departure was on this account provisionally refused. As she had been quite unfitted for war on her arrival, these measures rendered her practically useless for the confederate service, and her officers determined to abandon the attempt to employ her, and to leave her in the port of Calais.1 The Stonewall. Attention has also been called to the case of the confederate steamram Stonewall. That vessel was one of six ships built for the confederate government in France under a contract with Captain Bullock, to be paid for out of the proceeds of the confederate loan issued through the agency of Messrs. Erlanger in Paris. According to French law, the permission of the government is required before vessels constructed in French ports can be armed for war, and this permission M. Arman, the builder of the vessels, had procured, on the pretext that they were intended for employment in the China seas. When the United States minister laid evidence before the French government of the real purpose for which these vessels were designed, the authorization to arm them was withdrawn, and an assurance was given that they should not be allowed to pass into the hands of the confederate government. M. Arman was, however, allowed to proceed with the construction of them, and they were eventually disposed of to different neutral governments. One of them was sold conditionally to the Danish government, but rejected by the officer appointed by that government to inspect her at Bordeaux, as not coming within the terms of the contract. Permission was obtained to send her to Copenhagen, from whence, the Danish Government having confirmed the decision of their officer, she returned to the French coast, shipped a crew, arms, and a supply of coal at the small island of Houat, off St. Nazaire, and proceeded on her voyage as the confederate steamer Olinde or Stonewall. The United [123] States minister at Paris thought, probably with justice, *that there were grounds for believing that the intention of using her for the confederate service had been formed before she left France, and that the sending her to Copenhagan was a mere pretext; and the French government ordered an investigation into the circumstances; but it expressly disclaimed any responsibility for what had occurred, and declined to interfere to procure the detention of the Stonewall in the Spanish port of Ferrol, to which she had proceeded. Spain and Portugal. 5. The Stonewall arrived at Corunna on the 3d of February, 1865, from whence she removed to the neighboring port of Ferrol. In January, 1862, when the Sumter arrived in the port of Cadiz, the Spanish government had decided that she must be allowed to make such repairs as were absolutely necessary, and had for that purpose allowed her to be placed in a government dock for two days, notwithstanding the protest of the United States minister. The government came to a similar conclusion in the case of the Stonewall, and she remained at Ferrol refitting for sea till the 24th of March. The government of Her Majesty [wrote M. Benavides] could not disregard the voice of humanity in perfect harmony with the laws of neutrality, and does not think they are violated by allowing a vessel only the repairs strictly necessary to navigate without endangering the lives of the crew. The United States war steamers Niagara and Sacramento had in the meanwhile arrived at Corunna, from whence they kept watch on her movements. From Ferrol they followed her to Lisbon, the commander of the Niagara considering the Stonewall too formidable to cope with at sea in calm weather.3 Appendix to British Case, vol. ii, p. 671. Papers relating to Foreign Affairs, 1865-66, part ii, p. 524. 3 Ibid., p. 521. At Lisbon the Portuguese government allowed her to remain twentyfour hours and take in a supply of coal. On this latter point, the foreign minister of Portugal observed, in reply to the representations of the United States minister Regarding the supply of coal, against which you insist, allow me to observe that the vessel being a steamer, His Majesty's government could not avoid with good foundation that she should be provided with that article, for the same reason that it could not deny to any sailing-vessel in a dismantled state to provide itself with sails.1 The Stonewall next proceeded to the Spanish island of Teneriffe, and from thence to Havana, where she arrived on the 11th of May, and where, at the close of the civil war, she was surrendered to the Spanish authorities by her commander on the payment of $16,000. By the Spanish government she was handed over to that of the United States. The latter repaid the sum expended in obtaining possession of her. In the conduct of other powers, when compared with that of Great Britain, there is certainly nothing to justify the United States in preferring claims against the latter for undue partiality to confederate cruisers, while at the same time disavowing any ground of complaint against the former. It may suit the United States to give this assur ance for the purposes of the present arbitration, but no such assurance can be given for the future. If the charge against Great Britain is to be held valid in the present instance, it is impossible to say what line of conduct, however scrupulous, however courteous, will protect a neu tral power from demands for compensation from one or the other, or even from both, of two belligerent parties. 