ing British municipal law. Their officials sought, during the rebellion, to induce Her Majesty's government to stop the vessels constructed in Great Britain to cruise against the United States. They did not ask for their forfeiture, they did not object to a restoration to their owners, provided they were not to leave British waters to carry on war against the United States. It is necessary to bring the tribunal back to this simple proposition, which has been obscured by the irrelevant considations put forth by Her Majesty's government.

7. It is scarcely necessary to say that the United States deny the allegations regarding the supposed negligence of their Navy.

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VI.

The statements made regarding the Alabama * in the VIth part of the British case conflict but little with those made in the American case. In many respects they strengthen the American state

ment.

1. There is no discrepancy as to what took place in Liverpool prior to the escape of the vessel. Some new facts are introduced. For example: (a) That in reply to Mr. Adam's first representations, the lawofficers of the Crown advised that he should be informed that Her Majesty's government was investigating the case, and that their course would depend upon the nature and the sufficiency of any evidence of a breach of the law which they might obtain; (b) that the official legal advisers of the customs gave opinions on the evidence contained in Mr. Adams's representations which were in conflict with the opinions of the law-officers of the Crown; (c) that these opinions were given upon the questions after they had been submitted to the law-officers of the Crown, and before the latter had rendered their opinions; (d) that the customs department of Her Majesty's government (to which Mr. Adams was referred by Earl Russell as charged with the management of the affair) acted on the opinions of their own advisers, at a time when they must have known that the law-officers of the Crown had the subject under consideration.

2. The opinion of the law-officers of the Crown, now first made public, confirms the views of the United States presented in their

case.

[26] *3. It appears that the commissioners of customs knew on Tues

day, the 29th of July, that the Alabama had escaped that day, and that it was not until Friday, the 1st of August, that the collectors at Holyhead and Beaumaris received instructions to detain her. On the 2d of August the collector at Beaumaris reported that he had attended to his instructions, and had found that the Alabama had left Point Lynas on the morning of Thursday, the 31st. If, therefore, the instructions given on the 1st of August had been given on the 29th of July, the Alabama might have been detained at Point Lynas.

4. Her Majesty's government introduce a dispatch to Mr. Adams regarding his correspondence with Captain Craven, apparently with a purpose of assuming hereafter that Captain Craven was guilty of some negligence. It appears that Captain Craven was at Southampton with his vessel (the Tuscarora) on the 29th of July; that he left there for Queenstown, arriving at the latter place on the 30th; that, on the 31st, he received a telegram informing him that the Alabama was off Point Lynas; and that on the 1st of August he set sail up Saint George's Channel toward that point. Mr. Adams objected to the course he took, as bringing him within British waters. Facts, revealed subsequently to Mr. Adams's dispatch, show that the Alabama had left Point Lynas

before Captain Craven *knew that she had been there. Without [27] regard, therefore, to principles which might well be disputed, this fact relieves the arbitrators from considering any supposed responsibility of the United States for the acts of the Tuscarora at that time.

5. The British consul's report of the visit of the Alabama to Martinique shows that she was in the habit of sailing under the British flag. This was known to Her Majesty's government on the 17th of December, 1862.

6. In January, 1863, the Alabama entered Port Royal, Jamaica, for repairs and to land prisoners. The course of the governor in allowing such hospitalities to be granted was approved by Earl Russell, February 14, 1863. This approval appears to have been given without regard to the advice of the law-officers of the Crown. (Appendix, page 212.)

7. Great stress is apparently laid on the reception and acts of the Alabama in Brazilian waters. The United States invite attention to the striking contrast between the course of Her Majesty's government in the acts complained of before the tribunal, and the course of the Emperor's government, as shown in inclosure No. 4, on page 276 of the appendix; as shown in the Brazilian circular on page 284, stating that "the Confederate States have no legal existence ;" that they have been recognized as belligerents only "with the *necessary re- [28] strictions," and that the exportation of warlike articles from the ports of the Emperor to the insurgents, whether under the Brazilian or a foreign flag, was forbidden; but that a similar trade to the ports of the United States was forbidden only to the Brazilian flag; as shown in the rule as to coal; and as shown in the carefully drawn distinction between hospitalities like those permitted in the British West Indian ports for the purpose of aiding a vessel in a hostile cruise, and hospitalities given to enable a vessel to reach a home port.

8. Her Majesty's government aver that the original crew of the Alabama was not enlisted for the service of the insurgents. The United States contend that the evidence shows that a large portion of the crew knew quite well whither they were going.

9. The United States contend that it is immaterial whether they did or did not make any efforts to capture the Alabama. The fact is, however, that they made great efforts, and incurred great expense for that purpose.

The United States also respectfully refer the tribunal of arbitration to the correspondence with the Portuguese government and authorities concerning this vessel, which is contained in the documents submitted with this counter case.

The evidence offered by Great Britain regarding the Georgia is in the main identical with that offered by the United States. In some respects the new documents strengthen the case of the United States.

1. It appears that Her Majesty's government was officially informed, by its own officials, of the suspicious character of the Alar, two days in advance of Mr. Adams's information, and that it took no steps in consequence.

2. It is intimated that Mr. Adams was in possession of information, before the sailing of the Georgia, which he should have communicated to Her Majesty's government, but it is conceded that the information would not have justified conviction under the foreign-enlistment act,

and that Mr. Adams had, before then, been informed that Her Majesty's government could not act on less complete representations.

3. It appears that orders were given to a British vessel of war to proceed to Alderney, but it does not appear whether those orders were or were not obeyed.

