THE CONVENTION OF WASHINGTON. TO THE QUEEN'S MOST EXCELLENT MAJESTY. MADAM, MAY IT PLEASE YOUR Majesty,— AMONG the many events which in recent times have cast a shadow upon the hearts of Your Majesty's subjects, and have made them more and more anxious concerning the future tranquillity of the country, few are equal in importance to the departure from an English port, in defiance of the Law of Nations, of the Foreign Enlistment Act, and of Your Majesty's Proclamation of Neutrality, of the Alabama, a vessel built in England, and to a great extent manned by Englishmen, for the purpose of attacking the commerce of the United States of America while they were at peace with this country, a purpose which was, therefore, piratical. Your Majesty's Petitioners do not deem it necessary to enter into any argument to prove that this description is correct, since Your Majesty's Servants did issue an order to detain the Alabama, which order was not received till that vessel had escaped, and did then order that the Alabama should be detained if it could be met with in certain British ports; after which order, instead of being detained in a British port, it was received in one or more ports of Your Majesty's Colonies. The example of the Alabama was followed by other vessels. Some of the crew of one of these vessels, the Shenandoah, being British subjects, were demanded by the President of the United States under the Extradition Treaty with this country, and, the case being submitted to a legal tribunal, the surrender of the men was refused; on the ground that Piracy, the crime of which they were accused, was cognisable by the British authorities, and that, therefore, the case did not come under the Treaty. Nevertheless, these men were not prosecuted, and so brought under British jurisdiction. Your Majesty's Petitioners have no doubt of the liability of this country to pay all the damage caused by the, Alabama and the other vessels which piratically left the shores of this country during the American Civil War. They are ready to pay their share of taxation for liquidating these damages, and have long earnestly desired that the wrong done should be thus atoned for. Your Majesty's Petitioners are well aware that these instances of bad faith on the part of this country towards another so intimately connected with it by the ties of blood, language, and religion, have given great pain to Your Majesty, and that it is Your Majesty's desire to uphold the honour of England by doing justice in this and in every other case in which any foreign State may have suffered injury from this country. Your Majesty's Petitioners have, therefore, anxiously studied all the proposals which have been made by Your Majesty's Ministers for a reconciliation with the United States, and have seen with deep regret that they have hitherto failed, because they always refused to give redress to the United States when they were aggrieved, and were always ready to give up to the United States that to which the latter had no right. In particular, Your Majesty's Petitioners have examined the Convention signed at Washington on the 8th of last May, being the nineteenth anniversary of the Treaty of London, by which the Powers of Europe interfered with the succession to the Danish Monarchy, and thus paved the way for its dismemberment, for the dissolution of the German Confederation, and for the present disastrous state of France. It is with the utmost alarm that Your Majesty's Petitioners have seen that the Convention of Washington, following the example of the Treaty of London, leaves the affairs of England and the United States to be dealt with by foreigners of many different nations, and thus exposes both countries to the systematic machinations of diplomacy. Your Majesty's Petitioners deprecate the ratification of this Con vention Because, firstly, it does not positively admit that England has committed a wrong against the United States, but leaves this to arbitration. If the Arbitrators give judgment against the United States the people of that country will be embittered by such a manifest wrong, and consequently the arbitration will be useless. If the Arbitrators decide against England, this country will suffer the humiliation of being convicted of persisting in injustice, a humiliation which might be avoided by a candid confession of the wrong, which would make the arbitration needless. Because, secondly, by the 6th Article it proposes to establish the following rules : "A neutral Government is bound: "1. To use due diligence to prevent the fitting out, arming, or equipping within its jurisdiction of any vessel which it has reasonable ground to believe is intended to cruise or to carry on war against a Power with which it is at peace, and also to use like diligence to prevent the departure from its jurisdiction of any vessel intended to cruise or carry on war as above, such vessel having been specially adapted in whole or in part within such jurisdiction to warlike use. "2. Not to permit or suffer either belligerent to make use of its ports or waters as the base of naval operations against the other, or for the purpose of renewal or augmentation of military supplies, or arms, or recruitment of men. "3. To exercise due diligence in its own ports and waters, and, as to all persons within its jurisdiction, to prevent any violation of the foregoing obligations and duties." These rules are declared by Your Majesty's Plenipotentiaries to be new rules, while they nevertheless agree that they shall be adopted by the arbitrators, a proposal which, if made bona fide, would be a great concession. But the rules are deprived of all meaning in the present case by means of the word "due," the question whether Your Majesty's Officers did use "due diligence" to prevent the violation of these rules being exactly the question already in dispute. Your Majesty's Petitioners view, moreover, with alarm the proposal to call upon other nations to accede to these rules. However unmeaning they are in themselves it will not be difficult to attribute a meaning to them. If