dominions to ship a portion of her crew, she proceeded to a port in neutral territory, and there completed her crew and equipment as a vessel of war, so that she has since been able to capture and destroy innocent merchant vessels belonging to the other belligerent. Having been thus equipped by an evasion of the law, I say it is a scandal to our law that we should not be able to prevent such belligerent operations. I venture to say so much, because at the Foreign Office, I feel this to be very inconvenient. If you choose to say, as you might have said in former times, Let vessels be fitted out and sold; let a vessel go to Charleston, and there be sold to any agent of the Confederate Government,' I could understand such a state of things. But, if we have a law to prevent the fitting out of warlike vessels, without the license of Her Majesty, I do say this case of the Alabama is a scandal and a reproach. A very learned judge has said that we might drive, not a coach and six, but a whole fleet of ships through that Act of Parliament. If that be a correct description of our law, then I say we ought to have the law made more clear and intelligible. This law was said to be passed to secure the peace and welfare of this nation, and I trust it may be found in the end sufficient for that purpose. I say, however, that while the law remains in its present state its purpose is obviously defeated, and its enactments made of no effect by British subjects who defy the Queen's proclamation of neutrality." (Am. App., vol. V, p. 528).

On the 30th of August, 1865, the British Foreign Enlistment Act remaining unchanged, and the rebellion in the United States having been crushed, Earl Russell wrote Mr. Adams in part as follows:

"You say, indeed, that the Government of the United States altered the law at the urgent request of the Portuguese minister. But you forget that the law thus altered was the law of 1794, and that the law of 1818, then adopted, was, in fact, so far as it was considered applicable to the circumstances and institutions of this country, the model of our Foreign Enlistment Act of 1819.

"Surely, then, it is not enough to say that your Government, at the request of Portugal, induced Congress to provide a new and more stringent law for the purpose of preventing depredations, if Great Britain has already such a law. Had the law of the United States of 1818 not been already, in its main provisions, adopted by our legislature, you might reasonably have asked us to make a new law; but, surely, we are not bound to go on making new laws ad infinitum because new occasions arise.

"The fact is, this question of a new law was frequently discussed; but the conclusion arrived at was, that unless the existing law, after a sufficient trial, should be proved to be practically inadequate, the object in view would not be promoted by any attempt at new legislation." (Am. App., vol. I, p. 677; vol. III, p. 562).

On the 18th of September, 1865, Mr. Adams replied to Earl Russell in part as follows:

"The British law is, as your lordship states, a re-enactment of that of the United States, but it does not adopt all of its main provisions,' as you seem to suppose. Singularly enough, it entirely omits those very same sections, which were originally enacted in 1817, as a temporary law on the complaint of the Portuguese minister, and were made permanent in that of 1818. It is in these very sections that our experience has shown us to reside the best preventive force in the whole law. I do not doubt, as I had the honor to remark in my former note, that if they had been also incorporated in the British statute, a large portion of the undertakings of which my Government so justly complains would have never been commenced; or, if commenced would never have been executed. Surely it was not from any fault of the United States that these effective provisions of their own law failed to find a place in the corresponding legislation of Great Britain. But the occasion having arisen when the absence of some similar security was felt by my Government to be productive of the most injurious effects, I cannot but think that it was not so unreasonable, as your lordship seems to assume, that I should hope to see a willingness in that of Great Britain to make the reciprocal legislation still more complete. In that hope I was destined to be utterly disappointed. Her Majesty's Government decided not to act. Of that decision it is no part of my duty to complain. The responsibility for the injuries done to citizens of the United States by the subjects of a friendly nation, by reason of this refusal to respond, surely cannot be made to rest with them. It appears, therefore, necessarily to attach to the party making the refusal." (Am. App., vol. I, pp. 679, 680). On the 2nd of November, 1865, Earl Russell wrote to Mr. Adams in part as follows:

"Yet it appears to me, I confess, that as neither the law of the United States nor our own Foreign Enlistment Act have proved upon trial completely efficacious, it is worth consideration whether improvements may not be made in the statutes of both

nations, so that for the future each Government may have in its own territory as much security as our free institutions will permit against those who act in defiance of the intention of the sovereign, and evade the letter of its laws." (Am. App., vol. III, p. 588).

On the 18th of November, 1865, Mr. Adams replied to the Earl of Clarendon, successor of Earl Russell, in part as follows:

"Yet with regard to the proposition immediately before me, I cannot forbear to observe that it is predicated upon an assumption that the legislation of the two countries is now equally inefficacious, which I cannot entertain for a moment. On the contrary, the necessity for some action in future seems to me to be imperative, because that legislation, as it now stands, is not co-extensive.

"For it is hardly possible for me to imagine that the people of the United States, after the experience they have had of injuries from the imperfection of British legislation, and a refusal to amend it, would be ready cheerfully to respond to another appeal like that made in 1855, by Her Majesty's representative, to the more stringent and effective protection extended by their own." (Am. App., vol. III, p. 621).

On the 14th of December, this last dispatch having been transmitted to Mr. Seward, he wrote Mr. Adams in part as follows:

"I am directed by the President to approve of the views which you have expressed in regard to a proposition made by Earl Russell for a concurrent revision by the two Governments of their legislation upon the subject of the neutrality laws. You will, therefore, inform Lord Clarendon that the United States do not incline towards an acceptance of Earl Russell's proposition." (Am. App., vol. III, p. 625).

On the 30th of January, 1867, a Commission was appointed by the Queen:

"To inquire into and consider the character, working, and effect of the laws of this realm, available for the enforcement of neutrality during the existence of hostilities between other States with whom we are at peace; and to inquire and report whether any and what changes ought to be made in such laws for the purpose of giving to them increased efficiency and bringing them into full conformity with our international obligations." (Am. App., vol. IV, p. 79).

During the year 1868, the Commission reported that in their opinion the Foreign Enlistment Act "might be made more

efficient by the enactment of" certain provisions. See the Report. (Am. App., vol. IV, p. 80).

The British Foreign Enlistment Act of August 9, 1870, which was passed just after the breaking out of the Franco-Prussian War, essentially embodies all the recommendations of this Commission.

(See the Act, Am. App., vol. VII, pp. 1-9. See also extracts from the debates at the time of its passage, ante).

CONSIDERATION OF THE CLAIMS ARISING IN THE DESTRUCTION OF VESSELS AND PROPERTY BY THE SEVERAL CRUISERS.

The United States presented to this Tribunal, on the 15th of December last, a detailed printed statement of all the claims for the destruction of vessels and property by the several cruisers that had, down to that date, come to their knowledge in time to be so presented. The United States then declared that this statement showed the cruisers which did the injury, the vessels destroyed, the several claimants for the vessel and for the cargo, the amount insured upon each, and all the other facts necessary to enable this Tribunal to reach a conclusion as to the amount of the injury committed by the cruiser; and further, that it showed the nature and character of the proof placed in the hands of the United States by the sufferers.

In accordance with its right, the United States again, on the 15th day of April last, presented to this Tribunal a revised statement of claims containing those mentioned in the previous statement as well as others which had been received by the Government of the United States subsequent to the printing of