G4 THE TREATY OF WASHINGTON. 



"Such indirect claims as those for national losses stated in 

 the Case presented on tlie jtart ofthe Government of the United 

 States . . . should not be admitted in principle as growing out 

 of the acts committed by particular vessels, alleged to have 

 been enabled to commit depredations on the shipping of a bel- 

 ligerent by reason of such Avant of due diligence in the jjer- 

 formance of neutral obligations as that which is imputed by the 

 United States to Great Britain :" 



wliicli proposed agreement the preamble proceeds to 

 state, iu the form of two separate dedarations, — one 

 by Great Britain and one by the' United States, — 

 each of them intelligible only by reference to pre- 

 vious parts of the preamble : the whole to the con- 

 clusion that the President shall make no claim, on 

 the part of the United States, in respect of the indi- 

 rect claims as aforesaid, before the Tribunal of Arbi- 

 tration at Geneva. 



The Senate, thinking that the recitals in the pre- 

 amble were not sufficiently exjilicit to furnish to the 

 United States satisfactory basis of transaction, pro- 

 posed the following substitute : 



" Whereas both Governments adopt for the future the prin- 

 ciple that claims for remote or indirect losses should not be 

 admitted as the result of failure to observe neutral obligations, 

 so far as to declare that it will hereafter guide the conduct of 

 both Governments in their relations with each other. Now, 

 therefore," etc. 



But the Senate's redaction of the article rendered 

 its meaninc: too clear to be a2:reeable to the British 

 Government, which, as was shrewdly said of it in 

 Paris at the time, doubted whether release from claim 

 of reparation for the present wrong done by Great 



