resentations that they bring forward charges and prefer demands, which, if insisted on, must lead to war. We can compare his influence only to that of the witch-seers in reliance on whose supernatural perceptions his New England forefathers sent a multitude of innocent persons to the gallows. lution of the Cabinet at London. The Confederate emissaries were active and provided with the means of corruption. Any Government may be betrayed by a corrupt subordinate, as the Government of the United States has good reason to know. The South gained nothing by this criminal and calamitous violation of British neu by the Alabama and her consorts against merchantmen could not influence the result of the main struggle. The party favourable to the South or opposed to the war in the Northern States, which it ought to have been the first aim of the Southerners to foster and support, was discredited and estranged. Many Englishmen who, though hostile to slavery, had taken no part against the South before, came forward when attempts were made, by violating British neutrality, to drag Great Britain into the war ; and thus recognition was rendered more hopeless than ever. Of the wealthy shipbuilder who imperilled the honour and interests of his country for his private gain, it is needless to speak; his name will be infamous for ever. The Southerners when their own ports were closed, tried, in violation of our neutrality. The barbarous warfare carried on trality, to build ships of war in British docks and take them to sea from British ports, thus making our shores the basis of their naval war. The machinations which they employed for this purpose, were, in one instance, successful in evading what Captain Semmes calls "the anxiously guarded neutrality of England." The Alabama, against which evidence had been submitted by the American ambassador, and which was under surveillance, escaped from port when the order for her detention was on its way. She sailed without a clearance on a pretended trial trip, masking her real purpose by taking a pleasure party on board. She was pursued to Nassau, her supposed destination. But she had gone to Terceira, in the Azores, out of British jurisdiction, where she took on board her armament. Notwithstanding the haze of mendacious rhetoric with which the transaction has been surrounded, the fact is that the Alabama left England unarmed and without a single enlisted man. Many thought that the Alabama, having violated our neutrality, ought to be hunted down as a malefactor, or at least excluded from our ports. But the Government was advised that, having gone into the foreign port of Terceira, she must be thenceforth treated as an ordinary ship of war; and though we believe the advice to have been over-technical and wrong, there can be no doubt that it was honest. Sir Roundell Palmer, the Attorney-General, was a man of the very highest character, and friendly to the North. Neutrals are bound by the existing rules of international law; they cannot alter those rules pendente bello, without committing an act of hostility against one of the belligerents. The case has never been properly investigated, as it is to be hoped it will be if the British taxpayer is called upon to pay the damages. But it appears that there was neglect or treachery, or both, on the part of some of the British officials. A fatal delay was caused at the critical moment by the mental malady (which has since proved incurable) of the law officer before whom the papers were; but it was the business of the Under-Secretary of State for the Foreign Department to make inquiry when he found that the papers were not returned. Some- Before the escape of the Alabama, the body must also have betrayed, by telegram Oreto, afterwards called the Florida, secretly to Captain Semmes at Liverpool, the reso-built for the Confederates, had left a British port. But no tangible evidence had been produced of her ownership or destination; and it must be remembered that the building of men of war, as well as merchantmen, for foreign nations, was a regular trade which could not be stopped because the United States were at war. The Florida took on board her armament at Green Key, an islet near the Bahamas, and went into the Confederate port of Mobile; whence, not from a British port, she commenced her cruise. The Georgia and Shenandoah were merchantmen, not built for war, nor in any way adapted for warlike purposes within the British Dominions. The Alexandra was detained, though, as appeared on the trial, the evidence against her was defective. The steam-rams El Monassir and El Toussoon were seized, and the evidence being insufficient, the Government cut the knot by purchasing the rams. The ordinary sale of vessels out of the navy was suspended, lest they should fall into Confederate hands; and when the fleet of gun-boats procured by Captain Sherard Osborn for the Emperor of China was sold off, the British Government undertook the sale, guaranteeing the Chinese Government against loss, an operation which cost Great Britain more than half a million of dollars. Inquiry was instituted in numerous cases at the instance of Mr. Adams, and there were five prosecutions under the Foreign Enlistment Act. Great Britain is charged with the depredations of the Sumter and Nashville, vessels fitted out from Confederate ports and manned by Confederate seamen, with which she had no more to do than with any German or French cruiser in the late war. No privilege was ever granted to a Confederate cruiser in any British port, which was not equally granted to Federal cruisers. Nor did Great Britain stand alone in receiving these vessels, though she is singled out by American hatred as though she had. They were received in the ports of all nations alike. The first port into which the Alabama went, after commencing her cruise, was the French port of Martinique, where she was welcomed with as much enthusiasm by her partisans, as in any British dependency. From a French port she came forth to her last fight. The Florida repaired and coaled at Brest, having been refused permission to coal at Bermuda. The Sumter having been allowed to put into a Dutch port, Mr. Seward addressed a threatening letter to the Dutch Government. The Dutch Government answered with spirit and found the benefit of that course. It was a subject of deep regret to many Englishmen at the time that some of the Confederate