1 Papers relating to Foreign Affairs, 1865–66, part iii, p. 113. PART X. CONCLUSION. RECAPITULATION OF THE ARGUMENT FOR GREAT BRITAIN. PART X.-Conclu Her Majesty's government has deemed it convenient, both in the Case which it has previously presented, and in this Counter Case, to place before the arbitrators, as clearly as sion. I possible, the nature and general limits of the questions which they are about to decide. Recapitulation of the argent for Great Britain. The comparatively novel character of these questions, the importance. of them, the number and variety of the facts which may be supposed to bear on them, appeared to make this course not only convenient, but necessary; and the necessity has been enhanced by a circumstance peculiar to this controversy. The war which commenced in April, 1861, and ended in May, 1865, was a civil war; and it was hard, even for a government which had again and again proclaimed itself neutral in similar contests occurring elsewhere, to reconcile itself to the assumption, in its own case, of the same attitude by other nations. Every occasion on which that neutrality had to be practically asserted was painful, and perhaps naturally painful, to the United States. But neutrality, in a war wholly or partly maritime, is not, and cannot be, as regards maritime powers, a merely negative condition. States, the most remote from the principal theater of hostilities, may yet, through their shipping, or their colonial possessions, be brought into contact with those hostilities in various parts of the world, and questions will thus arise which cannot be avoided or put aside by mere inaction. In the case of Great Britain, the points of contact, and therefore the occasions of complaint, were greatly multiplied by the diffusion of her maritime. interests, the magnitude of her commercial marine, the number of her colonies, the activity of her manufacturing industries, and the almost unbounded liberty which her laws allow to trade. The feelings of annoyance which the impartial neutrality of Great Britain excited, in many ways, and under many circumstances, in the Government and people of the United States, were, it was hoped by Her Britannic Majesty's government, almost, if not quite, forgotten; these were matters, at all events, which neither this government, nor probably any other, would have thought it right to refer to any arbitrators, however carefully selected. But the claims which are submitted to the tribunal are of a different character. The United States believes them just; Great Eritain believes them erroneous. Both nations agree in regarding them as proper to be referred to an independent and impartial decision. Fience, the importance of separating these claims from the various matters of complaint or causes of dissatisfaction with which they were long associated in the diplomatic correspondence of the American Government and in the minds of the American people; and of keeping plainly 24 A-II and steadily in view the questions with which the tribunal has actually to deal, and the facts and arguments which are properly and directly relevant to those questions. Adhering firmly to this distinction, Her Majesty's government has, at the same time, not declined to meet and argue, within the limits prescribed by its own self-respect, and by its view of the proper scope of the reference to arbitration, the wider issues which the United States have thought proper to raise. Endeavors were made on the part of the United States to show that, in various matters which are not referred to the arbitrators, the British government had permitted violations of its neutrality in favor of the Confederate States, while it had been rigorous in refusing to the United States the enjoyment of corresponding advantages. The arbitrators were asked to draw from hence a conclusion, which it was desired they should apply to the questions actually submitted to them for adjudication. These complaints related substantially to the traffic in arms and munitions of war, and other articles of commerce, carried on with southern ports, from ports within the British dominions, and particnlarly from and through that of Nassau. The United States insisted also on the fact that the confederate government had agents in England for the purchase of what it required, and employed, as financial agents, a mercantile house in this country, to whom they remitted spe cie and cotton, and through whom their payments were made. [125] *But, on the part of Great Britain, it has been clearly proved that all these complaints are groundless. It has been shown that the United States, equally with the Confederate States, resorted to England for necessary supplies of arms and munitions of war, and that they also had their agents here for making purchases, as well as for their financial transactions and for the disbursement of money. It has been shown that the traffic carried on with the two communities (which. for the time, they were) differed solely in incidental circumstances. which were the natural result of the overwhelming superiority at sea possessed by the United States, and which imposed no peculiar duties on the government of Great