have pursued an eminently discreet course. The world may judge what foundation really existed for the charge. While convinced that the charge is fully sustained by the testimony adduced, I deem it not inappropriate, in passing from the subject, to quote, in fairness to those who would acquit Great Britain of an unfriendly feeling, the words of Count Sclopis, President of the Tribunal, who, after finding that Great Britain had failed to observe due diligence, remarks:

"No Government is safe against certain waves of public opinion which it cannot master at its will. I am far from thinking that the animus of the English Government was hostile to the Federal Government during the war." 1

1 Gen. Arb., vol. iv, p. 68. If the reader cares to follow the subject further, it may interest him to examine the criticism put forward by an American historian of to-day, whose high reputation gives to his conclusions an unusual weight and importance as reviewed by the present writer in a letter that appeared in The Nation of 24 January, 1907. The letter deals with certain statements made by Mr. James Ford Rhodes, the distinguished author of The History of the United States from the Compromise of 1850 to the Final Restoration of Home Rule at the South in 1877. It aims to point out the injustice of the strictures contained in the sixth volume of this valuable work, where Mr. Rhodes condemns in severe terms the conduct of our case at Geneva by Bancroft Davis, as well as the tone and temper (in the American Case) of Mr. Davis's arraignment of Great Britain

a charge of mismanagement which the present writer conceives to be without foundation. A reprint of the letter will be found in Appendix IV, post.

CHAPTER VI

THE INDIRECT CLAIMS THE TREATY IN PERIL

IN an earlier chapter describing the labors performed at Paris, intimations are conveyed to the reader that our work had to be accomplished under a cloud of doubt as to whether there would be any arbitration after all. During the entire season that had been occupied with the preparation of the Counter-Case and Argument, and even down to the hour of departure from Paris to Geneva, there prevailed the direst apprehensions of a rupture of the Treaty. That result might have meant war. At this distance of time it seems passing strange that many months after the signing of a Treaty between two great English-speaking nations it could possibly happen that one of the parties to an agreement to refer to arbitration "all claims... generically known as the Alabama Claims" should refuse to go forward unless the other would withdraw a portion of the claims advanced, and stipulate that such portion never came within the scope of the agreement to refer. Yet such is the fact.

To-day should a mention of the Geneva Tribunal of Arbitration arise in a circle of well-informed persons, and each individual be asked to state what one incident connected with its history has left upon the

memory the most vivid impression, nine out of ten would answer "The indirect claims." The subject of being exposed to the danger of having to pay an enormous bill for the Alabama Claims completely absorbed for the time being public attention in England. Almost everybody in the kingdom was seized and carried away by a dreadful fear lest the country be overwhelmed by an appalling calamity. It is not too much to say that, with the exception of a time of actual war, or of a political upheaval like the French Revolution, perhaps never before had the world witnessed the spectacle of so tremendous a tidal wave of popular feeling. Or, to change the figure, never had there swept through the land such a political hurricane.

A black cloud came up on the horizon - a portent of disaster. Then the storm raged with unabated fury — until at last, in a trice, it subsided, and once more a calm prevailed. That memorable season was one long strain of anxiety to the statesmen and leaders of public thought of Great Britain.1

Let us briefly pass in review the events of this extraordinary crisis. In an endeavor to account for what now seems to have been a senseless panic, we shall examine the alleged grounds upon which Great

1 The first untoward result to be apprehended was a break-up of the Gladstone Cabinet. Says Mr. Forster: "It is no secret now that the Cabinet was the scene of more than one heated discussion during those anxious weeks, and that the tension was so severe at times as almost to threaten the existence of the Ministry." Reid: Life of Forster, vol. ii, p. 27.

Britain fancied that she had the right to rely for justification in virtually threatening to disrupt the Treaty. The closer it is looked into, the more serious does this chapter of political history appear,a great nation frightened by a spectre.

To begin with, we must understand what is meant by the term "indirect claims." A more fitting term perhaps would be "national claims," as distinguished from the claims of individual owners of ships or cargoes. Mr. Cushing observes:

"The expression [' indirect claims '] is incorrect, and if admissible as a popular designation, it must not be permitted to produce any misconception of the true question at issue. It would be less inaccurate to speak of them as' claims for indirect or constructive losses or damages,' which is the more common phrase in the diplomatic papers; and less inaccurate still to say 'remote or consequential losses and damages.' But, in truth, none of these expressions are correct, and the use of them has done much to obscure the actual point of controversy, and to divert the public mind into devious paths of argument or conclusion." 1

From the first, the Government of the United States had notified Great Britain that the depredations of the Confederate cruisers were inflicting injuries upon the commerce of the Union, injuries that were national in character. Mr. Adams stated, as early as the 20th November, 1862, in a note to Lord John Russell, that he was instructed by his Govern1 The Treaty of Washington, p. 35.

ment to "solicit redress for the national and private injuries already thus sustained." So, on the 20th May, 1865, Mr. Adams, writing to Lord John Russell, says:

"In addition to this direct injury, the action of these British-built, manned and armed vessels has had the indirect effect of driving from the sea a large portion of the commercial marine of the United States, and to a corresponding extent enlarging that of Great Britain"; that injuries thus received are of so grave a nature as in reason and justice to constitute a valid claim for reparation and indemnification." 2

Lord Clarendon wrote Mr. Thornton (the British Minister at Washington), 6 November, 1869, that he was officially informed by Mr. Motley that, while the President at that time abstained from pronouncing on the indemnities due for the destruction of private property, he also abstained from speaking "of the reparation which he thinks due by the British Government for the larger account of the vast national injuries it has inflicted on the United States."

The character of these national claims was perfectly well known to the British Government, and known, presumably, also to the people of Great Britain. The losses and injuries must surely have been a matter of public comment. When the Joint High Commissioners met at Washington, early in 1871, to frame a treaty, the Americans in their