were so lately fellow-citizens-is it not the duty of men who profess a regard for the principles of Christianity-is it not the duty of men who wish to preserve in perpetuity the sacred inheritance of liberty, to endeavor to see whether this sanguinary conflict cannot be put an end to ?” Mr. Gladstone also spoke at Newcastle on the 7th day of October, 1862. It is scarcely too much to say that his language, as well as much of the other language of members of Her Majesty's Government herein quoted, might well have been taken as offensive by the United States. He said: "We may have our own opinions about slavery; we may be for or against the South; but there is no doubt that Jefferson Davis and other leaders of the South have made an army, They are making, it appears, a navy; and they have made what is more than either-they have made a nation. [Loud cheers.] * * * We may anticipate with certainty the success of the Southern States so far as regards their separation from the North. [Hear! Hear!] I cannot but believe that that event is as certain as any event yet future and contingent can be." [Hear! Hear!]

[90] *In a debate in the House of Lords on the 5th of February, 1863, Lord Russell said:2

"There is one thing, however, which I think may be the result of the struggle, and which, to my mind, would be a great calamity. That is the subjugation of the South by the North. If it were possible that the Union could be re-formed; if the old feelings of affection and attachment toward it could be revived in the South, I, for one, would be glad to see the Union restored. If, on the other hand, the North were to feel that separation was finally decreed by the events of the war, I should be glad to see peace established upon those terms. But there may be, I say, one end of the war that would prove a calamity to the United States and to the world, and especially calamitous to the negro race in those countries, and that would be the subjugation of the South by the North.”

[91]

In a spirited debate in the House of Commons on the 27th of March, 1863, Mr. Laird, the builder of the Alabama, and of the rams which were afterward seized, arose and attempted to justify his course in a speech which was received with prolonged cheering and satisfaction by a large portion of the House. Among other things which he then said, and which were received as *expressive of the views and sentiments of those who cheered him, was the following :3 "I will allude to a remark which was made elsewhere last night-a remark, I presume, applying to me, or to somebody else, which was utterly uncalled for. [Hear!] I have only to say that I would rather be handed down to posterity as the builder of a dozen Alabamas than as the man who applies himself deliberately to set class against class [loud cheers] and to cry up the institutions of another country, which, when they come to be tested, are of no value whatever, and which reduced liberty to an utter absurdity." [Cheers.]

Two years later, on the 13th day of March, 1865, the course of this member of the British House of Commons, and this extraordinary scene, were thus noticed by Mr. Bright:

4

"Then I come to the last thing I shall mention-to the question of the ships which have been preying upon the commerce of the United States. I shall confine myself to that one vessel, the Alabama. She was built in this country; all her munitions of war were from this country; almost every man on board her was a subject of Her Majesty.

1 London Times, October 9, 1862.

3 London Times, March 28, 1863.

2 Vol. IV, page 535.

4 Vol. V, page 641.

She sailed from one of our chief ports. She is reported to have been built by a *firm in whom a member of this House was, and, [92] I presume is, interested. Now, sir, I do not complain. I know that once, when I referred to this question two years ago, when my honorable friend, the member for Bradford, brought it forward in this House, the honorable member for Birkenhead [Mr. Laird] was excessively angry. I did not complain that the member for Birkenhead had struck up a friendship with Captain Semmes, who may be described as another sailor once was of similar pursuits, as being 'the mildest mannered man that ever scuttled ship.' Therefore I do not complain of a man who has an acquaintance with that notorious person, and I do not complain, and did not then, that the member for Birkenhead looks admiringly upon the greatest example which men have ever seen of the greatest crime which men have ever committed. I do not complain even that he should applaud that which is founded upon a gigantic traffic in living flesh and blood, which no subject of this realm can enter into without being deemed a felon in the eyes of our law and punished as such. But what I do complain of is this: that the honorable gentleman, the member for Birkenhead, a magistrate of a county, a deputy lieutenant-whatever that may be a representative of a constituency, and having a seat in this ancient and honorable assembly-that *he should, as [93] I believe he did, if concerned in the building of this ship, break the law of his country, driving us into an infraction of International Law, and treating with undeserved disrespect the Proclamation of Neutrality of the Queen. I have another complaint to make, and in allusion to that honorable member. It is within your recollection that when on the former occasion he made that speech and defended his course, he declared that he would rather be the builder of a dozen Alabamas than do something which nobody had done. That language was received with repeated cheering from the opposition side of the House. Well, sir, I undertake to say that that was at least a very unfortunate circumstance, and I beg to tell the honorable gentleman that at the end of the last session, when the great debate took place on the question of Denmark, there were many men on this side of the House who had no objection whatever to see the present Government turned out of office, for they had many grounds of complaint against them; but they felt it impossible that they should take the responsibility of bringing into office the right honorable member for Buckinghamshire or the party who could utter such cheers on such a subject as that."

