300 SYMPOSIUM ON INTERNATIONAL LAW. 



of the extremely grave situation in which the two nations found 

 themselves, the delicacy of the relations involved which touched the 

 national pride of each in a manner quite capable of producing acts 

 of hostility at any moment, and the importance of the questions of 

 right and of injury which were actually at issue as the cause of the 

 dispute. In some respects also the ground was new ; and this was 

 an untraveled road which seemed at the time to be quite impossible 

 of approach, even after the inducements held out by the United 

 States government. Mr. Adams announced, in fact, in his note to 

 the British Foreign office that he was : " directed to say that there is 

 no fair and equitable form of conventional arbitrament to which the 

 United States would not be willing to submit." 



But, even after the lapse of two years, Lord Russell's mind was 

 still so completely in revolt against the idea that it could be possible 

 for Great Britain to entrust to the decision of a foreign power such 

 a delicate question of national responsibility, that he declared ab- 

 ruptly : 



" It appears to her Majesty's government that there are but two ques- 

 tions by which the claim of compensation could be tested ; the one is : Have 

 the British government acted with due diligence, in good faith and honesty, 

 in the maintenance of the neutrality they proclaimed? The other is: Have 

 the law officers of the Crown properly understood the foreign enlistment act, 

 when they decHned, in June, 1862, to advise the detention and seizure of the 

 Alabama? 



" Neither of these questions could be put to a foreign government with 

 any regard to the dignity and character of the British Crown and the British 

 nation. Her Majesty's government are the sole guardians of their own 

 honor. They cannot admit that they have acted with bad faith in maintaining 

 the neutrality they professed. The law officers of the Crown must be held to 

 be better interpreters of a British statute than any foreign government can 

 be presumed to be. Her Majesty's government must decline to make repara- 

 tion and compensation for the captures made by the Alabama." 



On our side, in the meantime, Mr. Seward reflected, in his in- 

 structions to ]\Ir. Adams, the intensely strong national feeling and 

 the determination of the whole American people, when he declared 

 that there was not a member of the government nor, so far as he 

 knew, any citizen of the United States who expected that this country 

 would in any case waive its demand upon the British government 

 for the redress of wrongs committed in violation of international 



