there existed, said the Case, an understanding between the British and French governments, with a view to secure a simultaneous and identical course of action on American questions. When the news of the bloodless attack upon Fort Sumter became known in Europe, Her Majesty's government apparently assumed that the time had come for the joint action which had previously been agreed upon; and without waiting to learn the purposes of the United States, it announced its intention to take the first step by recognizing the insurgents as belligerents. No complete official copy, declared the American Case, of the President's proclamation of blockade was received by the British Government before the afternoon of the 11th of May 1861, ten days after Lord Russell had decided to award the rights of belligerency on the ocean to the insurgents, eight days after the subject had been referred to the law officers of the Crown for their opinion, and five days after the decision of Her Majesty's government upon that opinion had been announced in the House of Commons. Mr. Adams arrived in London on the evening of the 13th of May, and in spite of Lord Russell's voluntary promise to Mr. Dallas, the Queen's proclamation of neutrality was issued on the morning of that day. It was, said the Case of the United States, a measure taken at a time when Her Majesty's government was by no means certain, as was shown by speeches in Parliament and diplomatic correspondence, that there was a war in the United States; and it was taken in full view, as shown by official documents, of the effect that it would have in promoting the secessionist movement. The United States, said the Case, had made this review with no purpose of questioning the sov ereign right of Great Britain to determine for herself whether the facts at that time justified the recognition of the insurgents as belligerents, but because they had been forced to conclude, from all the circumstances, that Her Majesty's government, in acting upon such imperfect information as it possessed, and in counseling France to take the same course, "was actuated at that time by a conscious unfriendly purpose toward the United States."

Paris.

Nor did this precipitate and unfriendly act, The Declaration of said the Case of the United States, go forth alone. On the 6th of May 1861, five days before the receipt of the authentic copy of the President's proclamation, Lord John Russell instructed Lord Cowley, the British ambassador at Paris, to ascertain whether the imperial

government was disposed to make a joint endeavor with Her Majesty's government to obtain from each of the "belligerents a formal recognition of the second and third articles of the Declaration of Paris. This proposition, which was concurred in by the imperial government, to open direct negotiations with the insurgents, was the second step in the joint action which had been agreed upon. Care was taken to prevent the knowledge of it from reaching the Government of the United States. On the 18th of May Lord Lyons, the British minister at Washington, was instructed to encourage the Government of the United States in any disposition which it might evince to recognize the Declaration of Paris in regard to privateering; but he was told that Her Majesty's government could not accept the renunciation of privateering on the part of the Government of the United States if it was coupled with the condition that Her Majesty's government should enforce its renunciation on the Confederate States, either by denying their right to issue letters of marque, or by interfering with the belligerent operations of vessels holding from them such letters of marque; and the instructions closed by directing Lord Lyons to take such means as he might judge most expedient to transmit to the British consul at Charleston or New Orleans a copy of a previous dispatch of the same day, in order that it might be communicated to Mr. Jefferson Davis at Montgomery. These instructions were not to be shown to Mr. Seward, but a copy was to be shown to Mr. Jefferson Davis. Such a use of the British legation at Washington for such a purpose was, said the Case, perhaps an act which the United States would have been justified in regarding as a cause of war. It was, to say the least, an abuse of diplomatic duties and a violation of the duties of a neutral.

On the 5th of July Lord Lyons sent a copy of his instructions to Mr. Bunch, the British consul at Charleston, and advised him not to go to Richmond, but to communicate through

1 The four rules of the Declaration of Paris, of 1856, are as follows: "1. Privateering is, and remains abolished.

"2. The neutral flag covers enemy's goods, with the exception of contraband of war.

"3. Neutral goods, with the exception of contraband of war, are not liable to capture under the enemy's flag.

"4. Blockades, in order to be binding, must be effective; that is to say, maintained by a force sufficient really to prevent access to the coast of the enemy."

the governor of the State of South Carolina.

Mr. Bunch at

once put himself and his French colleague in communication with a gentleman who was well qualified to serve that purpose, but who was not the governor of South Carolina. This gentleman proceeded to Richmond, with Lord Lyons's letters and Lord Russell's dispatch, and while there secured the passage in the insurgent congress of resolutions, partly drafted by Mr. Jefferson Davis, which declared a purpose to observe the second and third rules of the Declaration of Paris, but to maintain the right of privateering, which had been abolished by the first rule. In communicating this result to Lord Lyons Mr. Bunch said that the wishes of Her Majesty's government "would seem to have been fully met," as no proposal was made that the Confederate government should abolish privateering. It could not fail to be observed, said the Case of the United States, that the practical effect of this diplomatic effort to secure the assent of the United States to all the rules of the Declaration of Paris, which the parties to that declaration had agreed to maintain as a whole and indivisible, while the insurgent privateers were to be protected and their devastation legalized would, if it had been successful, have been the destruction of the commerce of the United States or its transfer to the British flag, and the disarming of a principal weapon of the United States on the ocean, should a continuation of this course unhappily force the United States into a war with Great Britain.