On the 27th of March, 1863, in a debate in the *House of Com- [94] mons on the fitting out of these piratical cruisers, Lord Palmerston said:l

"There is no concealing the fact, and there is no use in disguising it, that whenever any political party, whether in or out of office, in the United States, finds itself in difficulties, it raises a cry against England as a means of creating what, in American language, is called 'political capital.' That is a practice, of course, which we must deplore. As long as it is confined to their internal affairs we can only hope that, being rather a dangerous game, it will not be carried further than is intended. When a government or a large party excite the passions of one nation against another, especially if there is no just cause, it is manifest that such a course has a great tendency to endanger friendly relations between the two countries. We understand, however, the object of these proceedings in the present instance, and therefore we do not feel that irri

1 Vol. IV, page 530.

tation which might otherwise be excited. But if this cry is raised for the purpose of driving Her Majesty's Government to do something which may be contrary to the laws of the country, or which may be derogatory to the dignity of the country, in the way of altering our laws for the purpose of pleasing another government, then all I can say is that such a course is not likely to accomplish its purpose." On the 30th of June, 1863, Mr. Gladstone, in the course of a long speech, said:1

[95]

"Why, sir, we must desire the cessation of this war. No man is justified in wishing for the continuance of a war unless that war has a just, an adequate, and an attainable object, for no object is adequate, no object is just, unless it also be attainable. We do not believe that the restoration of the American Union by force is attainable. I believe that the public opinion of this country is unanimous upon that subject. [No!] Well, almost unanimous. I may be right or I may be wrong-I do not pretend to interpret exactly the public opinion of the country. I express in regard to it only my private sentiments. But I will go one step further, and say I believe the public opinion of this country bears very strongly on another matter upon which we have heard much, namely, whether the emancipation of the negro race is an object that can be legitimately pursued by means of coercion and bloodshed. I do not believe that a more fatal error was ever committed than when menof high intelligence I grant, and of the sincerity of whose philanthropy I, for one, shall not venture to whisper the smallest doubt [96] *came to the conclusion that the emancipation of the negro race was to be sought, although they could only travel to it by a sea of blood. I do not think there is any real or serious ground for doubt as to the issue of this contest."

*

In the same debate, Lord Palmerston, with an unusual absence of caution, lifted the veil that concealed his feelings, and said:2

"Now, it seems to me that that which is running in the head of the honorable gentleman, [Mr. Bright,] and which guides and directs the whole of his reasoning, is the feeling, although perhaps disguised to himself, that the Union is still in legal existence; that there are not in America two belligerent parties, but a legitimate government and a rebellion against that government. Now, that places the two parties in a very different position from that in which it is our duty to consider them."

As late as the 9th of June, 1864, Earl Russell said3 in the House of Lords:

"It is dreadful to think that hundreds of thousands of men are being slaughtered for the purpose of preventing the Southern States from acting on those very principles of independence which in 1776 were asserted

by the whole of America against this country. Only a few years [97] ago the *Americans were in the habit, on the 4th of July, of cel

ebrating the promulgation of the Declaration of Independence, and some eminent friends of mine never failed to make eloquent and stirring orations on those occasions. I wish, while they keep up a useless ceremony-for the present generation of Englishmen are not responsible for the War of Independence-that they had inculcated upon their own minds that they should not go to war with four millions, five millions, or six millions of their fellow-countrymen who want to put the principles of 1776 into operation as regards themselves." The United States have thus presented for the consideration of the 3 Vol. V, page 507.

1 Vol. V, page 666.

2 Vol. V, page 695.

Tribunal of Arbitration the publicly expressed sentiments of the leading members of the British Cabinet of that day. Lord Palmerston was the recognized head of the Government. Earl Russell, who, at the commencement of the insurrection, sat in the House of Commons as Lord John Russell, was during the whole time Her Majesty's Principal Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, specially charged with the expression of the views and feelings of Her Majesty's Government on these questions. Both were among the oldest and most tried statesmen of Europe. Mr. Gladstone, the present distinguished chief of the Government, was then the *Chancellor of the Exchequer; and Lord Campbell, well known in both hemispheres as a lawyer and as a lover of letters, sat upon the woolsack when the contest began. Lord Westbury, who succeeded him in June, 1861, was the chief counselor of the policy pursued by the British Goverment. These gentlemen were entitled to speak the voice of the governing classes of the Empire; and the United States have been forced with sincere regret to the conviction that they did express the opinions and wishes of much of the cultivated intellect of Great Britain.