it is still a matter of doubt whether due diligence was used by a great maritime Power like England to prevent the escape of the Alabama, or its subsequent reception into colonial ports, it must be very difficult for a small State to prevent its ports from being used in a similar manner by some powerful belligerent. Such weakness practised on by one belligerent might be punished most unjustly by the other belligerent under pretence of a violation of these new rules. Instances are on record, even in the annals of this country, of nations having been attacked on the bare suspicion that they were about to favour one belligerent against another, as in the case of Denmark after the Treaty of Tilsit. Your Majesty's Petitioners fear that the embodiment of these rules in an international declaration might thus lead to the ruin of such small States as are still left. Your Majesty's Petitioners have watched for sixteen years the operation of the Declaration of Paris on the subject of Maritime Law. Under the benumbing effects of a few senseless phrases they have seen the French nation deterred from the use of their maritime strength in a war which, whatever its origin, had become one of selfdefence, and they have seen that nation disappear as a great Power from Europe. They live in daily terror lest a similar catastrophe should befal their own beloved country, whose strength is purely maritime, and which maritime strength cannot be put forth in accordance with the rules of the Declaration of Paris. It is with them a subject of lasting gratitude that Your Majesty has never in any way sanctioned this suicidal Declaration of Paris. They beseech Your Majesty not to sanction a Declaration of Washington. Your Majesty's Petitioners further deprecate the ratification of the Convention of Washington: Because, thirdly, the usual practice of appointing a single Sovereign as Arbitrator is departed from. The position of Arbitrator, in so important a matter between two Nations so powerful, requires the dignity of a Sovereign combined with the knowledge and gravity of such jurists as a Sovereign may expect to count among his subjects, while the exclusion from such a tribunal of all clashing Interests of different States is a necessary condition of impartiality. The bringing together of the Emperor of BRAZIL and the King of ITALY, and the plan of allowing the Representatives of the disputants to sit as Arbitrators, and of accepting the decision of a majority, will convert the socalled Court of Arbitration into a Diplomatic Congress, and will reduce England and the American Union to the condition of protected and dependent States. Because, fourthly, the King of ITALY, having obtained a great part of his dominions in a great measure by means of the Garibaldian expeditions, which, being piratical, were similar in character to that of the Alabama, is not fitted to sit in judgment upon a case so much resembling one in which, under the Law of Nations, he must himself be condemned. The danger and the scandal are not diminished, but the reverse, by the circumstance that the Sovereigns mentioned are not to be the Arbitrators, but only the nominators of the Arbitrators. But in some cases there is not even this guarantee. Three Boards of Commissioners are to sit, and in certain cases the umpires at these boards are to be nominated by the respective Representatives of the Emperor of AUSTRIA, the King of ITALY, and the King of SPAIN, son of the King of ITALY. Thus Your Majesty and the President of the United States are by Your Plenipotentiaries invited to submit disputed points to the decision of the subject of another Sovereign, appointed without the co-operation of that Sovereign, and without any guarantee for his impartiality, or even for his knowledge of the Law of Nations, or of the laws of the two countries concerned. Because, fifthly, in the one case where a single Sovereign is appointed Arbitrator, the decision demanded of that Arbitrator respecting the St. Juan Water Boundary is limited, by the 34th Article, within terms inconsistent with the Treaty of June 15, 1846, which has to be interpreted. The Treaty of 1846 draws the boundary line through "the middle of the "channel which separates the Continent from Vancouver's Island." It is perfectly evident, from a glance at the map, that the islands between the Continent and Vancouver's Island, and of which the Treaty makes no mention, are in "the channel which separates the Continent from Van couver's Island." But the British Commissioner employed to draw the boundary, drew the most inconceivable distinction between "the channel "that separates the Continent from Vancouver's Island" and "the channel "that separates Vancouver's Island from the Continent." The channel described in the words of the Treaty is divided by these islands into three channels, and as the English Commissioners have chosen the Eastern Channel as the channel, the Americans have chosen the Western Channel. Instead of calling in the Arbitrator to decide which is the channel described by the Treaty, the 34th Article of the Convention of Washington declares that he shall decide which of the above claims is most in accordance with the true interpretation of the Treaty of 1846. If the Arbitrator decide in favour of the boundary actually laid down in the Treaty, namely, the middle of the whole channel, his decision will not come under the terms of the 34th Article of the Convention, and will, therefore, not be binding on either party. If he decide in accordance with the 34th Article, that is to say, in favour of the one or the other side of the whole channel, it will be evident that he has set aside the Treaty of 1846 for the benefit of one or the other party. Because, sixthly, the Arbitrator thus appointed, the Emperor of GERMANY, has never fulfilled any of the Treaties which he has made, has broken up the German Confederation of which he was a member, has perfidiously annexed the Kingdom of Hanover, and has shown in his war with France a disposition so ambitious and unscrupulous as to make it impossible to