ALABAMA CLAIMS. 175 



Britain in this perilous controversy with the United 

 States, have ever been punished in anyway. Indict- 

 that the delay was caused by the insanity of Sir J. Harding, 

 tckich made it necessary to call i?i other 2)arties. What other 

 parties? Why, forsooth, the other two "Law Officers of tlie 

 Crown " disguised by Lord Russell under the designation 

 "other parties." But Sir R. Palmer assures us that the pa- 

 pers [if, indeed, they were sent at all] must have been sent 

 originally " to the Law Officers, i. e., all three Law Officers." 

 Lord Russell therefore had no more right to impute the delay 

 to Sir J. Harding than to Sir W. Atherton ; for, even to this 

 day. Sir R. Palmer can not say to which of the two, if to ei- 

 ther, the delay is imputable. And yet Lord Russell implies 

 that the delay was occasioned by the insanity of Sir J. Har- 

 ding, while neither he nor Sir R. Palmer ventures to affirm that 

 the papers were ever sent to Sir J. PLirding. 



In view of all these imperfect and irreconcilable statements, 

 the presumption remains that some person in the Government 

 had the means of traversing its intention, and withholdinof 

 these papers from all the three Law Officers until the Alaba- 

 ma was ready to sail. I do not say Lord Russell was that 

 person; but I think he knows who it "svas; and if he desires to 

 vindicate his honor, of Avhich 'ha and the Chief Justice say so 

 much, he will best do it, not by "sneers" at the American 

 Counsel, but by disclosing the name of the person in the For- 

 eign Office who thus betrayed and dishonored the Govern- 

 ment. 



All questions depending on this incident are now termi- 

 nated. But the incident itself has permanent value as illus- 

 trating the weakness of the British Government on the side 

 of its so-called " Law Officers," — that is, busy members of the 

 Bar, distracted by their private practice, but in whose opin- 

 ions the Government lives and moves ; who have " papers 

 sent" to them by the Government in every great emergency, 

 without their being actual and ever present members of the 

 Government, like the " Law Officers " of the United States. 



Here, in the United States, as in the case of the 3Iauri/, for 



