all matters submitted to them, and shall forthwith proceed, under such rules and regulations as they may prescribe, to the investigation of the claims which shall be presented to them by the Government of the United States, and shall examine and decide upon them in such order and manner as they may think proper, but upon such evidence or information only as shall be furnished by or on behalf of the Governments of the United States and of Great Britain respectively. They shall be bound to hear on each separate claim, if required, one person on behalf of each Government, as counsel or agent. majority of the Assessors in each case shall be sufficient for a decision.

A

"The decision of the Assessors shall be given upon each claim in writing, and shall be signed by them respectively and dated.

"Every claim shall be presented to the Assessors within six months from the day of their first meeting, but they may, for good cause shown, extend the time for the presentation of any claim to a further period not exceeding three months.

"The Assessors shall report to each Government at or before the expiration of one year from the date of their first meeting the amount of claims decided by them up to the date of such report; if further claims then remain undecided, they shall make a further report at or before the expiration of two years from the date of such first meeting; and in case any claims remain undetermined at that time, they shall make a final report within a further period of six months.

"The report or reports shall be made in duplicate, and one copy thereof shall be delivered to the Secretary of State of the United States, and one copy thereof to the Representative of Her Britannic Majesty at Washington.

"All sums of money which may be awarded under this Article shall be payable at Washington, in coin, within twelve months after the delivery of each report.

"The Board of Assessors may employ such clerks as they shall think necessary.

"The expenses of the Board of Assessors shall be borne equally by the two Governments, and paid from time to time, as may be found expedient, on the production of accounts certified by the Board. The remuneration of the Assessors shall also be paid by the two Governments in equal moieties in a similar manner.

"ARTICLE XI.

"The High Contracting Parties engage to consider the result of the proceedings of the Tribunal of Arbitration, and of the Board of Assessors, should such Board be appointed, as a full, perfect, and final settlement of all the claims hereinbefore referred to; and further engage that every such claim, whether the same may or may not have been presented to the notice of, made, preferred, or laid before the Tribunal or Board, shall,

from and after the conclusion of the proceedings of the Tribunal or Board, be considered and treated as finally settled, barred, and thenceforth inadmissible."

Other Subjects
Included.

་

Besides the Alabama claims, the treaty settlement included the claims of citizens of the United States (other than the Alabama claims) and of subjects of Great Britain growing out of the civil war in the United States (Articles XII.-XVII.); the North Atlantie fisheries (Articles XVIII-XXV., XXXII., XXXIII.); the navigation of certain rivers and canals and of Lake Michigan (Articles XXVI.-XXVIII.); the system of bonded transit (Articles XXIX., XXX., XXXIII.); certain features of the coasting trade (Articles XXX., XXXIII.); the exemption from duty of lumber cut on American territory watered by the St. John and floated down that river to the United States (Article XXXI.), and the San Juan boundary (Articles XXXIV-XLII). The forty-third article related to the exchange of ratifications.

On the 10th of May the treaty was sent to Approval of the the Senate, and, together with the protocols Senate. of the proceedings of the joint high commis

sion, was referred to the Committee on Foreign Relations.' Of this committee Simon Cameron was now chairman, having been substituted for Mr. Sumner in that position in the preceding March. Mr. Sumner, however, cast his vote for the treaty. Indeed, an examination of its provisions in relation to the Alabama question will show that they substantially meet the requirements of his speech on the Johnson-Clarendon convention. They contain an expression of regret "for the escape, under whatever circumstances, of the Alabama and other vessels from British ports, and for the depredations committed by those vessels;" they embrace a definition of the rules of maritime neutrality; and they secure, at least as they were construed by the Government of the United States, an arbitral adjustment of all claims, whether individual or national, "growing out of acts committed by the aforesaid vessels, and generically known as the Alabama claims." The British commissioners, though their government had ordered them to leave Washington "as soon as possible after the treaty was signed," deemed it prudent to await the discussions of the

The text of the treaty was surreptitiously published in the New York Tribune on the morning of the 11th of May. (S. Rep. 2, 42 Cong., special sess.)

Senate upon it.' It was formally approved by that body on the 24th of May.

The successful conclusion of the negotiations Sensation of Relief. brought a sensation of relief in England as well as in the United States. Mr. Moran, the chargé d'affaires ad interim of the United States at London, wrote, on the 25th of May, that there was the most widespread feeling in regard to the treaty as a measure to close all sources of dispute between the two countries. He said there would be "some opposition to the convention on the part of Lord Russell," but that it would be "rather personal than a matter of principle;" and that nothing he could say would prevent the acceptance of the treaty.2

But while Lord Russell was more radical Criticism of the than others in his hostility to the treaty, he Treaty. was not alone in England in his criticism of it. It was suggested that the second of the three rules of neutral duty which it prescribed, forbidding a neutral "to permit or suffer either belligerent to make use of its ports or waters for the purpose of the renewal or augmentation of military supplies or arms," would prevent the sale by a neutral, or in a neutral country, of arms and other military supplies in the ordinary course of commerce. The apprehensions on this subject, which were shared by Sir Roundell Palmer, were deemed so serious as to lead Earl de Grey to bring the matter unofficially to the attention of General Schenck, who had then assumed charge of the American legation in London. Mr. Fish, however, met the suggestion by declaring that the President understood and insisted that the rule did not prevent the open sale of arms or military supplies in the ordinary course of commerce, as they were sold to the United States in England during the civil war, or in the United States or in England during the Franco-German war; and he said that the United States, in bringing the rules to the knowledge of other powers and asking their assent to them, as the contracting parties had agreed to do, would insist that such was their proper meaning.*

Life, etc., of Sir Stafford Northcote, 16, 23.