4. The report made in 1871 of the arming of the Georgia differs from the contemporaneous accounts made by eye-witnesses.

5. When Her Majesty's government made the statement that no serious endeavor to intercept or capture the Georgia appears to have [30] been made on the part of the United States, it was mistaken. This correction is, however, made under protest that the United States were under no obligation toward Great Britain to relieve her from the consequences of her original wrong-doing.

• VIII.

As with the other vessels, so with the Shenandoah, the evidence in the two cases is largely the same, and the evidence exclusively presented by her Majesty's government strengthens the views and theories of the United States.

1. It appears in the opinion of the law-officers of the Crown, (pages 141, 142,) the Sea King was regarded as a British vessel until after its arrival at the Azores; that acts took place there on its deck which were esteemed to be violations of the foreign-enlistment act; and that the question whether her deck was not at that time a place belonging or subject to Her Majesty was thought to be a serious one. The acts which are referred to as having taken place there within British jurisdiction were some of the acts of which the United States now complain. 2. The United States do not admit that the persons who went out in the Laurel are to be regarded as ordinary passengers. They were persons who, *in violation of the duties of Great Britain as a neutral, were recruited in England to serve on the Shenan

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doah.

3. The official report of the governor of what took place at Melbourne confirms the account given by the United States in their case. By inclosure 19, on page 499, (appendix,) and by inclosure No. 22, on page 500, it appears that immediately after her arrival at Melbourne she was known as the Sea King. By paragraph 9, pages 505-6, it appears that the commander was not pressed to go to sea until he was quite ready to go; by paragraph 20, on page 507, it appears that the governor was consenting to the condonation of the offenses of the Shenandoah against British neutrality; by the police report, on page 523, it appears that the government was officially informed by its own officers that the commander intended to ship forty men at Melbourne; and by inclosure 90, page 529, it appears that, although the stay of the Shenandoah at Melbourne was nominally for the repair of the screw and its bearings, that part of the machinery was not touched until the vessel had been fourteen days in port. The United States cannot admit that there was any vigilance exercised by the officers of the colonial government.

4. The United States, for reasons stated in their case, cannot agree with Her Majesty's government in the statements made in the [32] first paragraph of page *160 of the British case, regarding the

crew of the Shenandoah and Temple's affidavit; nor can they accept as true the statement of the commander of the Shenandoah, cited by Her Majesty's government on page 167, that on receiving intelli

gence of the overthrow of the insurrection, he "desisted instantly from further acts of war."

5. The United States, as to the Shenandoah, make the same statement which they have already made in reply to the statements of Her Majesty's government touching attempts to intercept or to capture the Georgia.

IX.

On page 167 of the case of Her Majesty's government, it is said: “If the tribunal should come to the conclusion that Great Britain has incurred any liability to the United States, the question will then arise what should be deemed the just measure and extent of that liability. Her Britannic Majesty's government abstain at present from entering into that question, and will reserve such observations as may be fitly offered in relation to it to a later stage of the proceedings. Here it is sufficient to remark that a claim on the part of a belligerent to be indemnified at the expense of a neutral for losses inflicted or occasioned by any of the ordinary operations of war, on the plea that those [33] operations were assisted or facilitated by negligence on the part of the neutral government, is one which involves grave considerations, and requires to be weighed with the utmost care. Losses of which such negligence is the direct and proximate cause, (and it is in respect of such only that compensation could justly be awarded,) are commonly not easy to separate from those springing from other causes."

The United States concur with Her Majesty's government in the opinion that "a claim on the part of a belligerent to be indemnified at the expense of a neutral for losses inflicted or occasioned by any of the ordinary operations of war" "is one which involves grave considerations, and requires to be weighed with the utmost care." Without the explanatory observations which Her Majesty's Government reserves the right to make in a later stage of the proceedings, they cannot say how far they do or do not concur in the further statement that compensation can only justly be awarded by the tribunal in respect to losses of which the negligence of the neutral is the direct and proximate cause. a *It appears to them, however, that certain general considera- [34] tions may reasonably be assumed by the arbitrators. 1. Both parties contemplate that the United States will endeavor to establish in these proceedings some tangible connection of cause and effect between the injuries for which they ask compensation and the "acts committed by the several vessels," which the treaty contemplates are to be shown to be the fount of those injuries. 2. The tribunal of arbitration being a judicial body, invested by the parties with the functions necessary for determining the issues between them, and being now seized of the substance of the matters in dispute, will hold itself bound by such reasonable and established rules of law regarding the relations of cause and effect as it may assume that the parties had in view *when they entered into their engagement to make this reference. 3. Neither party contemplates that the tribunal will

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a On the 469th page of the American official case, in the English language, after enumerating the several classes of claims for injuries, the United States say: So far as these various losses and expenditures grew out of the acts committed by the several cruisers, the United States are entitled to ask compensation and remuneration before this tribunal." In the unofficial French translation, made for the convenience of the arbitrators, there is no equivalent for the important words in italics above cited, (French version, page 377.) The agent of the United States received the book just as the conferences at Geneva in December were about to begin, and did not discover the error in time to correct it at that conference. He now takes the first opportunity to call attention to it.

establish or be governed by rules in this respect which will either on the one hand tend to release neutrals from their duty to observe a strict neutrality, or, on the other hand, will make a course of honest neutrality unduly burdensome.

Leaving now the issues raised by the cases and counter cases of the two governments to the arguments of counsel and to the decision of the tribunal, the United States repeat with a strengthened conviction the language with which they closed their case: "It is in the highest interest of the two great powers which appear at this bar that the causes of dif ference which have arisen between them should be speedily and forever set at rest. The United States entertain a confident expectation that Her Majesty's government will concur with them in this opinion."