ALABAMA CLAIMS. 87 
legal discussions before the Tribunal, the British Gov: 
ernment steadily maintained that all the claims of in- 
dividual citizens for the destruction of their vessels 
by Confederate cruisérs were in the nature of con- 
structive, indirect, remote, and consequential injuries 
or losses, and, therefore, not recoverable in law, either 
by the rules of the common law of England or of the 
civil law as practiced on the Continent. Nothing 
could more clearly show the inapplicability and 
equivocation of the phrase “indirect” claims or losses 
to designate any of the contents of the Treaty of 
Washington. 
Manifestly, while private losses are supposable 
which may be direct to individual citizens, national 
losses are supposable which may be direct to the na- 
tion. On the other hand, private losses are supposa- 
ble as well as national, which any jurist or any court 
would pronounce to be indirect, remote, or consequen- 
tial in their nature. 
All the discussion on this question asserts or ad- 
mits impliedly that the capture of a private mer- 
chant’s vessel by a Confederate cruiser inflicted direct 
loss or damage on the citizen-proprietor. Was not 
the loss or damage occasioned by the capture of a 
Government vessel equally a case of direct loss to 
the Government? Most assuredly. 
Pursue the inquiry one step further. If, in a war 
carried on by land between two States, one of them 
invades the other and devastates the territory there- 
of, is not that a case of direct injury to the invaded 
State? If the hostilities in question be purely mart- 
