to maintain and consolidate peace in America. And conferences, like those of Vienna, of Aix-la-Chapelle, of Paris, may have embraced the representation and settled the interests of a larger number of nations; but they did not consist of higher personages, nor did they treat of larger matters than did the conference of Washington.

On the part of the United States were five persons, -Hamilton Fish, Robert C. Schenck, Samuel Nelson, Ebenezer Rockwood Hoar, and George H. Williams,eminently fit representatives of the diplomacy, the bench, the bar, and the legislature of the United States: on the part of Great Britain, Earl De Grey and Ripon, President of the Queen's Council; Sir Staf ford Northcote, ex-Minister and actual Member of the House of Commons; Sir Edward Thornton, the uni versally respected British Minister at Washington; Sir John Macdonald, the able and eloquent Premier of the Canadian Dominion; and, in revival of the good old time, when learning was equal to any other title of public honor, the Universities in the person of Professor Mountague Bernard.

With persons of such distinction and character, it was morally impossible that the negotiation should fail: the negotiators were bound to succeed. Their reputations, not less than the honor of their respective countries, were at stake. The circumstances involved moral coercion, more potent than physical force. The issues of peace and of war were in the hands of those ten personages. They were to illustrate the eternal truth that, out of the differences of nations, competent

statesmen evolve peace; and that it is only by the incompetency of statesmen of one side or the other,that is, their ignorance, their passion, their prejudice, their want of forecast, or their willfully aggressive ambition, that the unspeakable calamities of war are ever thrust on the suffering world. Neither Mr. Fish nor Earl De Grey, nor their respective associates, could afford to take on their consciences the respon sibility, or on their characters the shame, of the nonsuccess on this occasion of a last effort to renovate and re-establish in perpetuity relations of cordial friendship between Great Britain and the United States. And, if they needed other impulse to right conclusion, that was given by the wise and firm direc tion of the President, here in person, and of the Queen, here in effect through the means of daily telegraphic communication.

Happily for the peace of the two countries and for the welfare of the world, the negotiators proved equal to the emergency, in courage as well as in statesmanship. The Government and the people of Great Brit ain had learned to regret sincerely the occurrence of the acts or facts which had given such deep offense, and which had done such serious injury, to the United States; and, moreover, the Government and people of this country had come to desire, with equal sincerity, that some honorable solution of the existing difficul ties might be found, so as to leave room for the unobstructed action here of the prevailing natural tendency toward unreserved intellectual and commercial association with Great Britain. Material interests,

social sentiments, incidental circumstances, all invited both nations to cordial reunion.

In the face of many difficulties, the Commissioners, on the 8th of May, 1871, completed a treaty, which received the prompt approval of their respective Governments; which has passed unscathed through the severest ordeal of a temporary misunderstanding between the two Governments respecting the construction of some of its provisions; which has already attained the dignity of a monumental act in the esti mation of mankind; and which is destined to occupy hereafter a lofty place in the history of the diplomacy and the international jurisprudence of Europe and America,

Coming now to the analysis of this treaty, we find that Articles I. to XI. inclusive make provisions for the settlement by arbitration of the injuries alleged to have been suffered by the United States in consequence of the fitting out, arming, or equipping, in the ports of Great Britain, of Confederate cruisers to make war on the United States.

Articles XII. to XVII. inclusive make provision to settle, by means of a mixed Commission, all claims on either side for injuries by either Government to the cit izens of the other during the late Civil War, other than claims growing out of the acts of Confederate cruisers disposed of by the previous articles of the Treaty.

Articles XVIII. to XXV. inclusive contain provisions for the permanent regulation of the coast fisheries on the Atlantic shores of the United States and of the British Provinces of Quebec, Nova Scotia, and

New Brunswick, and the Colony of Prince Edward's Island [including the Colony of Newfoundland by Article XXXII.].

Articles XXVI. to XXXIII. inclusive provide for the reciprocal free navigation of certain rivers, includ ing the River St. Lawrence; for the common use of certain canals in the Canadian Dominion and in the United States; for the free navigation of Lake Michigan; for reciprocal free transit across the territory either of the United States or of the Canadian Dominion, as the case may be: the whole, subject to legislative provisions hereafter to be enacted by the several Governments.

Articles XXXIV. to XLII. provide for determining by arbitration which of two different channels be tween Vancouver's Island and the main-land constitutes the true boundary-line in that region of the territories of the United States and Great Britain.

Each of these five distinct classes of questions will receive separate consideration.

CHAPTER II.

ALABAMA CLAIMS.

CONDUCT OF GREAT BRITAIN TOWARD THE UNITED STATES DURING THE LATE CIVIL WAR.

Ar the conclusion of the Civil War, intense feeling of indignation against Great Britain pervaded the minds of the Government and Congress of the United States, and of the people of those of the States which had devoted themselves to maintaining in arms the integrity of the Union against the hostile efforts of the Southern Confederation.

We charged and we believed that Great Britain and her Colonies had been the arsenal, the navy-yard, and the treasury of the Confederates.

We charged and we believed that Confederate cruisers, which had depredated largely on our ship ping and maritime commerce, never could have taken and never held the sea, but for the partiality and gross negligence of the British Government.

We charged and we believed that but for the premature recognition of the belligerence of the Confederates by Great Britain, and the direct aid or sup plies which were subsequently furnished to them in British ports, the insurrection in the Southern States never would have assumed, or could not have retained,