Britain; that in all these matters no favor or accommodation was accorded to one which was denied to the other: and that the real substance of the complaints of the United States is that Great Britain declined to assist by active interference the more powerful belligerent, and to thwart the endeavors of the weaker to obtain the necessary supplies, and that she from first to last persevere in holding an even hand between the two. It short, it is not that she departed from impartial neutrality in favor of the confederacy, but that she refused to depart from it in the interest of the United States. I therefore, from this part of the conduct of Her Majesty's government, a presumption is to be applied to any other part, the legitimate pre sumption is, not that the government would be discovered to deviate from the line of an impartial neutrality, but that it would scrupuloush and steadily adhere to that line. Is, then, this presumption found to fail, when we approach the ques tions which are really before the arbitrators, and which relate exer sively to the particular vessels enumerated in the Case of the Unite States? Her Majesty's government maintains that it is not. In t Case which it has presented, and in this Counter Case, the British goven ment has fully stated to the arbitrators the measures adopted to pre vent the equipment in its ports of belligerent ships of war, and the de parture from its ports of vessels specially adapted for warlike use an intended for the naval service of either belligerent; explaining at the same time the peculiar difficulties which, in a country like Great Britain, must always attend the enforcement of such a prohibition, the powers with which the government was armed by law, and the restraints which the law imposed on it-restraints judged expedient in England for the due security of property and civil liberty and for the proper administration of justice. All the cases of alleged or suspected equipment or warlike adaptation which occurred during the war have been stated in order to the arbitrators; and they have thus been enabled to take a connected view of the manner in which these cases were dealt with by the government, and the general course which it followed in regard to them. In connection with this part of the subject the question naturally arises, what measure of care or diligence can reasonably be expected in matters of this kind from a neutral government-or, to speak more exactly, ought to be held due from such a government as a matter of international obligation. The United States have attempted to furnish a definition of this, which to the British government appears not only to fail as a definition, but to exact more than neutral powers could safely or rightly concede, and much more than has ever been practiced by the United States themselves. In illustration of this, and for no purpose of recrimination or reproach, it has been found necessary to refer to the past and recent history of the United States, not only as being the power which now produces this very strict definition of due diligence, but as the country which has been the principal seat and source of enterprises, such as those for which it now seeks to make Great Britain responsible. It has been necessary to exhibit the striking contrast between the course of the American Government in dealing with enterprises against friendly states within its territory renewed again and again, and always with impunity, during a long series of years, and the iron rigor of the rules it now seeks to enforce against Great Britain, the perfection of administrative organization it seeks to exact from her. The views of Her Majesty's government as to what constitutes a reasonable measure of diligence or care have, in its Case and Counter Case, been stated in general terms. But this government has refrained from the attempt, in which the United States, as it conceives, have failed; and it has left the arbitrators to judge of the facts presented to them by the light of reason and justice, aided by that knowledge of the general powers and duties of administrative government which they possess as persons long conversant with public affairs. Proceeding to the several cruisers to which the claims of the United States relate, Her Majesty's government has been compelled to observe, in the first place, that an award against Great Britain as to any one or more of them could not be supported by broad general allegations, but must be founded on some specific failure or failures of duty alleged and proved in respect of that ship or those ships; in the second place, that, in deciding whether a failure of duty was or was not committed, the arbitrators have to consider, not what has since been discovered, [126] or what the members of the tribunal now know respecting *these ships, but the information which the British government actually possessed, or, by the exercise of reasonable care, ought to have possessed, at the time. They have to place themselves in the situation in which this government then was, in order to judge fairly whether it failed in the performance of its duties. As to each vessel, the original outfit of which is made matter of complaint, they have to be satisfied, first, that she was, in fact, armed, fitted out, or equipped for war within |