THE AMERICAN CIVIL WAR 239 



sweeping charge of bad faith and hostile ani 

 mus against the British Government. 



Lord Russell s discussion in 1865 w ^h Mr. 

 Adams culminated in a rather brusque rejec 

 tion of the proposal, submitted in a more or less 

 tentative way by the American some two years 

 earlier, looking to arbitration. The only ques 

 tions to be submitted to an arbiter, Russell 

 said, would be, first, whether the British Gov 

 ernment had acted &quot;with due diligence, or, in 

 other words, in good faith and honesty,&quot; in 

 maintaining neutrality; second, whether the 

 law officers of the crown properly understood 

 the Foreign Enlistment Act when they gave 

 their opinions as to its application to the cases 

 of the Alabama and other cruisers. To put 

 either of these questions to the representative 

 of a foreign government, would be incompatible, 

 he held, with regard for the dignity and char 

 acter of the British crown and the British na 

 tion. &quot;Her Majesty s government must, there 

 fore, decline either to make reparation and 

 compensation for the captures made by the 

 Alabama, or to refer the question to any for 

 eign state.&quot; 



The most that Lord Russell saw his way to do 

 in the existing situation was to set up a joint 