cruisers were manned, in part, by British seamen. But the armies of the North swarmed with foreigners, many of | them British subjeets, and recruited in virtual, if not in technical, violation of neutrality along the Canadian border. All nations, maritime nations especially, and not least the nation of Walker and his filibusters, have among their people roving adventurers who can scarcely be deemed citizens. British sailors serving in Confederate cruisers were struck off the list of the naval re serve. It was equally a source of sorrow to the same section of Englishmen, that British subjects were the principal blockade-runners. But where there are blockades, there will be blockade-running; the trade was in no way sheltered or facilitated by the British Government; and Great Britain was not bound to assist the Federals in maintaining the blockade-she was bound to abstain from doing so. An order was issued prohibiting officers in the British navy from taking part in blockade-running. The Goverment could do no more. Both belligerents freely purchased arms in British markets. The Northern troops in the early part of the war were to a great extent armed with British rifles. That the British Government has ever been guilty of selling arms to a belligerent is an utter cal umny, whatever any other government may slide into concession, and finally into the have done. imbroglio which we now see. The British Government did not gag its press or manacle private sympathy. Some British citizens made a bad use of their liberty. The London Times poured upon the North in its hour of depression a stream of contumely and slander which more than any act of the Government led to the present bitterness; and some members of Parliament so far forgot themselves as to cheer the Alabama in the House of Commonsan offence only inferior in gravity to that committed by the American House of Representatives, when by a majority of 172 to 71, it voted, in the name of the people of the United States, an address of welcome to the Fenian patriots (30 Jan., 1871). No language, however held by any British journalist or speaker against the war and its authors, could possibly exceed in violence the language held by a large party among the people of the United States themselves. The most offensive things perhaps that appeared in the British press, were the letters of "Manhattan," published in the Standard, but written in New York. An eminent Italian jurist, the professor of International Law in the University of Pavia, has pronounced the neutrality of Great Britain blameless in respect of both the contending parties, setting aside the case of the Alabama, which, misled by persistent and accumulated falsehood, he believes to have been armed and manned in England under the eye of the British Government, and to have brought her prizes into British ports. But what the North really demanded of Great Britain was not neutrality but participation in the war on the Federal side. Good sense and regard for British honour required that in the case of the Alabama all doubt should at once be cleared up, and, if reparation appeared to be due, that it should be promptly made. But diplomacy chose first to repudiate all responsibility, then to After much wrangling, the two Governments framed a convention for the mutual settlement of claims. This treaty, though signed in London, was virtually drawn up at Washington, for the British Government acceded to all the proposals of Mr. Seward, and when he wished to amend his original terms, acceded to his amendment also. The American ambassador dined too much in public and made too many friendly speeches, probably with a view to facilitate his negotiation. But this was not the fault of the British Government, nor could the British Government go behind his credentials and inquire whether he really represented the nation. His appointment had been unanimously confirmed by the Senate, including Mr. Sumner, who, it has been positively and repeatedly stated, specially commended Mr. Reverdy Johnson to Mr. Bright, and afterwards wrote to the same statesmen a letter which was equivalent to one of congratulation on the conclusion of the treaty. Under these circumstances Great Britain was entitled at least to courtesy. But the treaty was flung out by the Senate with every mark of contumely. The rule of secrecy was suspended that the Chairman of the Committee on Foreign Relations might publish an inflammatory libel against the British Government and nation. A torrent of unprovoked abuse and menace was poured forth against Great Britain by all the organs of American opinion, which, however, somewhat changed their tone when the effect of their language was perceived, and began to rally the British on their baseless fears, having no idea that a nation assailed with the most odious calumnies could feel wounded in its honour. The fact, indeed, is that some deduction ought probably to be made from the offensiveness of American charges on the ground of the habitual use of injurious imputations as ordinary weapons of debate among American politicians. The mover of the rejection of the treaty, and the author of the libellous speech published with the sanction of the Senate, was Mr. Sumner, a statesman of whose good sense we have already seen a specimen, and whose philanthropic eloquence was one of the immediate causes of the civil war, and is now likely to lead to a standing quarrel, and perhaps ultimately to a war, between two nations. From the lapse of time the real facts of the case had been so far forgotten that Mr. Sumner was enabled to substitute for them in the minds of his countrymen a portentous fiction of his own imagination. The action of the British Government in regard to the Proclamation of Neutrality, which, to the sufficiently critical mind of Mr. Adams, at the time, had appeared only "a little more rapid than the occasion required" now became a colossal wrong and the inception of a dark conspiracy, the consummation of which was the launching of a swarm of British corsairs to prey upon American commerce. The fact that other nations had issued an exactly similar proclamation and had received the cruisers in their ports as duly commissioned men-of-war was of course suppressed. Great Britain was charged with the hopes founded by the Confederation on her supposed subserviency to the cotton interest, hopes which she had nobly disappointed. It was