The United States suffered great juries.

domestic conflict which raged in the United States, are presented to the notice of the tribunal in the Case of the United States, are attempted to be qualified or justified in the Case and Counter Case of Her Britannic Majesty, and are displayed in the volumes of evidence submitted in support of the opposite contentions of the parties before the arbitrators. They were the subjects of contemporaneous correspondence between the two governments, in detail, at every stage of their occurrence, and, since the suppression of the rebellion, the adverse views of the govern ments concerning them, by the fortunate result of a long, a difficult, and an honorable and amicable course of negotiation, have been put in the way to a final settlement by the judgment and award of this tribunal. It only remains for us, under this division of the argument, to direct the attention of the arbitrators to the situation in which the governments of Great Britain and the United States stood toward each other, and to the subjects of difference between them, at the close of the domestic hostilities in connection with which they had arisen, and to the disposition of those differences sought to be accomplished by the treaty of Washington and the friendly deliberations of the arbitrators. VI. The United States, notwithstanding the incompetency of the resources of the rebellion in these regards, and the adequate power and success of the Government in suppressing any such efforts, suffered during the conflict, in a very great degree, the injuries which can only be inflicted by hostile commerce and maritime warfare. In the three forms which make up the struggles of maritime war, foreign trade in contraband, v'oiation of blockade, and prize capture, the United States were serious' throughout their conflict, although they were engaged with a. adversary which had no commerce, could build, equin, arm, or man no hips, kept open no ports, could furnish no convoy, offer or meet no naval battle, bring no prize infra præsidia or under judicial condemnation. Ey these maritime hostilities, their immense naval force was kept constantly occupied for four years, and their commercial marine was plundered, burnt, and driven from the seas. Their carrying trade in the commerce of other nations was swept away from them, and, in their own commerce, placed at a disadvantage in rates of insurance and freight. In a word, without a maritime enemy or a naval war, the United States suffered the stress, the injuries, and the losses which only naval belligerency could inflict. VII. In looking for the agencies and operations which had wrought these disasters, the public history of the hostilities, and not from aid and assist less the definite and comprehensive proofs laid before this British jurisdiction. tribunal, exhibit them as worked out by schemes and enterprises of British origin, maintained by British resources, and placed at the service of the rebellion, under whatever motive of cupidity, of sympathy with that cause, or of enmity to the United States. Systems of British contraband trade, and organized merchant fleets for the breach of the blockade established by the United States; the British possessions, neighboring to the theater of the domestic war, made depots of hostile trade and covers for naval war

Which resulted

ance originating in

"accommoda fraudi

Armorumque dolis;"

ships of war, British-built, armed and supplied, swift and vigilant for the destruction of peaceful commerce, swift and vigilant in elusion of armed pursuit these were the agencies and operations which the rebel hostilities wrought into the service of their maritime war, and these the au

thors of the wide-reaching disasters which the maritime property of the United States was subjected to.

This aid was organ

official.

VIII. A further examination shows, upon definite and unequivocal evidence, that these powerful and effective contributions of British aid to the pressing occasions of the rebel war, did ized, systematic, and not spring from the spontaneous and casual, disconnected, and fluctuating motives or impulses of mercantile adventure or cupidity. nor were their immense and prolonged operations sustained and carried forward by any such vague and irresponsible agencies. They were induced, stimulated, and directed by official and authentic efforts, in the name and by the authority of the rebel administration, represented by established agencies and permanent agents within the territory of Great Britain. It was an occupation of that territory, and an application of the manifold means which the boundless resources of its people supplied, by agents of the different departments of the rebel administration, there to conduct the preparations of its hostilities against the United States for which its original internal resources did not furnish the means, and which the belligerent power of the United States could prevent from being introduced or carried on within it. It was this system which is justly described, in the Case of the United States, and exhibited in the proofs, as equivalent, within the sphere of its operations, to using Great Britain as "the arsenal, the navy-yard, and the treasury of the insurgent confederates.”

Nature of the in

United States.

