ALABAMA CLAIMS. 3i 



News, the Saturday Review, the Spectator, the Pall 

 Mall Gazette, the Manchester Guardian, and other 

 British journals generally, are certainly conducted 

 with great ability, and are second, in character and in 

 value, to no others in Europe. In view of which it 

 must be confessed that the outcry which they made 

 against the American Case seemed to me at the time / 

 to be altogether unworthy of them and of England. 



It was my opinion on reading the American Case 

 for the first time, and is my opinion now, after re- 

 peated readings, that it is not only a document of 

 signal ability, learning, and forensic force, which, in 

 deed, ever} 7 body admits, but that it is also temper- ) 

 ate in language and dignified in spirit, as becomes) 

 any state paper which is issued in the name of the! 

 United States. 



I do not mean to say that it is so cold a document 

 as the British Case. Warmth or coldness of color is a 

 matter of taste, in respect of which the United States 

 have no call to criticise Great Britain, and Great Brit 

 ain has no right to criticise the United States. 



We may presume that, in the exercise of its un 

 questionable right, the Government of the United j 

 States made up its Case in the aim of convincing the ( 

 Arbitrators, and not with any dominant purpose or 

 special expectation of pleasing Great Britain. 



But there is no just cause of exception to the gen 

 eral tenor, spirit, or style of the American Case. Its 

 facts are pertinent ; its reasonings are cogent ; its con 

 clusions are logical: and in all that is the true ex 

 planation of the emotion it occasioned in England. 



