Mr. Seward's Reply, remedy of arbitration, he declined to accept it with the limitations which Lord Stanley proposed. He insisted that the whole controversy should be submitted just as it was found in the correspondence between the two governments, without imposing any conditions or restrictions on the arbitrator, and without waiving any principle or argument on either side. The United States could not, said Mr. Seward, waive before the arbitrators the position they had constantly maintained from the beginning, "that the Queen's proclamation of 1861 h accorded belligerent rights to insurgents against the ority of the United States, was not justified on any grounds, either of necessity or moral right, and therefore was an act of wrongful intervention, a departure from the obligation of existing treaties, and without the sanction of the law of nations."3 For this reason Mr. Seward declined Lord Mr. Seward's Position Stanley's proposition for a limited reference. on the Belligerency But it should be observed that, while he reQuestion. fused to waive the question as to the general course of conduct of the British Government during the war, 1 Dip. Cor. 1867, part 1, pp. 183, 188. 2 Mr. Seward to Mr. Adams, January 12, 1867, Dip. Cor. 1867, part 1, pp. 45-45. 3 Same to same, November 29, 1867 (id. p. 179). he did not present it as a subject for pecuniary reparation, apart from the claims of indemnity for individual sufferers. On the contrary, he contended that it should be presented to the arbitrators as one of the grounds on which Great Britain's liability to individual claimants might be maintained. In an instruction to Mr. Adams of the 13th of January 1868 he defined his position on the subject in these terms: "Lord Stanley seems to have resolved that the so-called Alabama claims shall be treated so exclusively as a pecuniary commercial claim as to insist on altogether excluding the proceedings of Her Majesty's government in regard to the war from consideration in the arbitration which he proposed. "On the other hand, I have been singularly unfortunate in my correspondence if I have not given it to be clearly understood that a violation of neutrality by the Queen's proclamation and kindred proceedings of the British Government is regarded as a national wrong and injury to the United States; and that the lowest form of satisfaction for that national injury that the United States could accept would be found in an indemnity, without reservation or compromise, by the British Government to those citizens of the United States who had suffered individual injury and damages by the vessels of war unlawfully built, equipped, manned, fitted out, or entertained and protected in the British ports and harbors in consequence of a failure of the British Government to preserve its neutrality." Mr. Seward's Suggestion. In the instruction from which the foregoing passage is quoted Mr. Seward adverted to the various question other than that of the Alabama claims, which were pending between the two governments, and remarked that any one of the night "at any moment become a subject of exciting contro" The naturalization question was, he said, "already wo in that way." The trial and conviction at Dublin, on a charge of treason-felony, of certain Irish-Americans who had been engaged in a Fenian expedition, and the judicial denial to them, on the ground that they still remained subject to their original allegiance, of a jury de medietate lingua, which would have been accorded to a native citizen of the United States, had produced and was continuing to produce an excitement that, to borrow Mr. Seward's picturesque phrase, extended "throughout the whole country, from Portland to San Francisco and from St. Paul to Pensacola." Under the circumstances, Mr. Seward intimated "that 1 Dip. Cor. 1868, part 1, p. 141 2 Id. 143. Her Majesty's Government, if desirous to lay a broad foundation for friendly and satisfactory relations, might possibly think it expedient to suggest a conference, in which all the matters referred to might be considered together," and a "comprehensive settlement" attempted "without exciting the sensibilities" that were "understood to have caused that government to insist upon a limited arbitration in the case of the Alabama claims." Mr. Adams was instructed to communicate "these explanations" to Lord Stanley informally, but with the distinct understanding that the United States should not be considered "as proposing to open a new negotiation in regard to the questions referred to, or any of them."1 Naturalization Question. Though public opinion in Great Britain was daily becoming more favorable to the settlement of the Alabama claims, the question that caused at this particular juncture the most uneasiness in the United States was that of naturalization. The advocates of the doctrine of voluntary expatriation were strengthened by the eventful conclusion by George Bancroft, on the 22d of February 1868, of the convention with the North German Union, by which the naturalization of German subjects in the United States, after an uninterrupted residence of five years, was recognized. Mr. Seward now suggested the settlement of of the naturalization question between the United States and Great Britain on the lines of this convention; and he expressed the opinion that if this should be done, and the San Juan question should be referred for arbitration to the Government of Switzerland, the