^VLABAMA CLAIMS. 41 



not include claims on account of the Queen's proclama- 

 tion rccofaiizinj;; tlic belliirerence of the Confederates. 



Nevertheless, when, in England, the an/tuiiait of 

 the American Case liad been read and pondered, — 

 ^\•hen it was perceived that this argument inij)uted to 

 Great Britai;i co)istnicth'G cowpUcitij with tlie Con- 

 federates by reason of the culpable negligence of the 

 liritish Government to arrest the enter])riscs of such 

 vess(!ls as the AhiUuna^ the Florida,, and tlie Slieiian- 

 tloah, — and, finally, when it was tlius understood tliat, 

 in preferring claim for all the loss or injury growing 

 out of the acts of those cruisers, whether to the Gov- 

 ernment or to private citizens, the United JStates did, 

 in express terms as well as in legal intendment, hold 

 the ]5ritisli Government respunsi})l(' fur prolongation 

 of our Civil War and the cost of its prosecution, — 

 wlien all these relations of the subject came to be un- 

 derstood, the public mind in I'higland, and especially 

 the commercial mind, recurred at once to the event 

 wliich constituted at the time the domiiwmt pre-occu- 

 ])atlon of iCurojie, namely, the war indemnity of six 

 milliards so I'ecently imj)osed by (lermany on I'l'ance. 



In view of this, a panic terror seemed to sel/e upon 

 Lon»lon, similar to what occasionally occurs in iVew 

 York and other great money centres, ])roducing a 

 state of demonstrative emotion, which, to calm ob- 

 servers outside of such centres, looks like the sjtas- 

 modic agitation of men who have lost their si-nses, 

 rather than intelligent human action. Such, in<leed, 

 is all ])anie terror, nn exemplilled by numerous his- 

 torical incidents of the contagious inlluence, both in 