Trent Case.

The partial purpose disclosed in the first official act of the British Government after the issuance of the proclamation of neutrality was, continued the Case of the United States, also shown in the conduct of that government a few months later in its peremptory demands and its ostentatious warlike preparations in the case of Mason and Slidell, even after Her Majesty's gov ernment had received the assurance, promptly given by the United States, that the act of its naval officer was unauthorized. Such conduct formed a signal contrast with the course of Earl Russell in respect to Confederate cruisers, contracted for and fitted out in British ports, even after overwhelming proof of their complicity was laid before him.

Expressions of Public
Men.

The feeling of personal unfriendliness toward the United States in the leading members of the British Government was shown, said the American Case, by their public utterances during a large part,

or the whole, of the period covered by the commission or omission of the acts complained of. Thus, in a public speech made at Newcastle on October 14, 1861, and printed in the London Times of October 16, Earl Russell declared that the contest in the United States was not upon the question of slavery, but between parties who were contending, the one for empire and the other for independence. As late as February 5, 1863, he declared, in the House of Lords, that there would be one end of the war that would prove a calamity to the United States and to the world, and especially to the negro race, and "that would be the subjugation of the South by the North." Mr. Gladstone, then chancellor of the exchequer, in a speech at Newcastle on the 7th of October 1862, declared that the success of the Southern States, so far as regarded their separation from the North, might be anticipated with certainty. In a debate in the House of Commons on the 27th of March 1863, Mr. Laird, the builder of the Alabama, declared, amid prolonged cheering by a large portion of the House, that he would rather be handed down to posterity as the builder of a dozen Alabamas than as a man who (referring to Mr. Bright) applied himself to "cry up the institutions of another country” (meaning the United States), which, when they came to be tested, were "of no value whatever, and which reduced liberty to an utter absurdity." Various other expressions, some of Lord Palmerston and of other members of Her Majesty's government, were cited as showing feelings which could not but have influenced the course of that government, and induced it to look with disfavor upon efforts to repress the attempts of British subjects and other persons to violate the neutrality of British soil and waters in favor of the Confederates. Lord Westbury, who was appointed Lord High Chancellor on the death of Lord Campbell in June 1861, declared in the House of Lords in 1868, in regard to the claims of the United States, that "the animus with which the neutral powers acted was the only true criterion." "Such is the use," said the American Case, “which the United States ask this tribunal to make of the foregoing evidence of the unfriendliness and insincere neutrality of the British cabinet of that day. When the leading members of that cabinet are thus found counseling in advance with France to secure a joint action of the two governments, and assenting to the declaration of a state of war between the United States and the insurgents before they could possibly have received

intelligence of the purposes of the government of the United States; when it is seen that the British secretary of state for foreign affairs advises the representatives of the insurgents as to the course to be pursued to obtain the recognition of their independence, and at the same time refuses to await the arrival of the trusted representative of the United States before deciding to recognize them as belligerents; when he is found opening negotiations through Her Majesty's diplomatic representative at Washington with persons in rebellion against the United States; when various members of the British cabinet are seen to comment upon the efforts of the Government of the United States to suppress the rebellion in terms that indicate a strong desire that those efforts should not succeed, it is not unreasonable to suppose that, when called upon to do acts which might bring about results in conflict with their wishes and convictions, they would hesitate, discuss, delay, and refrain-in fact, that they would do exactly what in the subsequent pages of this paper it will appear that they did do."

Neutral Duties.

In the third chapter the Case of the United States discussed "the duties which Great Britain, as a neutral, should have observed toward the United States." Great Britain had herself acknowledged, by her foreign-enlistment act of 1819, as well as by other governmental acts, her obligation to discharge the duties of neutrality. The acts which, if committed within the territory of a neutral, were to be regarded as violations of its international duties were enumerated in sections 2, 5, 6, 7, and 8 of that statute, which, said the Case, recognized the following as acts that ought to be prevented in neutral territory in time of war:

"1. The recruitment of subjects or citzens of the neutral, to be employed in the military or naval service of a foreign government or of persons assuming to exercise the powers of gov ernment over any part of foreign territory; or the acceptance of a commission, warrant, or appointment for such service by such persons; or the enlisting or agreeing to enlist in such service; the act in each case being done without the leave or license of the sovereign.

"2. The receiving on board a vessel, for the purpose of transporting from a neutral port, persons who may have been so recruited or commissioned; or the transporting such persons from a neutral port. Authority is given to seize the vessels violating these provisions.

"3. The equipping, furnishing, fitting out, or arming a vessel,