existing irritation would be so far relieved that the Alabama and other claims could be adjusted in a manner unexceptionable in either country.3 Resignation of Mr. In December 1867 Mr. Adams resigned the position which he had filled with so much honor and usefulness, but his retirement from his post was delayed till the following May. Mission of Reverdy On the 12th of June 1868 Mr. Reverdy Johnson, of Maryland, a man eminent both in the law and in polities, was commissioned for the difficult task of acting as Mr. Adams's successor. Mr. Seward to Mr. Adams, January 13, 1868, Dip. Cor. 1868, part 1, p. 142. Same to same, March 23, 1868, Dip. Cor. 1868, part 1, p. 183. On the 20th of July Mr. Seward instructed Mr. Johnson as to the adjustment of pending differences. In the forefront he placed the question of naturalization; and Mr. Johnson was directed to say to Lord Stanley that the President believed that unless this difficulty could be removed any attempt to settle other controversies would be unavailing and therefore inexpedient. The second place in Mr. Johnson's instructions was given to the San Juan water boundary; and it was stated that the United States remained favorable to the adjustment of the question by arbitration. In the last place, Mr. Johnson was instructed that if he should find the British Government prepared to adjust the two preceding questions, he would then be expected to advert "to the subject of mutual claims of citizens and subjects of the two countries against the government of each other respectively;" and in this relation Mr. Seward said:1 "The difficulty in this respect has arisen out of our claims which are known and described in general terms as the Alabama claims. In the first place, Her Majesty's government not only denied all national obligation to indemnify citizens of the United States for these claims, but even refused to entertain them for discussion. Subsequently Her Majesty's government, upon reconsideration, proposed to entertain them for the purpose of referring them to arbitration, but insisted upon making them the subject of special reference, excluding from the arbitrator's consideration certain grounds which the United States deem material to a just and fair determination of the merits of the claims. The United States declined this special exception and exclusion, and thus the proposed arbitration has failed. "It seems to the President that an adjustment might now be reached without formally reviewing former discussions. A joint commission might be agreed upon for the adjustment of all claims of citizens of the United States against the British Government, and of all claims of subjects of Great Britain against the United States, upon the model of the joint commission of February 8, 1853, which commission was conducted with so much fairness and settled so satisfactorily all the controversies which had arisen between the United States and Great Britain, from the peace of Ghent, 1814, until the date of the sitting of the commission. "While you are not authorized to commit this government distinctly by such a proposition, you may sound Lord Stanley upon the subject, after you shall have obtained satisfactory Dip. Cor. 1868, part 1, p. 331. assurances that the two more urgent controversies previously mentioned can be put under process of adjustment in the manner which I have indicated." gotiations. Mr. Johnson arrived in England in August, Mr. Johnson's Ne- and conducted his negotiations with Lord Stanley with so much energy that on the 9th of October they signed a protocol on the subject of naturalization,' on the 17th of the same month a protocol for the arbitration of the San Juan boundary dispute,2 and on the 10th of November a convention concerning claims.3 Only one of these instruments was destined to survive. The protocol on naturalization was substantially preserved in the convention on that subject, concluded by Mr. Motley and Lord Clarendon at London on the 13th of May 1870. The protocol touching the San Juan boundary provided for the reference of the controversy to "some friendly sovereign or state," and proposed to invest the arbitrator with power, in case he should be unable to reach a precise conclusion as between the claims of the contracting parties, to "determine upon some other line," which would "furnish an equitable solution of the difficulty" and would be the "nearest approximation that could be made to an accurate decision of the point in dispute." Objections to Claims On the 26th of November Mr. Seward telegraphed to Mr. Johnson: "Claims convention unless amended is useless." This convention provided for the submission of all claims of British subjects against the United States, and of all claims of citizens of the United States against Great Britain, to a tribunal of four commissioners, two to be appointed by each government, which was to sit in London. Though Mr. Johnson had not understood that this question of place was important, Mr. Seward now declared that in view of "highly disturbed national sensibilities" Washington was "indispensable." 4 The convention also provided for the determination of all claims by a majority vote, except the Alabama claims. In regard to these it was stipulated that in case the commission should be unable to come to a "unanimous decision," they should be referred to " some sovereign or head of a friendly Dip. Cor. 1868, part 1, p. 358. * Id. 361. 3 Id. 371. 4 Id. 374. |