The charges in or to condemn prizes, and whose only nationality Mr. Fish's instruc 25, 1869, sustained by this evidence. tion of September was the quarter-deck of their ships, built. dispatched to sea, and, not seldom in name, still professedly owned in Great Britain. [See the evidence in regard to the transfers of the Georgia, and of the Shenandoah.] * * * * * "The Queen's Ministers excused themselves by alleged defects in the municipal law of the country. [See Earl Russell's constant pleas of want of sufficient proof to convict criminals.] Learned counsel either advised that the wrongs committed did not constitute violations of the municipal law, or else gave sanction to artful devices of deceit, to cover up such violations of law. [See the decision as to the Florida; as to the Alabama until she was ready to sail; as to the rams; and as to the operations at Nassau, Bermuda, and Liverpool.] And, strange to say, the courts of England or of Scotland, up to the very highest, were occupied month after month with juridical niceties and technicalities of statute construction, in this respect, [see the Alexandra case,] while the Queen's Government itself, including the omnipotent Parliament, which might have settled these questions in an hour by appropriate legislation, sat with folded arms, as if unmindful of its international obligations, and suffered ship after ship to be constructed in its ports to wage war on the United States. [See the decision of the Cabinet, communicated to Mr. Adams, February 13, 1863, and Lord Palmers ton's speech in the House of Commons, March 27, 1863.] "When the defects of the existing laws of Parliament had become apparent, the Government of the United States earnestly entreated the Queen's Ministers to provide the required remedy, as it would have been easy to do, by a proper act of Parliament; but this the Queen's Government refused. [See the account of Lord Russell's interview with Mr. Adams, February 13, 1863.] "On the present occasion, the Queen's Ministers seem to have committed the error of assuming that they needed not to look beyond their own local law, enacted for their own domestic convenience, and might, under cover of the deficiencies of that law, disregard their sovereign duties toward another sovereign Power. Nor was it, in our judgment, any adequate excuse for the Queen's Ministers to profess extreme tenderness of private rights, or apprehension of actions for damages, in case of any attempt to arrest the many ships which, either in England or Scotland, were, with ostentatious publicity, being constructed to cruise The charges in Mr. Fish's instruc tion of September 25, 1869, sustained by this evidence. ! The charges in against the United States. [See the evidence as Mr. Fish's instruc tion of September to the Florida, the Georgia, the Alabama, the rams, 25, 1869, sustained by this evidence. the Bermuda, the Tallahassee, the Pampero, the Rappahannock, the Laurel, and other vessels.] if "But although such acts of violation of law were frequent in Great Britain, and susceptible of complete technical proof, notorious, flaunted directly in the face of the world, varnished over, at all, with the shallowest pretexts of deception, yet no efficient step appears to have been taken by the British Government to enforce the execution of its municipal laws or to vindicate the majesty of its outraged sovereign power. [The Alabama, the Florida, the Georgia, and the Shenandoah escaped. The rams were seized, but never condemned; no guilty party was ever punished; Bullock and Prioleau were never interfered with.] "And the Government of the United States cannot believe-it would conceive itself wanting in respect for Great Britain to impute-that the Queen's Ministers are so much hampered by juridical difficulties that the local administration is thus reduced to such a state of legal impotency as to deprive the Government of capacity to uphold its sovereignty against local wrong-doers, or its neutrality as regards other Sovereign Powers. [Contrast with this the course of the British Gov ernment and Parliament during the Franco-German war.] The charges in Mr. Fish's instruction of September 25, 1869, sustained “If, indeed, it were so, the causes of reclama- by this evidence. tion on the part of the United States would only be the more positive and sure, for the law of nations assumes that each Government is capable of discharging its international obligations; and, perchance, if it be not, then the absence of such capability is itself a specific ground of responsibility for consequences. [This statement probably will not be denied.] "But the Queen's Government would not be content to admit, nor will the Government of the United States presume to impute to it, such political organization of the British Empire as to imply any want of legal ability on its part to discharge, in the amplest manner, all its duties of sovereignty and amity toward other Powers. "It remains only in this relation to refer to one other point, namely, the question of negligence; neglect on the part of officers of the British Government, whether superior or subordinate, to detain Confederate cruisers, and especially the Alabama, the most successful of the depredators on the commerce of the United States. "On this point the President conceives that little needs now to be said, for various cogent reasons: The charges in Mr. Fish's instruc "First, the matter has been exhaustively distion of September cussed already by this Department, or by the successive American Ministers. 25, 1869, sustained by this evidence. "Then, if the question of negligence be discussed with frankness, it must be treated in this instance as a case of extreme negligence, which Sir William Jones has taught us to regard as equivalent or approximate to evil intention. The question of negligence, therefore, cannot be presented without danger of thought or language disrespectful toward the Queen's Ministers; and the President, while purposing, of course, as his sense of duty requires, to sustain the rights of the United States in all their utmos amplitude, yet intends to speak and act in relation to Great Britain in the same spirit of international respect which he expects of her in relation to the United States, and he is sincerely desirous that all discussions between the Governments may be so conducted as not only to prevent any aggravation of existing differences, but to tend to such reasonable and amicable determination as best becomes two great nations of common origin and conscious dignity and strength. "I assume, therefore, pretermitting detailed discussion in this respect, that the negligence of the officers of the British Government in the matter of the Alabama, at least, was gross and inex |