[98]

The United States would do great injustice, however, to the sentiments of their own people did they fail to add, that some of the most eloquent voices in Parliament were raised in behalf of the principles of freedom which they represented in the contest; and that members of the governing classes most elevated in rank and distinguished in intellect, and a large part of the industrial classes, were understood to sympathize with them. They caunot, however, shut their eyes to the fact, and they must ask the Tribunal of Arbitration to take note, that, with the few exceptions referred to, the leading statesmen of that country, and nearly the whole periodical press and other channels through which the British cultivated intellect is accustomed to influence public affairs, *sustained the course of the existing Government in the [99] unfriendly acts and omissions which resulted so disastrously to the United States. The United States complain before this Tribunal only of the acts and omissions of the British Government. They refer to the expressions and statements from unofficial sources as evidence of a state of public opinion, which would naturally encourage the members of that Government in the policy and acts of which the United States complain.

It is not worth while to take up the time of the Tribunal of Arbitration, by an inquiry into the reasons for this early and long-continued unfriendliness of the British Government, toward a goverment which was supposed to be in sympathy with its political and moral ideas, and toward a kindred people with whom it had long maintained the attitude of friendship. They may have been partly political, as expressed in Parliament by an impetuous member, who spoke of the bursting of the bubble republic,1 (for which he received a merited rebuke from Lord John Russell)2; or they may have been those declared without rebuke at a later date in the House of Commons by the present Marquis of Salisbury, then Lord Robert Cecil, when he said3 that "they [the people of the Southern States] were the natural allies of this [100] country, as great producers of the articles we needed and great consumers of the articles we supplied. The North, on the other hand, kept an opposition-shop in the same departments of trade as ourselves;" or they may have been those announced by Earl Russell last year, when

saying, 1 "It was the great object of the British Government to preserve for the subject the security of trial by jury, and for the nation the legitimate and lucrative trade of ship-building."

Conclusions.

Without pursuing an inquiry in this direction, which, at the best, would be profitless, the United States invite the careful attention of the Arbitrators to the facts which appear in the previous pages of this Case. In appoaching the consideration of the third branch of the subjects herein discussed, in which the United States will endeavor to show that Great Britain failed in her duties toward the United States as those duties will be defined in the second branch thereof-the Tribunal of Arbitration will find in these facts circumstances which could not but influence the minds of the members of Her Majesty's Government, and induce them to look with disfavor upon efforts to [101] repress the attempts of British subjects, and of *other persons, to violate the neutrality of British soil and waters in favor of

the rebels.

Some of the members of the British Government of that day seem to have anticipated the conclusion which must inevitably be drawn from their acts, should the injuries and wrongs which the United States have suffered ever be brought to the adjudication of an impartial tribunal.

Lord Westbury (appointed Lord High Chancellor on the death of Lord Campbell, in June, 1861) declared, in the House of Lords, in 1868, that "the animus with which the neutral Powers acted was the only true criterion. The neutral Power might be mistaken; it might omit to do something which ought to be done, or direct something to be done which ought not to be done; but the question was whether, from beginning to end, it had acted with sincerity and with a real desire to promote and preserve a spirit of neutrality. He [Mr. Seward] said, in effect, 'Whether you were a sincere and loyal neutral was the question in dispute, and that must be judged from a view of the whole of your conduct. I do not mean to put it merely upon the particular transaction relative to the Alabama. I insist upon it in that case undoubtedly;

* * *

but I contend that, from beginning to end, you had an undue [102] preference and predilection for the Confederate States; *that you

were therefore not loyal in your neutrality; and I appeal to the precipitancy with which you issued your Proclamation, thereby involving a recognition of the Confederate States as a belligerent power, as a proof of your insincerity and want of impartial attention.' And now, could we prevent him from using that document for such a purpose How unreasonable it was to say, when you go into arbitration, you shall not use a particular document, even as an argument upon the question whether there was sincere neutrality or not."

Such is the use which the United States ask this Tribunal to make of the foregoing evidence of the unfriendliness and insincere neutrality of the British Cabinet of that day. When the leading members of that Cabinet are thus found counseling in advance with France to secure a joint action of the two governments, and assenting to the declaration of a state of war between the United States and the insurgents, before they could possibly have received intelligence of the purposes of the Government of the United States; when it is seen that

the British Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs advises the [103] representatives of the insurgents as to the course to be *pursued to obtain the recognition of their independence, and at the same

1 Earl Russell's Speeches and Dispatches, Vol. II, page 266.

2 Hansard's Parliamentary Debates, 3d series, Vol. CXCI, pages 347, 348.