IX. If the actual method and agencies of these disasters were thus manifest, the magnitude and permanence of the injuries suffered from them by United States are, also, indispu- juries inflicted on the table. These injuries were specific, in the shape of private losses and public expenditures, capable of somewhat accurate ascertainment and computation. They were also general, (1,) in the burdens upon the commerce of the United States produced by this naval warfare, and of which the enhanced premiums of insurance furnish some measure, and (2,) in the reduction of the mercantile marine of the United States, and the tansfer of its trade to the British flag, which the public records of its tonnage will disclose. Besides injuries in these forms, the influence of these maritime hostilities upon the conduct, severity, length, and burdens of the war forced upon the Government of the United States, in maintenance of its authority and in suppression of the rebellion, constitute another head of injuries suffered by the United States from the prosecution of these maritime hostilities. In the aggregate, then, these injuries make up the body of the grievance which the United States have suffered from the incorporation into the rebel strength and war of the aforesaid agencies and operations, contributed thereto from the interests, the sympathies, and the resources of the people of Great Britain.

No other nation flicting them.

X. Upon a survey of the whole field of the international relations which had been maintained toward it by other friendly powers during the severe trials through which it had passed, instrumental in inthe Government of the United States found no occasion to occupy itself with any grievance or to lament any disasters which it had suffered from foreign aid to the strength and persistence of the rebellion from any other source than from the action and agency of the people of Great Britain. If other great powers had followed, at greater or less intervals, the precedent of the governmental act of Great Britain in its proclamation, and issued formal declarations in the same sense, these governments had, essentially, kept the action of their subjects within the obligations of abstinence from the contest in obedience

to the requirements of the law of nations. The United States, therefore, had no duty to themselves and their citizens, and none to their position among the nations of the world, and in maintenance of justice and friendship in the future, which called upon them to assert any rights or redress any wrongs growing out of the conduct toward them of any other power than Great Britain.

They form the sub

tion.

XI. The course of the public correspondence between the governments of Great Britain and the United States, whether conject of this arbitra- temporaneous with or subsequent to the events to which it related, disclosed so wide a difference in the estimates which the two governments placed upon the rights and duties of satisfaction and indemnity for the injuries the United States had suffered, and for which they were demanding redress from Great Britain, as to produce a situation of the greatest gravity and difficulty. Although it may be confidently hoped that the more general acceptance of the obligations of justice between nations has made it more and more difficult for two such governments to find themselves in the necessity of appealing to the resort by which, as Vattel expresses it, "a nation prosecutes its right by force," yet unappeased complaints of the magnitude and severity of those preferred by the United States against Great Britain do not easily pass into oblivion without some form of adjudication. Whether or not the resources of international justice shall ever furnish to nations a compulsory tribunal of reason that will supersede what Lord Bacon calls "the highest trials of right, when princes and states that acknowledge no superior upon earth shall put themselves upon the justice of God for the deciding of their controversies by such success as it shall please Him to give on either side," it has proved to be within the compass of the public reason and justice of the two powerful, enlightened, and kindred nations, parties to this great controversy, to subtract it from the adjudication of "war, the terrible litigation of states." By amicable negotiations which have produced the treaty of Washington, the high contracting parties have reduced their differences to a formal and definite expression and description of the claims for satisfaction and indemnity by Great Britain which the United States insist upon, and that nation contests, and have submitted to the award of this august tribunal the final determination of the same.

ington respecting the arbitration.

The Case of the United States sets forth the text of those articles of The provisions of the treaty of Washington which provide for the constituthe treaty of Wash- tion of the tribunal of arbitration, and ascertain and state the subject-matter for its jurisdiction, the measure of its powers, and the form and effect of its authorized award. In the full light of the negotiations which led to and attended this consummation, and which are laid before the tribunal, in the Cases and proofs of the contending parties, the arbitrators will find no difficulty in affixing to the terms of the treaty their true and certain meaning.

Description of the

claims.

We desire, by a few observations, to attract the attention of the arbitrators to some principal features of these provisions of the treaty. I. The situation giving occasion to and intended to be met by these 66 provisions of the treaty is described as differences that have arisen between the Government of the United States and the government of Her Britannic Majesty, and still exist, growing out of the acts committed by the several vessels which have given rise to the claims generically known as the 'Alabama claims.' ” The only other recital bearing upon this subject, before the operative provisions of the treaty for the disposition of these differences, is to the effect that "Her Britannic Majesty has authorized her high commissioners and

plenipotentiaries to express in a friendly spirit the regret felt by Her Majesty's government for the escape, under whatever circumstances, of the Alabama and other vessels from British ports, and for the depredations committed by these vessels."

