ment has risen, and nobody wants a ticket to the House of Commons. With that blessed relief I can stand any amount of weather.

General Woodford has arrived with his able and efficient staff. He will stay a while here and a while in Paris, which will create the impression on the suspicious hidalgo that he is in no particular hurry to steal his islands.

Wolcott, as you will have seen, has gone back to the Continent. The British want a couple of months to study the silver question - none too much.

I am a lone bachelor, or Mrs. Hay would send her love to Mrs. Foster.

Yours faithfully,

JOHN HAY.

Another of his letters shows his modesty, one of his marked characteristics.

MY DEAR GENERAL FOSTER:

DEPARTMENT OF STATE, WASHINGTON, October 3rd, 1898.

I thank you sincerely for your kind letter.

You know what the place requires better than I do. Doubtful and distrustful as I am of my own capacity it is a comfort to receive the congratulations and the support of men so thoroughly acquainted with the business as you are.

Hoping to see you before long in Washington, and to talk over many things with you, I am,

Faithfully yours,

HON. J. W. FOSTER, Quebec, Canada.

JOHN HAY.

Mr. Hay died in office, deeply mourned not only in his own country but throughout the world. He was succeeded by Elihu Root, who ably fills the post, in which he still continues as I close this chapter.

CHAPTER XLI

MY INTERNATIONAL LAW PRACTICE

In the chapter giving an account of my resignation of the Russian Mission I have stated the reasons which led me to retire from the Diplomatic Service. They were purely of a personal character. I felt the necessity of accumulating a competency for my growing family, and I desired that my children should be identified with their own country. I had seen too much of the evil results of keeping American children abroad till they attained their majority to give to my own. such a preparation for citizenship.

The question at once presented itself, how I should occupy myself and where I should establish my residence. Among others, I consulted my long-time friends, Messrs. Shellabarger and Wilson, who then stood at the head of the Bar of Washington. I developed to them the plan I had formed of attempting to build up a practice in international law in the National Capital, making available the experience I had acquired and the acquaintance I had made abroad. I was strongly advised by them to carry out my plan, and in doing so Judge Wilson told me of a recent visit he had made to his old home in Indiana where he had for several years pursued the practice of the law. During the visit he went into the court, where he found some of his former associates at the bar earnestly engaged before the judge in contesting the ownership of a hog! He congratulated himself that when he retired from Congress he had located in Washington where large interests are involved in litigation and great questions discussed.

It was my purpose to confine myself as much as possible to

the duties of a counselor at law and to avoid becoming involved in the detailed practice of the local courts. I was at once offered a retainer by the Mexican Government to become the permanent counsel of its Legation, and that engagement gave me prompt occupation in interesting cases awaiting my attention. Other business of an international character came to me in volume beyond my expectation, and for more than twenty-five years, with several intervals in which I was discharging public duties, I was engaged pleasantly and profitably in my professional work. It may be of interest to refer to some of the cases, where the confidence of clients will not be violated, indicating the variety and character of my professional labors.

The first of those which occupied my attention - one of the most interesting, the most stoutly contested, and most prolonged - was the task of setting aside the judgment in an international award on the ground of fraud, in what were known as "La Abra" and "Weil" claims. The United States and Mexico entered into a convention creating a commission to adjudicate the claims of the citizens of each country against the Government of the other; and the two Governments pledged themselves to consider the decisions of the Commission as "absolutely final and conclusive, . . . and to give full effect to such decisions without any objection, evasion, or delay whatsoever."

La Abra claim was based upon the ownership of a silvermine by an American company in a remote mountain region of Mexico, and on the allegation that, after the company had spent large sums of money on its exploitation and was about to reap vast returns of rich silver ore, the officials of the Mexican Government by force and violence compelled them to abandon the mine, the American employees fleeing for their lives. Upon this claim the Commission awarded the company the sum of $683,041. The claim of Weil was for the recovery of the value of 1914 bales of cotton, which, it was alleged, had

been bought in Texas during the Civil War, and after crossing the Rio Grande into Mexico and while en route to Matamoras in a train of 190 wagons, was seized in 1864 by the Government forces of Mexico and the entire train of cotton confiscated. Upon this claim the Commission awarded $487,810. Soon after the dissolution of the Commission newly-discovered evidence was obtained, which, if accepted, established the fact that La Abra Mine proved to be worthless and was voluntarily abandoned by the company after it had become bankrupt, and that no violence had been used by the Mexican authorities. In the Weil case the proofs showed that the cotton alleged to have been seized never had any existence in fact. In other words, it appeared that both awards were obtained wholly by fraud and through false testimony.

The Mexican Government by the terms of the treaty was to pay the sum total of the awards of the Commission (over $4,000,000) in annual installments of $300,000 each. Before the time for the first payment, the Mexican Government laid this newly-discovered evidence before the Secretary of State for such action as equity and fair dealing should seem to require, and it continued to pay annually and promptly into the Department of State the installments of $300,000. The facts having been made public in the press, Congress passed an act authorizing the Secretary of State to make an investigation of the charges of fraud, and that official reported that the evidence seemed to show the fraud charged, but that Congress ought to empower some authority to judicially examine and determine the charges. But year after year passed without any action of Congress, and finally the Secretary of State paid to the claimants their pro-rata share of the installments which had up to that time been withheld.

At this stage in the history of those claims I was retained by the Mexican Government. My first step was to secure the suspension of further payments, and the second was to procure the negotiation of a treaty providing for the creation of

a commission to re-hear the two claims. The distribution to the claimants of the large sums of money represented by the five installments enabled them to employ the ablest lawyers in the country. Among those who were from time to time engaged in the cases were Jeremiah Black, Robert C. Schenck, ex-Attorney-General Williams, George Ticknor Curtis, George S. Boutwell, Joseph E. McDonald, Shellabarger and Wilson, and almost a score of others. They opposed the effort to reopen the awards, on the ground that to do so was a violation of the treaty, that the cases were res judicata, that the awards had been assigned to innocent holders, and that Congress had no power to legislate on the subject. The cases were twice taken to the Supreme Court on writs of mandamus, which decided against the claimants on all points, brushing aside their contention with the following language: "No technical rules of pleading as applied in municipal courts ought ever to be allowed to stand in the way of the national power to do what is right under all the circumstances." The combined influence of lawyers and claimants was then brought to bear to prevent the approval of the treaty. After a struggle of three years it failed by two votes to receive the two-thirds majority necessary for its passage.

I then turned my attention to obtaining legislation for a domestic judicial investigation, and after various hearings before committees of Congress, an act was passed submitting the two cases to the Court of Claims, and upon the verdict of that Court the money in the Department of State was to be returned to Mexico or to be paid over to the claimants. After a long and careful hearing the Court decided that both claims were wholly fraudulent. An appeal was taken by the claimants again to the Supreme Court, which affirmed the decision of the Court of Claims. Thereupon the Secretary of State not only returned to Mexico the money in his hands, but secured from Congress authority to pay to Mexico the amount which had been distributed to the claimants, aggregating a total of