rely upon his judgment upon any matter, far less upon one in which a false issue is placed before him. Because, seventhly, the Convention confers upon the citizens of the United States the liberty of fishing on the coasts of British Colonies, so as to confound the two nations, and gradually to make the Colonies feel that they are being dismissed from the British Empire, whereas it appears to Your Majesty's Petitioners that, unless the Colonists themselves desire the contrary, the Fisheries of the two nations should be kept apart, like those of England and France, where the proximity of the opposing shores makes that separation naturally more difficult, but where, nevertheless, the encroachments of individuals, being repressed by defined rules, never lead to war between the two countries. Article 27 engages Your Majesty to urge upon the Government of the Dominion of Canada to secure to the citizens of the United States the enjoyment of the Canadian Canals on terms of equality with British subjects; and Article 31 engages Your Majesty to urge on the Parliaments of Canada and New Brunswick not to levy any export duty on timber. Thus Your Majesty's Plenipotentiaries have engaged Your Majesty not to grant protection to Your Majesty's subjects against foreigners, but to combine with a foreign Government against Your Majesty's own subjects, to the dishonour of Your Majesty's Crown, and to the detriment of the connexion between this country and its Colonies. Your Majesty's Petitioners feel convinced that, wherever the idea originated, it can be with no purpose of reconciling Great Britain and the United States that their quarrels are thus proposed to be handed over to so many foreign Powers. The Emperor of BRAZIL, the King of ITALY, the President of the Swiss Confederation, the King of SWEDEN, the King of SPAIN, the Emperor of AUSTRIA, King of HUNGARY, and the Emperor of GERMANY, King of PRUSSIA, are all to find occupation in deciding, or, which is more probable, in fomenting these disputes. Everything shows that England and the United States are called upon not to submit to a judicial decision, but to undergo an operation performed by the diplomacy of the principal Powers of Europe and America in the same way in which Spain, Greece, Italy, Denmark, and, above all, the Ottoman Empire, have been subjected to the interference of an Extra-National Government acting on them from year to year and from day to day by diplomatic means, and depriving the Sovereigns of their authority and the people of their liberties, overturning thrones, changing dynasties, causing confusion and bloodshed, and always augmenting the burdens and the miseries of the great body of the people. The provisions of the Convention of Washington involve, in certain contingencies, payments of money on the part of this country. These payments cannot be made without the consent of Parliament. It is usual in such cases for Your Majesty's Plenipotentiaries to promise that Your Majesty will recommend Your Majesty's Parliament to enable Your Majesty to pay such and such sums. This, for instance, is the language of the Treaties made in 1816 and 1831 for the payment of the Russian Dutch Loan. But the Convention of Washington makes no reference to Parliament. No change in the Law of England can be made without consent of Parliament. When, in the year 1838, a Treaty was made with Austria in contravention of the then existing Navigation Laws, the first ship that entered under the Treaty was seized, showing that the Treaty was invalid for want of the consent of Parliament. The Convention of Washington professes to make new rules respecting neutrality, which may require new Acts of Parliament for their enforcement. This obligation is recognised by Article 32, but only as regards other stipulations of the Convention. It therefore follows that doubt is thrown upon the power of Your Majesty to perform the obligations entailed by the Convention, which is to the dishonour of Your Majesty's Crown. Yet Your Majesty's Secretary to the Council of State, for Foreign Affairs, Lord GRANVILLE, has declared that he will not ask the advice of Parliament before he advises Your Majesty to ratify the Convention, declaring that to ask such advice would be an "innovation" and an "Americanising of our institutions," and forgetting that such was the ancient custom of this realm; that the preliminary Treaty of Versailles, by which the independence of the United States of America was acknowledged, was laid before both Houses of Parliament and discussed there before the definitive Treaty was signed; and that Your Majesty's grandfather, GEORGE III., summoned Parliament to meet on the 29th of October, 1801, for the express purpose of laying before them the preliminaries of the Treaty of Amiens. Your Majesty's Petitioners know that this setting aside of Parliament in the most important affairs of the State is not done by the desire of Your Majesty. It increases their alarm to find that they are not only deprived of the safe-guard which they might find in the wisdom of Parliament, but that they are deprived of that which they have hitherto enjoyed in the control exercised by Your Majesty over Your Majesty's Ministers. Your Petitioners recollect with gratitude that, when the late Lord PALMERSTON commenced the present era of disasters in France by giving his sanction to the Coup d'Etat of LOUIS NAPOLEON, Your Majesty exercised your prerogative by dismissing that Minister. But they have seen with dismay that Lord GRANVILLE, having received an intimation from the Emperor of RUSSIA that he should no longer consider himself bound by the Treaty of 1856, replied to that intimation on his own authority, without first taking Your Majesty's commands, or even laying the letter of Prince GORTCHAKOFF before Your Majesty. Yet Lord GRANVILLE is still Your Majesty's Minister. Your Majesty's Petitioners attribute this dangerous usurpation of the royal authority to the circumstance that the meetings of the Privy Council, where alone all important business of the State can be lawfully transacted, |