In effect, says the Case, it was "agreed between the two Governments that in cases where restitution of the prizes should be impossible, the amount of the losses should be ascertained by a method similar to that provided by the Treaty of Washington, and that a money payment should be made by the United States to Great Britain, in lieu of restitution."

It will be remarked that herein there is nothing said of consequential damages; merely restitution, or a money equivalent. Moreover, even this limited compensation provided for by the Treaty of 1794, was administered on very different principles to those to be made applicable at Geneva. First, the Treaty was not retrospective, or only to a limited extent, the 5th June, 1793, being arbitrarily fixed, earlier than which date no complaint should originate; although it was well established that the fitting out of the obnoxious privateers had commenced two months previously. Secondly, it was not applicable except in cases where the prizes had been brought into an American port-the owners of vessels which the captors had destroyed at sea not being entitled to compensation. Thirdly, when the prize had been brought into an American port, no compensation was to be awarded unless proceedings had been instituted and efficiently carried to judgment in a district Court of Admiralty. The British Countercase too clearly shows, that with all these restrictions and drawbacks, the principle of compensation adopted by the American Government in 1794, and so ostentatiously referred

to in the American Case, was very little, if at all, operative.

Upon the whole, it may be said of the new code of International law, propounded by the United States, as a means of sustaining certain pecuniary demands, under what are termed the "Alabama Claims," that, however exorbitant the possible amount of those claims may turn out to be, the money sacrifice involved in them sinks into insignificance, when compared with the inconveniences, and damage which must result to communities from the adoption of the code itself. The sacrifice occasioned by the claims themselves is capable of being measured in figures, which once disposed of the affair is at an end; but the "new rules" of neutrality pretended to be forced upon the world, will involve all neutral states in responsibilities attended by dangers and losses incalculable to the end of time.

SUPPLEMENTAL NEGOCIATIONS, TO "SAVE THE TREATY." THE frantic negociations which have taken place since the discovery of the "misunderstanding between the two Governments, on the subject of the "indirect losses" under the " Alabama Claims," " are certainly entitled to the distinction of being without precedent in the whole history of diplomacy. Whatever condemnation may be due to the negociators of the Treaty for their careless and slovenly wording of its terms in this matter, the revelations which have been made since, both by the executive, and by two at least of the High Commissioners (the Marquis of Ripon has judiciously hugged himself in a compa

rative reserve) surpassing in weakness and blundering all that had gone before. And what is well worthy of remark, looking at the whole story of the affair, is this:—that but for the publication, contrary to usual etiquette, by the United States of their "Case," at the time of its presentation, it is not at all unlikely that the agitation to which it has given rise would never have taken place; and that our incomparable Ministers would have slumbered in agreeable unconsciousness over the matter, until almost too late to meet the danger which it threatened.

Mr. Gladstone has admitted that although, as he had since ascertained, a copy of the Case had been sent to him, it did not reach his hands, and that he never took the trouble of inquiring for a document so important, which he knew was to be looked for at a certain date.

Earl Granville, on the other hand, though he received the document, in ordinary course together with other official papers, being at the time suffering from a fashionable indisposition, did not trouble himself to open it, naturally taking it for granted that the "Case was all right" and a mere matter of detail and routine, in accordance with the so clearly defined provisions of the Treaty. Aroused at length by the clamour from without, his lordship appears to have incontinently glanced over the ugly document, the contents of which, as he humourously described it in the House of Lords, gave rise to feelings "which were anything but a panacea for the gout!" Then came that injudicious and unprecedented reference to the subject in the speech from

the throne, and the "friendly communication," which it was complacently suggested would set the little difficulty right, except that its effect was thwarted by Mr. Gladstone's out-spoken denunciation, which in truth left open no chance for a conciliatory result. Throughout the long, tedious, and depressing correspondence which has since taken place, in the hope of arriving at terms of accommodation before the meeting of the Tribunal of Arbitration at Geneva, on the 15th June, it is but too apparent, that whilst the United States Government have been firm in insisting upon the competency of the Tribunal of Arbitration to decide as to the admissibility, or the reverse, of the principle upon which the Indirect Claims are based, they do not entertain much expectation of that question being decided in the affirmative, and are quite prepared, rather than the treaty should fail, to abandon any claims which might accrue, in case such principle should be affirmed. They insist, any way, that they require to have the principle decided, not so much for its bearings upon what is past, as upon what may occur in future, should they happen to be neutrals, when Great Britain is engaged in a war. With these professed views, they invited a proposal from the British Government, which the President would undertake to submit for the opinion of the Senate-not a very cordial or conciliating manner of meeting the matter, it is true, nor in accordance with the usual course of negociations between friendly States, but, still, perhaps, the best we could expect, and the only one which, considering the responsibility attached to

his position, the President thought it prudent to assent to. The British Government, however, having consented to the modus operandi prescribed to them, the only question remaining was as to the terms of the proposition to be submitted by them; and herein they have been all through hopelessly at variance with the other side. They are not content to avoid the enormous damages possible under the indirect claims, they want to negative the very principle upon which these claims are based; or, at least, to have the claims withdrawn bodily from the case, by an instruction, jointly presented to the Arbitration Tribunal to that effect. This proposition, which Earl Granville has endeavoured to render palatable, in all sorts of shapes and forms, has been persistently resisted; and over and over again in nearly the same words. "All the propositions made by the British Government," says Mr. Fish, in one of his recent telegrams, "involve, covertly, probably without design, what this Government cannot agree tonamely, the withdrawal from the province of the Tribunal of what we believe to be entirely within their province;" adding, "the President cannot, and will not, withdraw any part of what has been submitted, within his construction of the intent and spirit of the Treaty." And General Schenck, in one of his telegrams to Washington, suggests, as one of the reasons for the pertinacious conduct of our Government in this matter, "an unwillingness on the part of Mr. Gladstone, to seem to retract the extreme position he took at the beginning, as to the interpretation of the Treaty." It would be a