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amounting to $4,009,302.50, but we do not intend to retire these claims nor to suggest that we do not think them just. On this subject we refer the Arbitrators to the note from the American Argument cited above."

And in the note accompanying the statement made by the American Agent on the 26th instant, it was stated that "the claims for whalers and fishermen's wages, for vessels destroyed or detained by the Alabama, by the Florida, or by the Shenandoah, (with the correction of the errors noted in the memorandum accompanying our tables,) estimated from the proofs presented, were $588,247.50;" and it was said that "this amount should be deducted from the total amount in the annexed summary, if the Tribunal allow the whalers' claims for prospective catch or interruption of the voyage." And it was further said in that memorandum that if the Tribunal should be of the opinion that the prospective catch should not be allowed, then "we ask, as an equivalent, an allowance of 25 per cent. on the value of the vessel and the equipment," and in the said note we gave the amount so to be added at $400,127.91. It cannot therefore be said with truth that the United States abandon the claims for prospective catch or prospective profits, or that they present them as double claims.

IV. FREIGHTS.

In the memorandum above referred to it was said that, "according to the arbitrary assumption of the British statements, the freight claimed by the United States in the name of their mercantile marine is gross freight, and those statements reject all claims for freight; while on our side, in the absence of all evidence to the contrary, we assume that these reclamations are for net freight." And in the note above referred to it is said that "in all cases in which the Tribunal is satisfied that the freight claimed is net freight, the claim for wages should be allowed, but in all cases in which the Tribunal is satisfied that the claim for freight is for gross freight the claim for wages should be disallowed."

It cannot be said, therefore, that we either make double claims in this respect or do not indicate to the Tribunal the questions for their investigation.

V.—DOUBLE CLAIMS.

The Agent of the United States has thought that it did not become him to assume the province of the Tribunal by deciding in advance what claims for insurance are and what are not double claims. He has, instead of such a course, indicated in the tables presented by him such claims as, in his opinion, are clear from doubt, such claims as may or may not be double, and such claims as on their face appear to be double, but which yet deserve the scrutiny of the Tribunal. These columns are thus referred to in the memorandum accompanying the tables: "Column three shows the claims for insurance, which are clearly not double claims. Column four shows the claims for insurance about which the evidence is silent. It is possible that some of these should be withdrawn from the aggregate of column two. This can only be determined by the examination of the particular facts in each case. Column five shows other claims for insurance in which the owners of the property destroyed claim at the same time full indemnity for their losses without regard to the insurance embraced in this column."

VI-GENERAL REMARKS ON THE CHARACTER OF THE CLAIMS.

It is said that the United States admit that these claims have never been audited. This is true only in the sense that they have never been subjected to official scrutiny such as they would receive at the hands of assessors. But it is not true that they have not been carefully examined, as is charged by the British Agent. On the contrary they were carefully scrutinized, document by document and proof by proof, under the superintendence of the Solicitor of the United States in these proceedings, and the abstract of the proof was in every case carefully verified with the original documents on file in the Department at Washington, and referred to in the Revised List of Claims.

In the American Case profert was made of the original proof, should it be desired; and, had the request been made by the British Agent, those proofs would have been here. It is also not admitted that the American claims are in any way exaggerated, or that, as now revised, the statements on our side contain any material errors.

GENEVA, August 28, 1872.

XVI.-NOTE ON SOME OBSERVATIONS PRESENTED BY MR. BANCROFT DAVIS ON THE 29TH AUGUST.

The Agent of the United States has forwarded to the Agent of Her Britannic Majesty, and has, it is supposed, delivered to the Tribunal, a paper containing some observations, to which it may be proper briefly to reply.

It will be convenient for the sake of brevity to refer to the various points to which these observations relate in the order in which they are mentioned by the Agent of the United States.

I.As to the United States Tables and the British Tables and allowances generally.

On comparing the British allowances, as stated in the United States Tables, with those contained in the British Tables, it will be found that the total allowances have been recently "increased." This arose from a desire to save the time of the Tribunal and to avoid disputes on minor matters, which led to all the claims for personal effects being allowed, except a few which were manifestly extravagant. In no case have the total allowances in respect of any one cruiser been diminished. The alterations, therefore, in the British Tables are not such as the United States have any reason to complain of. On the other hand, where the claims in the United States Tables differ from those in the Revised Statement, they have been invariably increased, and in some cases to no inconsiderable extent.

II. As to the Currency question.

It appears from the paper presented by the United States Agent being occupied by this more than by any other question, that it is felt to be a question of considerable importance, but it appears to the Agent of Her Britannic Majesty that the arguments urged in that paper strongly confirm the view which has been submitted on this matter in behalf of Great Britain. The reasons for this opinion are briefly as follows:

(a) The circumstance of the Treaty providing for the payment of the claims in gold would no doubt have raised a presumption that they are made in that currency, if they had been originally advanced subsequently to the Treaty. The fact, however, is that a list of the claims was prepared and was presented to the Congress of the United States as early as the year 1866, and that the claims now advanced are founded on this list of claims; that they are in very many cases identical with, that they never fall short of, but in a great many cases considerably exceed, the latter claims. Under these circumstances, as it is almost certain that the claims advanced in 1866 were estimated in the ordinary paper-currency, except in some few cases where gold-currency is expressly referred to, it seems to follow that the claims on which the Tribunal is called upon to adjudicate must also be considered as estimated in paper-currency.

