248 THE AMERICAN CIVIL WAR 



Great Britain and should be got rid of as soon 

 as possible. Sumner s relations with Cobden 

 and Bright, the most convinced advocates of 

 this policy, made it very familiar to him. It 

 was to Cobden s speeches, indeed, that Sumner 

 was indebted for the catalogue of the national 

 losses for which he held the British Government 

 responsible. The great free-trader, when as 

 sailing the conduct of the Palmerston-Russell 

 cabinet during the war, set forth in full detail 

 the damage to the American merchant marine 

 due to that conduct, and was scarcely less 

 specific than Sumner in justifying a claim by 

 the United States for reparation. In 1869 

 Cobden was dead, but John Bright and other 

 radicals were in the Gladstone cabinet, and the 

 prime minister himself was well over toward 

 the radical wing of the liberal line. Sumner s 

 purpose, then, was to use Cobden s views on 

 the Alabama claims to promote his views as to 

 the colonies. The senator would put the claims 

 at so enormous a figure as to make the settle 

 ment of them impossible except by turning over 

 to the United States all the British possessions 

 in the Western Hemisphere. Such was the prop 

 osition that he later advised Secretary Fish to 

 make the basis of all further negotiation, adding 



