CO TriE TREATY OF WASHINGTON. 



nothing outside of an Act of Parliament, they had no 

 such Act until 1819, and were therefore, prior to that 

 time, confessedly impotent, and we might have added 

 willfully so, to observe the duties of neutrality ; we 

 might have scrutinized her national history to select 

 conspicuous examples of her acts of violence, in dis 

 regard of the law of nations, against numerous States, 

 including ourselves; we might have appealed to ev 

 ery volume of international law in existence, from the 

 time of Grotius to this day, and cited page after page 

 to the conclusion of the unjust international policy 

 of Great Britain ; and we might have argued from all 

 this to infer intentional omission of the British Gov 

 ernment to prevent the escape of the Alabama and 

 the Florida. 



But such arguments, you will say, would have been 

 forced, remote, of doubtful relevance, and of a nature 

 offensive to England. Be it so : they would, if you 

 please, have been irrelevant, impertinent, offensive. 

 And no such arguments are found in the American 

 Case. 



But such are the arguments which pervade the 

 British Case, Counter- Case, and Argument, and the 

 opinions of the British member of the Tribunal. In 

 stead of defending its own conduct in the matter 

 at issue, the British Government travels out of the 

 record to find fault with the conduct of the United 

 States at other times, and with respect to other na 

 tions. It presumes to take upon itself the function 

 of personating Spain, Portugal, Nicaragua, and to drag 

 before the Tribunal at Geneva controversies between 