(b) This conclusion is strongly confirmed by the fact that in the wellknown report which was presented to Congress in the year 1870, and which contains most valuable tables, showing the average value of American ships and their gross earnings, gold-currency is specially designated as "specie-currency," to distinguish it from the ordinary paper-currency.

(c) The same conclusion is actually proved almost beyond a doubt by the very facts cited in the paper now under consideration, for they show that, in the few instances in which the claims are made in gold, there is some special reference to that circumstancee-a circumstance which necessarily leads to the inference that these are the exceptional and not the ordinary cases.

(d) The Agent of Her Britannic Majesty entirely denies the extraor dinary allegation that the purchasing power of gold has, during the last eight years, diminished 50 per cent., and is also at a loss to conceive what bearing the alleged fact, if true, ought, according to any sound principles of jurisprudence, to have on the decision of the Tribunal.

III. As to the wages.

The Tribunal has already decided that there should be an allowancemade to the masters, officers, and crews of the whalers of one year's wages. It is therefore clear that the additional claims for these wages contained in the United States tables must be struck out. As regards the wages of the merchant-vessels, they will be referred to in the course of the observations to be presently made in reference to the freight of those ships.

IV. As to the personal effects.

Many claims for personal effects, some of them of an extravagant amount, are comprised in the Revised Statement. There is certainly no reason to believe that any were omitted which could with any propriety have been advanced. The new and very large claims for personal ef fects, advanced on the 19th August for the first time, are purely conjectural and are not supported by any evidence which has been presented to the Tribunal. Indeed, it is almost certain that no such evidence could have been adduced,for,from Captain Semmes's Journal and other sources of information, it is well known that it was neither the policy nor the practice of the captains of the confederate cruisers to seize or destroy the personal effects of the officers or crews of the captured vessels.

The Agent of Her Britannic Majesty also begs the Tribunal to bear in mind that to advance these claims without the slightest evidence in support of them is to act quite inconsistently with the assertion so frequently made in behalf of the United States that all the claims are supported by the affidavits of the claimants themselves, and there does not seem any reason why the United States might not with equal plausibility have advanced a series of new hypothetical claims for the effects of the numerous American passengers who might be imagined to have been on board the captured vessels.

V.-As to the prospective catch.

The question relating to the enormous claim for prospective catch-. a claim which has been increased in so striking and unjustifiable a manner since the year 1866—has been already decided by the Tribunal. The Agent of Her Britannic Majesty therefore thinks it his duty to refrain from making any observations on this subject.

VI.-As to the freights of the merchant-vessels.

The Agent of Her Britannic Majesty is surprised to meet with a repetition of the assertion, made for the first time on the 19th August last, that the claims for freights should be taken as claims for net and not for gross freights. These claims in the case of the Alabama amount to more than 45 per cent. of those for the vessels and outfits; but on looking at the Report presented to Congress in the year 1870, it will be found in table XVI that the average gross yearly earnings of American vessels engaged in foreign trade from the year 1861 to the year 1870 amounted to 33 per cent. of the values of the vessels. Under these circumstances the Agent of Her Britannic Majesty is at a loss to conceive how, in the face of this well-known official estimate, it can with any plausibility or propriety be contended that the claims of 45 per cent. of the values of the vessels on voyages which would not average more than six months, that is to say, claims equal to a gross return of 90 per cent. per annum, are claims for net freight, or how it can be even denied that they are greatly exaggerated, even when considered as claims for gross freight.

The Tribunal has decided that one-half this large amount should be allowed, and it certainly must be admitted that this allowance would be amply sufficient to cover, not only the net profits expected to be derived by the ship-owners from these voyages, but also any wages which the officers and crews could be reasonably supposed to have lost.

VII. As to the double claims.

These are of two descriptions: those which are avowedly and expressly made and which are admitted in the United States tables, but nevertheless included in the alleged total, and those which are tacitly made, and which are not denied by the United States Government, but are left by them for the determination of the Tribunal. As regards the former class, amounting to $869,400, the Agent of Her Britanic Majesty confidently submits that the suggestion made by the Tribunal ought to have been at once adopted, and that these double claims should have been struck out, and ought not to have been included in the total claim which is stated in the United States tables, and which is there compared with the total British allowance of $7,074,710.

As regards the double claims tacitly made, they were, many months ago, specifically pointed out in the British Reports, and there shown to be double claims.

The United States Government has had all the evidentiary documents in its possession for a long time, and has, according to the statement now made by its agent, carefully examined them. Such being the case, it is submitted by the Agent of Her Britannic Majesty that, as the United States Government does not now deny these double claims, they must, of course, be deducted. The double claims altogether considerably exceed a million and a half of dollars.

Finally, it is now alleged by the Agent of the United States that his Government has carefully examined the documents which are filed at Washington.

The assertion that that Government had never audited the claims is to be found in the Argument of the United States, and is there used as an excuse for the double claims not having been excluded. It seems also to be the only reason for the very inaccurate statement made in that argument to the effect, "that very few, if any, double claims exist, except in the case of the whaling-vessels destroyed by the Shenandoah,

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