Britain in this perilous controversy with the United States, have ever been punished in any way. any way. Indict

that the delay was caused by the insanity of Sir J. Harding, which made it necessary to call in other parties. What other parties? Why, forsooth, the other two "Law Officers of the Crown" disguised by Lord Russell under the designation "other parties." But Sir R. Palmer assures us that the papers [if, indeed, they were sent at all] must have been sent originally "to the Law Officers, i. e., all three Law Officers." Lord Russell therefore had no more right to impute the delay to Sir J. Harding than to Sir W. Atherton; for, even to this day, Sir R. Palmer can not say to which of the two, if to either, the delay is imputable. And yet Lord Russell implies that the delay was occasioned by the insanity of Sir J. Harding, while neither he nor Sir R. Palmer ventures to affirm that the papers were ever sent to Sir J. Harding.

In view of all these imperfect and irreconcilable statements, the presumption remains that some person in the Government had the means of traversing its intention, and withholding these papers from all the three Law Officers until the Alabama was ready to sail. I do not say Lord Russell was that person; but I think he knows who it was; and if he desires to vindicate his honor, of which he and the Chief Justice say so much, he will best do it, not by "sneers" at the American Counsel, but by disclosing the name of the person in the Foreign Office who thus betrayed and dishonored the Govern

ment.

All questions depending on this incident are now terminated. But the incident itself has permanent value as illustrating the weakness of the British Government on the side of its so-called "Law Officers," that is, busy members of the Bar, distracted by their private practice, but in whose opinions the Government lives and moves; who have "papers sent" to them by the Government in every great emergency, without their being actual and ever present members of the Government, like the "Law Officers" of the United States.

Here, in the United States, as in the case of the Maury, for

ments were, indeed, found against some inferior persons, but not against the responsible authors of the loss and shame which the Alabama and the Florida brought on Great Britain. Traces occasionally appear in the journals of London of some discontent on the part of tax-payers, who are now called on to respond to the United States for the dishonorable gains of the Lairds and the Millers. Expressions of sentiment in this respect appear in the recent debates in the House of Commons. Indeed, if an account were taken of the injury inflicted on the British people by the actual losses in Confederate bonds purchased in Great Britain, and the profits lost on bonds of the United States not purchased there and sold instead in Ger many; the losses on British ships and cargoes captured in attempting to run the blockade of Southern ports; the payment by the Government to the United

instance, "papers are presented to the Secretary of State by the British Minister on the 11th day of October, 1855, alleging unlawful equipment in violation of neutrality by that vessel; the papers are sent to the Attorney-General on the 12th, and on the same day orders are given by telegraph to embargo the vessel, and are actually executed on the 13th at New York.

Mr. Fawcett has not without reason called the attention of the House of Commons to this defect in the conduct of the law business of the British Government. The reply that the Attorney or Solicitor General should be allowed to continue in private business, in order to possess competent knowledge for the conduct of the business of the Government, is quite preposterous; it would be just as reasonable to insist that the Lord Chancellor or the Chief Justice of the Queen's Bench must continue at the Bar.

States of indemnity for the captures made by the Alabama, the Florida, and the Shenandoah; the rise in the cost of cotton and naval stores, and the consequent losses to commerce, to manufactures, and to labor, in Great Britain, occasioned by the prolongation of our Civil War: in reflecting on all this, it will be perceived that the hasty issue of the Queen's Proclamation, which gave to the Confederates a standing in Great Britain, and the means and spirit to continue hostilities, was an ill-advised measure, hardly less injurious to Great Britain than it was to the United States. These are matters which, as questions of diplomacy between the two Governments, the Treaty of Washington and the Award of the Tribunal close up; but they remain as historical facts, full of admonition to all Governments. Discite justitiam moniti.

FILIBUSTER OBJECTIONS.

Do the Rules, as construed by the Decision of the Treaty, disclose that due diligence, voluntary diligence, in the discharge of neutral duties, has relation to the exigency, and that the failure therein is not excusable by the insufficiency of statute means of action? So thought Washington and Jefferson. They acted, when no statute existed. It avails nothing to say that ours is a constitutional government, with legal forms which impede administrative action. If Congress has not imparted to the Executive adequate powers,―if, for want of such fit legislation, the Executive can not act effectively in some given cases to prevent illegal expeditions,-if, in consequence there

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of, the subjects of any friendly State are injured,-if, in a word, we should be so foolish as to insist on the privilege of possessing laws designedly imperfect, and which thus favor the violation of law, and which are insufficient to enable the President to discharge the international obligations of the United States,then it is proper that we should pay for the enjoy ment of such a privilege by answering to any friendly Power for the injurious consequences of our self-imposed impotency to perform the necessary duties of an independent sovereign State.

There is no difficulty whatever in the question. If, on the one hand, in the case of war between two other Powers, the United States desire and intend to be neutral, it is to be hoped they will not suffer themselves to be misled by the interests of some ship. builders, or the wild schemes of some band of adventurers, foreign or domestic, or even by the sentiment of sympathy for this or that foreign cause, into permitting violations of the law of the land and of the rights of other States. If, on the other hand, the United States at any time desire or intend to go to war with some foreign Power, whether for inducements of sentiment or for objects of ambition, it is to be hoped they will manfully say so, in the face of the world, and will not sneak into national hostilities by means of the expeditions or equipments of private persons, citizens or foreigners, conducting war in disguise while the Government falsely pretends to be at peace. All such "national activities," that is, acts of filibusterism,—whether fraudulently encouraged or

insufficiently discouraged by any Government, are indeed fettered by the three Rules, as they were al ready, so far as morality or law could do it, being classed by statute with piracy, perjury, arson, murder, and other kindred "Pleas of the Crown." True, there is tendency of opinion in the United States, as there is in Great Britain, to think that all rebellion is presumptively wrong at home, and that all rebellion is presumptively right every where else; but that is a theory which has its inconveniences. In a word, there is no possible view of the subject in which filibusterism is not a crime and a shame, without even the mean excuse of possible but dishonorable benefits to the United States. At all times, under all adminis trations, private equipments in our ports, for the purpose of hostilities against any country with which we were at peace, have been treated as what they are, criminal violations of the law of the land and of the law of nations. Statesmen, jurists, and tribunals are all of accord on this point. Contracts for such equip ments are "so fraught with illegality and turpitude as to be utterly null and void." ... "There can be no question of the guilt and responsibility of a Government which encourages or permits its private citizens to organize and engage in such predatory and unlawful expeditions against a State with which that Government is at peace. "This principle is universally acknowledged by the law of nations. It lies at the foundation of all Government. It is, however, more emphatically true in relation to citizens of the United States." Such was the doctrine of the United