asserted that the Southerners though they were fighting not only for national independence but for social position, property and all that made life dear, and though they were encouraged by the most brilliant victories gained against great odds, had been sustained during the last two years of the war only by the depredations of the Alabama and her consorts, and by the expectation of aid from a nation which constantly refused even to receive their envoys. The offending nation was declared liable to be charged with the cost of two years of the war, and, in addition, to the losses caused by the decay of the mercantile marine of the United States, which American economists distinctly trace to the exclusion of materials for shipbuilding under the protective system. Every artifice of rhetoric was employed to inflame American feeling against Great Britain, and the speaker concluded with professions of his ardent desire to promote peace and good will among nations. It is not necessary again to analyse this angry figment, the character of which was happily depicted by its author, when he said, in the terms which would have been used by a mythologist in describing the growth of a fable, that the mountain of wrong looked bigger as you went further from its base. The American Government has abandoned the position in reference to the declaration of neutrality, which formed the foundation of Mr. Sumner's superstructure of charges and claims, though it retains the superstructure without the foundation. Mr. Sumner's guilt is enhanced by the fact that he had spent some time as a guest in England and was well acquainted with the statesmen against whose characters he levelled these groundless imputations. Mr. Thornton has stated in a despatch that at this time he received hints from more than one quarter that Great Britain might compound for her breaches of transcendental morality by the cession of her North American possessions. A notable editorial to the same effect appeared about the same time in the New York Tribune, and there were literary traces of a connection between the editorial and Mr. Sumner's speech. If consequential damages are to be asses sed for the havoc wrought by the war the assessor may, perhaps, have to resort to a quarter where no citizen of the United States ever believes that the slightest responsibility can rest. The American people themselves by recognizing and maintaining for their political and commercial purposes the institution of slavery, which they now declare to have been flagrantly immoral, were responsible for the inevitable rupture which ensued, and for all the calamities which followed to suppressed by Mr. Fish. One great difficulty themselves and to mankind. in dealing with the people of the United States is that the facts do not reach them. They are fenced by their politicians and journalists against unwelcome truth, and thus they are led blindfold into the designs of men for whom they themselves profess no respect. After another period of moral war, aggravated by ill-timed and humiliating demonstrations of cordiality on the part of Great Britain, negotiations were resumed and end The prolongation of the war, which is the ground on which General Grant claims his consequential damages, and which he now imputes wholly to the attitude and conduct of Great Britain, was once imputed by the same authority to a very different agency. In a letter to Mr. Washburne, dated Aug. 16, 1864, and published for the purpose of influencing the then approaching Presidential Election, General Grant said, "I state to all citizens who visit me that all we wanted in the Treaty of Washington, which was now to ensure an early restoration of the not only to settle all differences and restore Union is a determined unity of sentiment halcyon days between the two nations, but North. * * * With this drain upon to open a new era for humanity by introthem (the rebels), the end is not far distant ducing the great principle of international if we will only be true to ourselves. Their arbitration. only hope, now, is in a divided North. * * * I have no doubt but the enemy are exceedingly anxious to hold out until after the Presidential Election. They have many hopes from its effects. They hope a counter-revolution. They hope the election of a peace candidate. In fact, like Micawber, they hope for something to turn up." The letter, which may be seen in the Rebellion Record, contains not the faintest allusion to any Southern hopes fed by Great Britain, or by any allies or sympathizers other than the Democratic party at the the North. It would seem, therefore, that when damages for the prolongation of the war are levied, the Democratic party at the North should, at least, be called upon to contribute its share. Mr. Sumner's charges were embodied by Mr. Fish in a despatch which Mr. Motley was directed to read to Lord Clarendon Lord Clarendon did not meet this attack on the honour of the country, nor have his successors met similar attacks with the dignity which sound policy as well as self-respect and regard for the national character required. But he sent an exhaustive and conclusive reply to Mr. Fish's statement. This reply was published in England, but in America it was When the terms of the treaty were made known it became at once evident that the British negotiators by consenting to a retrospective modification of international law had compromised the rights and impaired the security of neutrals, whose interests are at least as deserving of protection as those of powers which involve the world in war. Still the apology tendered on the part of Great Britain for the escape of the Alabama was well received; the feeling of the people in the United States appeared good; and there was a general tendency among Englishmen to accept the treaty as the best practicable termination of the state of moral war. Soon, however, it transpired that the British Commissioners had submitted to a peremptory refusal of the Americans to consider the Fenian claims. It may safely be said that the failure to detain a single vessel, furtively built by a foreign power, in time of war, and under all the difficulties incident to the maintenance of neutrality between passionate and unscrupulous belligerents, will bear no comparison in point of criminality with the deliberate permission and encouragement, through a series of years and in time of peace, of an organi |