124: THE TREATY OF WASHINGTON. 



templated being heard for many months. And the 

 result of all this meditation, and of all this earnest 

 desire to serve his country, was a series of arguments 

 mostly immaterial to the issue, as the final judgment 

 of the Tribunal plainly shows, and coming in after the 

 main question had been actually settled in the cases 

 of the Alahama and the Florida. That is to say, — 

 and it is in this relation the point is introduced, — 

 the claims of the United States rested on a basis 

 which all the great forensic skill and ability of Sir 

 Roundell Palmer could not move, — which commend- 

 ed itself to the confidence of the neutral Arbitrators, 

 — and which even extorted the reluctant adhesion of 

 the prejudiced British Arbitrator. 



Subsequently, on requirement of the Arbitrators, 

 we discussed, in successive printed Arguments, the 

 sjoecial cjuestion of the legal eff'ect of the entry of 

 the Florida into Mobile ; the question of the recruit- 

 ment of men for the Shenandoah at Melbourne; and 

 the question of interest as an element of the indemni- 

 ty due to the United States. 



QUESTION OF DAMAGES. 



Meanwhile, the Tribunal had voted definitively on 

 the question of the liability or non-liability of Great 

 Britain for the acts of the cruisers named in the 

 " Case" of the United States, in the terms which will 

 appear in explaining their final judgment. They had 

 also voted on several of the incidental questions, such 

 as the abstract question of due diligence, entry into 

 Confederate ports, commission, and supply of coal, 