2 MSS. Dept. of State.

3 Telegram, General Schenck to Mr. Fish, June 9, 1871. The ministry had received notice that they would be interrogated in Parliament on this point.

4 Telegram, Mr. Fish to General Schenck, June 10, 1871.

Question as to the "Three Rules."

But the principal ground of attack upon the treaty was the declaration it contained by the British commissioners, that the rules of neutrality which it set forth, not only for the regulation of the future conduct of the contracting parties, but also for the determination of Great Britain's liability for the Alabama claims, were not assented to by Her Majesty's Government as a statement of principles of international law in force at the time when the claims arose. On the 12th of June 1871 Earl Russell moved, in the House of Lords, that an address be presented to Her Majesty praying that she would be pleased "not to sanction or to ratify any convention for the settlement of the Alabama claims," by which Her Majesty would "approve of any conditions, terms, or rules by which the arbitrator or abitrators" would "be bound, other than the law of nations and the municipal law of the United Kingdom existing and in force at the period of the late civil war in the United States when the alleged depredations took place." He declared that to pay compensation for acts which were not against the law of nations at the time of their commission looked like "paying a sort of tribute in order to buy peace." He also criticised the provisions of the treaty relating to the fisheries, as well as the omission to provide for the adjustment of claims for the Fenian outrages.

On the other hand, Earl Granville declared that the three rules were completely covered by the then recent act amending the British neutrality laws. This act, he said, even went further than the rules; nor was there any country in the world that had a "greater interest" than Great Britain "in escaping such depredations as were committed by the Alabama." Earl Derby thought that the treaty was a poor one, but that it should be accepted as an accomplished fact. Earl de Grey considered that the government had "accomplished a signal benefit in binding the American government by rules" which were "just and reasonable in themselves, and from which, in case of future wars, no country on the face of the earth" was "likely to derive so much benefit as England herself." After further debate the motion of Earl Russell was put, and was negatived without a division. The Times, commenting on the debate, said that the conclusion which must be come to, after this full discussion, was that "the solid advantages" to be derived from the treaty greatly overbalanced its deficiencies.1

June 13, 1871.

On the 4th of August 1871 Sir C. Addersley moved in the House of Commons for the production of copies of any instructions given by Her Majesty's ministers to the commissioners at Washington during the negotiations. This motion was withdrawn after a debate in which the treaty was defended by Mr. Gladstone, Sir Stafford Northcote, and Sir Roundell Palmer. In regard to the three rules, Sir Roundell said that he did not think that they went beyond the liability imposed on Great Britain by her own municipal law.'

bitration.

On the 11th of August Earl Granville anPersonnel of the Ar-nounced that the preparation of the British Case had been confided to the Lord Chancellor, who would be assisted by Lord Tenterden and Professor Bernard; that Sir Roundell Palmer had consented to act as counsel, and that Sir Alexander Cockburn had consented to act as British arbitrator. While Sir Roundell Palmer appeared alone as British counsel, Mr. Mountague Bernard and Mr. Cohen sat by his side at the counsels' table at Geneva, and "the hand of the latter was apparent in the estimates and exhibits presented to the tribunal to guide them in the determination of the damages awarded to the United States."3 Lord Tenterden was appointed as agent for Great Britain.1

The preparation of the American Case was intrusted to Mr. J. C. Bancroft Davis, who was selected for the post of agent of the United States. Mr. Charles Francis Adams was appointed American arbitrator. Mr. William M. Evarts, Mr. Caleb Cushing, and Mr. Morrison R. Waite, afterward Chief

The Times, August 5, 1871. Sir Roundell Palmer, whose opinion on the subject derived a double weight from his great abilities and his connection with the British Government during the civil war in the United States, said that the "substance of the obligation" imposed by the three rules, "as distinct from its foundation and origin," did not materially differ from that imposed by the municipal law of England as it was interpreted and understood by the government, and as the government actually and in good faith at the time undertook to execute it. (Hansard, CCVIII 894.) In the course of his speech Sir Roundell Palmer made some criticisms on the Johnson-Clarendon convention, to which Mr. Johnson published a reply. (A Reply to a Recent Speech of Sir Roundell Palmer on the Washington Treaty and the Alabama Claims: Baltimore, 1871.) The Times, August 12, 1871; For. Rel. 1871, pp. 480, 484, 493, 494. 3 Cushing's Treaty of Washington, 96.

+ Earl Granville to General Schenck, November 16, 1871, MSS. Dept. of State.

5 For. Rel. 1871, p. 494.