Upon these premises thus recited, and "in order to remove and adjust all complaints and claims on the part of the United States, and to provide for the speedy settlement of such claims," the operative arrangement to that end proceeds in the definite statement that "the high contracting parties agree that all the said claims growing out of acts committed by the aforesaid vessels and generically known as the 'Alabama claims,' shall be referred to a tribunal of arbitration," which this article of the treaty then proceeds to constitute.

II. The sixth article of the treaty imposes certain rules or principles, as the law, accepted by the concurrence of the The rules of the high contracting parties, according to which the actual treaty. matters in difference between them are to be adjudicated by the tribunal; and, accordingly, it is provided that, "in deciding the matters submitted to the arbitrators, they shall be governed by the following three rules, which are agreed upon by the high contracting parties as rules to be taken as applicable to the case, and by such principles of international law, not inconsistent therewith, as the arbitrators shall determine to have been applicable to the case." The article then proceeds to give the text of the rules, which it is not necessary here to repeat.

The provisions of

The only further instruction in regard to the disposition of the matters submitted to arbitration, under the rules prescribed for their determination, is to be found in the seventh article of Article VII. the treaty, in its provision that "the said tribunal shall first determine as to each vessel separately whether Great Britain has, by any act or omission, failed to fulfill any of the duties set forth in the foregoing three rules, or recognized by the principles of international law not inconsistent with such rules, and shall certify such fact as to each of the said vessels."

Upon this principal determination by the tribunal, it is also provided, in Article VII, that, "in case the tribunal find that Great Britain has failed to fulfill any duty or duties as aforesaid, it may, if it think proper, proceed to award a sum in gross to be paid by Great Britain to the United States for all the claims referred to it," and, in the tenth article, that, "in case the tribunal finds that Great Britain has failed to fulfill any duty or duties as aforesaid, and does not award a sum in gross, the high contracting parties agree that a board of assessors shall be appointed to ascertain and determine what claims are valid, and what amount or amounts shall be paid by Great Britain to the United States on account of the liability arising from such failure as to each vessel, according to the extent of such liability as decided by the arbitrators." The effect of the award that shall be made by the arbitrators under the authority conferred upon them by the treaty, is given by the ninth article, which provides that "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 herein before 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 con

Effect of an award.

sidered and treated as finally settled, barred, and henceforth inadmissible."

From these arrangements of the treaty, it is apparent :

(1.) That the high contracting parties have found, (in the public act of the The measure of in- government of Great Britain, expressing the regret of that demuity claimed. government for certain occurrences in the past, and in the joint public act of the two governments, by which they agree to observe, "as between themselves in future," the rules established as the law of this arbitration, "and to bring them to the knowledge of other maritime powers, and to invite them to accede to them,") the means of reducing the measure of the complaint and demand for indemnity, insisted upon by the United States, and contested by Great Britain, before this tribunal, to all the claims of the United States "growing out of acts committed by " the described "vessels and generically known as the ‘Alabama claims.""

The claims preerred are national.

(2.) That these claims are all preferred by the United States as a nation against Great Britain as a nation, and are to be so computed and paid, whether awarded as "a sum in gross," under the seventh article of the treaty, or awarded for assessment of amounts, under the tenth article.

(3.) That the authority of the tribunal is absolute and final between The authority of the two nations, and comprehensive of all the claims falling the tribunal absolute within the terms of the submission, "whether the same may or may not have been presented to the notice of, made, preferred, or laid before the tribunal or board of assessors."

for their determination.

Its award will be tinal.

(4.) That by force of this treaty, and the execution of the jurisdiction it confers upon this tribunal of arbitration, the controversy between the two nations, arising upon the conduct of Great Britain during the late rebellion in the United States, will find its final solution in the award of the arbitrators, and will be forever removed as an occasion of estrangement or disturbance of peace.