tance. I allude, of course, to what was frequently spoken of as the question of "indirect claims."

The expression is incorrect, and, if admissible as a popular designation, it must not be permitted to produce any misconception of the true question at issue. It would be less inaccurate to speak of them as "claims for indirect or constructive losses or damages," which is the more common phrase in the diplomatic papers; and less inaccurate still to say "remote or conséquential losses and damages." But, in truth, none of these expressions are correct, and the use of them has done much to obscure the actual point of controversy, and to divert the public mind into devious paths of ment or conclusion.

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When, in the instructions to Mr. Motley of September 25th, 1869, President Grant caused the British Government to be informed, through the Secretary of State, of the nature of the grievances of the United States, he employed the following language:

"The President is not yet prepared to pronounce on the question of the indemnities which he thinks due by Great Britain to individual citizens of the United States for the destruction of their property by rebel cruisers fitted out in the ports of Great Britain.

"Nor is he now prepared to speak of the reparation which he thinks due by the British Government for the larger account of the vast national injuries it has inflicted on the United States.

"Nor does he attempt now to measure the relative effect of the various causes of injury, whether by untimely recognition of belligerency, by suffering the fitting out of rebel cruisers, or by the supply of ships, arms, and munitions of war to the Confederates, or otherwise, in whatsoever manner.

“Nor does it fall within the scope of this dispatch to discuss the important changes in the rules of public law, the desirableness of which has been demonstrated by the incidents of the last few years, now under consideration, and which, in view of the maritime prominence of Great Britain and the United States, it would befit them to mature and propose to the other States of Christendom.

"All these are subjects of future consideration, which, when the time for action shall arrive, the President will consider with sincere and earnest desire that all differences between the two nations may be adjusted amicably and compatibly with the honor of each, and to the promotion of future concord between them; to which end he will spare no effort within the range of his supreme duty to the right and interests of the United States."

The British Government was in this way distinctly notified that, in addition to the question of indemnities to individual citizens for the destruction of their property, the United States were entitled to reparation "for the larger account of the vast national injuries" inflicted on them as a Government.

That the British Government so understood the matter is proved by the tenor of the elaborate responsive paper, styled "Observations," appended to Lord Clarendon's dispatch to Sir Edward Thornton of the ensuing November; and our national claims are specifically commented on in those "Observations."

It is immaterial how these national losses came afterward to be designated by the title of constructive or indirect; yet such is the fact.

Now, it is perfectly clear that national claims are not claims for indirect or constructive loss, any more than individual claims are. In fact, throughout the

legal discussions before the Tribunal, the British Government steadily maintained that all the claims of individual citizens for the destruction of their vessels by Confederate cruisers were in the nature of constructive, indirect, remote, and consequential injuries or losses, and, therefore, not recoverable in law, either by the rules of the common law of England or of the civil law as practiced on the Continent. Nothing could more clearly show the inapplicability and equivocation of the phrase "indirect" claims or losses to designate any of the contents of the Treaty of Washington.

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Manifestly, while private losses are supposable which may be direct to individual citizens, national losses are supposable which may be direct to the nation. On the other hand, private losses are supposable as well as national, which any jurist or any court would pronounce to be indirect, remote, or consequen tial in their nature.

All the discussion on this question asserts or admits impliedly that the capture of a private merchant's vessel by a Confederate cruiser inflicted direct loss or damage on the citizen-proprietor. Was not the loss or damage occasioned by the capture of a Government vessel equally a case of direct loss to the Government? Most assuredly.

Pursue the inquiry one step further. If, in a war carried on by land between two States, one of them invades the other and devastates the territory thereof, is not that a case of direct injury to the invaded State? If the hostilities in question be purely mari

time, as in the example of the imperfect or quasi war between the United States and France in the closing years of the last century, can it be denied that the injuries done to either nation by such hostilities on the sea involve direct national as well as private injuries?

On first impression, therefore, it might seem that the British Government and British opinion ran wild in the chase of shadows, and combated a creature of mere imagination in quarreling with this part of the American Case at all, and, still more, in contending that on this account Great Britain could be justified in revoking the arbitration agreed upon,--that is, in effect, violating the Treaty.

The Treaty referred to the Tribunal of Arbitration, in terms unequivocal, all claims of the United States growing out of the acts committed by certain vessels, and generically known as "Alabama Claims." It might need to go outside of the Treaty into antecedent or contemporaneous diplomatic correspondence in order to ascertain the meaning of the phrase "Alabama Claims;" but, in so doing, it would incontrovertibly appear, at every stage of such correspondence, that national as well as individual claims were comprehended, and were all confounded together, and, indeed, without mention of individual claims, in the designation of "claims on the part of the United States."

Whether any of the claims so preferred on the part of the United States were for losses indirect or consequential would be an ordinary question of jurispru

dence, for the decision of the Tribunal of Arbitration, and could not be a question affecting the integrity or force of the Treaty.

No expression or even intimation of the question of "direct or indirect" appears on the face of the Treaty. And, in the long diplomatic correspondence which ensued on this subject, it was conclusively demonstrated by Mr. Fish, and was, in effect, admitted by Lord Granville, that no agreement, promise, or understanding existed on the part of the Commissioners to qualify the clear and explicit language of the Treaty.

CAUSE OF THIS AGITATION.

Hence we might well infer or believe that the su perficial or apparent question, which so agitated people of high intelligence and practical sense like the English, was not the real or true one. It was not. And, in order to understand the causes of the storm of discussion which broke over England when the tenor of the American Case came to be fully apprehended there, and of the real consternation which seemed to prevail on the subject, it is necessary to take into consideration certain facts wholly independ ent of the American Case and the Treaty.

On occasion of the rejection by the United States of the Johnson-Clarendon Treaty, with Mr. Sumner's speech as a commentary on that act, England came distinctly to comprehend, what she had been fre quently told before but would not believe, that the United States attributed the prolongation of our Civ. il War largely to her premature recognition of the