Bernard's list of by Great Britain. Office January 17. Ship said to be fitting at Mr. Mountague Liverpool for the Confederates. Mr. Adams could vessels detained not divulge the authority on which this statement was made. Reports from the customs, sent to Mr. Adams on the 18th, 19th, and 27th of January, tended to show that she was not designed for war. She sailed on the 21st January for Nassau, and on the 19th March was wrecked in attempting to enter Charleston Harbor.-March 26, 1863—The Phantom and the Southerner. Referred to the Treasury and the Home Office March 27, to the Law Officers of the Crown June 2. The Phantom was fitting at Liverpool, the Southerner at Stockton-on-Tees. Both proved to be intended for blockade-runners. * * *-March 18, 1864 * -The Amphion. Referred to Home Office March 18. This vessel was said to be equipped for the Confederate service. The Law Officers reported that no case was made out. She was eventually sent to Copenhagen for sale as a merchant ship. -April 16, 1864-The Hawk. Referred to the Home Office, to the Lord Advocate, and the Treas ury April 18. This case had been already (April 4) reported on by the customs, and the papers sent to the Lord Advocate. On the 13th April the ship, which was suspected of having been built for the Confederates, left the Clyde without a register, and came to Greenhithe. The Law Officers Bernard's list of vessels detained seizure. by Great Britain. * * * Mr. Mountague decided that there was no evidence to warrant a She proved to be a blockade-runner. —January 30, 1865-The Virginia and the Louisa Ann Fanny. Referred to Treasury February 1. Vessels said to be in course of equipment at London. No case was established, and they proved to be blockade-runners, as reported by the Governor of the Bahamas, who had been instructed to watch their proceedings.-February 7, 1865-The Hercules and Ajax. Referred to Treasury and Home Office February 8 and 9. Both vessels built in the Clyde. The Ajax first proceeded to Ireland, and was detained at Queenstown by the mutiny of some of the crew, who declared she was for the Confederate service. was accordingly searched, but proved to be only fitted as a merchant ship. The Governor of the Bahamas was instructed to watch her at Nassau. On her arrival there she was again overhauled, but nothing suspicious discovered, and the Governor reported that she was adapted, and he believed intended, for a tug-boat. The Hercules being still in the Clyde, inquiries were made by the customs officers there, who reported that she was undoubtedly a tug-boat, and the sister ship to the Ajar." She This is the whole catalogue of good works, additional to those already alluded to, which the accomplished advocate of Great Britain is able to put in as an offset to the simple story of injuries which has been told in this paper. Comment unnecessary. Mr. Mountague Bernard's list of upon it is yessels The United States have now completed what they have to say in this connection of the conduct of Great Britain during the insurrection. Some of the narrative may, in its perusal, appear minute, and to refer to transactions which will be claimed on the part of Great Britain to have been conducted in conformity with some construction of alleged International Law. These transactions are, however, historically narrated; and even those which come the nearest to a justification, as within some precedent, or some claim of neutral right, exhibit a disinclination to investigate, not to say a foregone. conclusion of adverse decision. British municipal statute rather than recognized International Law was the standard of neutral duty; and the rigid rules of evidence of the English common law were applied to the complaints made in behalf of the United States, in striking contrast to the friendliness of construction, the alacrity of decision, and the ease of proof in the interest of the insurgents. Before proceeding to relate in detail the acts of, the several cruisers, which will constitute specific claims against Great Britain, the United States ask the Tribunal to pause to see what has been already established. detained by Great Britain. The charges in Mr. Fish's instruc 25, 1869, sustained by this evidence, In a dispatch from Mr. Fish to Mr. Motley, on tion of September the 25th of September, 1869, in which the Government of the United States, for the last time, recited diplomatically its grievances against Great Britain, certain statements were made which were esteemed to be of sufficient importance to be transferred to Mr. Mountague Bernard's book. Mr. Bernard was pleased to say of these statements, that a "rhetorical color, to use an inoffensive phase, [was] thrown over the foregoing train of assertions, which purport to be statements of fact." The United States now repeat those statements which Her Majesty's High Commissioner did them the honor to incorporate into his able work, and to comment upon, and they confidently insist that every statement therein contained has been more than made good by the evidence referred to in this paper. Those statements were as follows,' the references to the proof being inserted for the convenience of the Tribunal: "As time went on; as the insurrection from political came at length to be military; as the scctional controversy in the United States proceeded to exhibit itself in the organization of great armies and fleets, and in the prosecution of hostilities on a scale of gigantic magnitude, then it was that the spirit of the Queen's Proclamation showed itself in 'Bernard's Neutrality of Great Britain, 378-380. The charges in Mr. Fish's instruc 25, 1869, sustained the event, seeing that in virtue of the Proclamation. maritime enterprises in the ports of Great Britain, tion of September which would otherwise have been piratical, were by this evidence. rendered lawful, [see Lord Campbell's speech in the House of Lords, May 16, 1861; cited ante, page 14, and thus Great Britain became, and to the end continued to be, the arsenal, [see Huse and Ferguson's letters, and Gorgas's report of Huse's purchases,] the navy yard, [see the foregoing account of Bullock's doings,] and the treasury, [see the foregoing evidence as to Fraser, Trenholm & Co.'s acts as depositaries,] of the insurgent Confederates. "A spectacle was thus presented without precedent or parallel in the history of civilized nations. Great Britain, although the professed friend of the United States, yet, in time of avowed international peace, permitted [see the decision in the Alexandra case; also the refusals to proceed against the Florida, Alabama, and the rams] armed cruisers to be fitted out and harbored and equipped in her ports to cruise against the merchant ships of the United States, and to burn and destroy them, until .our maritime commerce was swept from the ocean. [See Mr. Cobden's speech in the House of Commons, May 13, 1864.] Our merchant vessels were destroyed piratically by captors who had no ports of their own [see Earl Russell's speech in the House of Lords, April 26, 1864] in which to refit |