ALABAMA CLAIMS. 137 



tlie Ai'o'uments for tlie United States. Thus it is that 

 he falls into the mistake of asserting a false construc- 

 tion of an Act of Congress, by having a mutilated 

 text before him, quoting a part of a sentence, which 

 may or may not justify his construction, and sup- 

 pressing the context and the sequent words of the 

 same sentence, which clearly contradict his construc- 

 tion. Acting on his own theory of blind prejudice, 

 we should be compelled to assume that on this occa- 

 sion he perpetrates a deed of deliberate bad faith, 

 with intention to j^^'Cfctice on the " supposed credulity 

 and ignorance" of the people of, Great Britain. 



Why did the British Arbitrator put together such 

 a mass of angry, irrelevant, confused, and contradict- 

 ory declamation against the American. Government, 

 and denunciation of its Agent and Counsel I To vin- 

 dicate the honor of British statesmen. Sir Alexander 

 declares, in a speech at a banc|uet in London [Novem- 

 ber 4th], against unjust charges coming from the 

 American Government. But that should have been 

 done by speech or otherwise, as Sir Alexander Cock- 

 hum professedly, and in England, and not under the 

 false pretense of an Arbitrator at Geneva. And vi- 

 olent denunciation of our Case or Arguments consti- 

 tutes no answer to our charges. And in such vituj^er- 

 ation of the American Agent and Counsel, Sir Alexan- 

 der not only throws off all pretense of judicial charac- 

 ter, and assumes the tone of a mere advocate, but he 

 acts the part of an advocate in temper and manner 

 such as the proper Counsel of the British Govern- 

 ment could not have descended to. Indeed, the 



