Reasons for a change of language.. III. THE DUTIES WHICH GREAT BRITAIN, AS A NEUTRAL, SHOULD HAVE OBSERVED TOWARD THE UNITED STATES-Continued. Correspondence between the United States and Portugal.... Principles recognized in that correspondence Duty to detain offending vessels recognized by Great Britain... 163 69 British ports the base of insurgent operations; a partial hospitality shown to the insurgents; a branch of their government established in Liverpool; their government vessels officially aided in evading the blockade, and in furnishing them with arms, munitions, and 96 IV. WHEREIN GREAT BRITAIN FAILED TO PERFORM ITS DUTIES AS A Geneva Present Page. Page. These proceedings were an abandonment, in advance, of "due dili- Their detention not an abandonment of the lax construction of the 264 103 V. WHEREIN GREAT BRITAIN FAILED TO PERFORM ITS DUTIES AS A NEUTRAL. Earl Russell denounces the acts of which the United States complain Geneva Present Page. Page. VI. THE TRIBUNAL SHOULD AWARD A SUM IN GROSS TO THE UNITED STATES. Offer of the American Commissioners in the Joint High Commission. [9] *CASE OF THE UNITED STATES. PART I. INTRODUCTION. Meeting of the Joint High Commissioners at Washington. In the spring of the present year (1871) five Commissioners on the part of Great Britain and five Commissioners on the part of the United States of America met at Washington in a body, which, when organized, was known as the Joint High Commission, in order to discuss, and, if possible, to arrange for, the adjustment of several causes of difference between the two Powers. Among the subjects which were brought before that body by the United States were "the differences which arose during the rebellion in the United States, and which have existed since then, growing out of the acts committed by the several vessels, which have given rise to the claims generically known as the Alabama Claims." The sessions of the Joint High Commission were many in number, and were largely devoted to the consideration of the differences re ferred to in Mr. Fish's letter to Sir Edward Thornton, from [10] *which the above-cited quotation is made. The High Commissioners, in the protocol of their thirty-sixth conference, caused to be recorded a statement of their negotiations on this subject, in the following language: Protocol of the conferences as to the "At the conference held on the 8th of March the American Commissioners stated that the people and Government Alabama Claims. of the United States felt that they had sustained a great wrong, and that great injuries and losses were inflicted upon their commerce and their material interests by the course and conduct of Great Britain during the recent rebellion in the United States; that what had occurred in Great Britain. and her colonies during that period had given rise to feelings in the United States which the people of the United States did not desire to cherish toward Great Britain; that the history of the Alabama and other cruisers, which had been fitted out, or armed, or equipped, or which had received augmentation of force in Great Britain or in her colonies, and of the operations of those vessels, showed extensive direct losses in the capture and destruction of a large number of ves sels, with their cargoes, and in the heavy national expenditures in the pursuit of the cruisers, and in direct injury in the transfer of a large part of the American commercial marine to the British flag, in the enhanced payments of insurance, in the prolongation of the war, and in [11] *the addition of a large sum to the cost of the war and the suppression of the rebellion; and also showed that Great Britain, by reason of failure in the proper observance of her duties as a neutral, had become justly liable for the acts of those cruisers and of their tenders; that the claims for the loss and destruction of private property which had thus far been presented amounted to about fourteen millions 1 Mr. Fish to Sir Edward Thornton, January 30, 1871, Vol. VI, page 16. |