ALABAMA CLAIMS. 53 
indirect claims were not within the letter or spirit of 
the Treaty of Washington. And he repels through- 
out, peremptorily but dispassionately, the call of the 
British Government on the United States to withdraw 
this class of claims from the consideration of the Tri- 
bunal. In fine, the position of the United States is 
plainly expressed in different parts of the dispatches 
of Mr. Fish, as follows: 
“They [the United States] desire to maintain the jurisdiction 
of the Tribunal of Arbitration over all the unsettled claims, in 
order that, being judicially decided, and the questions of law 
involved therein being adjudicated, all questions connected 
with or arising out of the Alabama Claims, or ‘ growing out of 
the acts’ of the crnisers, may be forever removed from the pos- 
sibility of disturbing the perfect harmony of relations between 
the two countries... . 
“ What the rights, duties, and true interests of both the con- 
tending nations, and of all nations, demand shall be the extent, 
and the measure of liability and damages under the Treaty, is 
a matter for the supreme determination of the Tribunal estab- 
lished thereby. 
“Should that august Tribunal decide that a State is not lia- 
ble for the indirect or consequential results of an accidental or 
unintentional violation of its neutral obligations, the United 
States will unhesitatingly accept the decision. 
“Should it, on the other hand, decide that Great Britain is 
liable to this Government for such consequential results, they 
have that full faith in British observance of its engagements to 
expect a compliance with the judgment of the Tribunal, which 
a solemn Treaty between the two Powers has created in order 
to remove and adjust all complaints and claims on the part of 
the United States.” 
The American Government could not avoid feeling 
that the public discussion, which the British Minis- 
ters had seen fit to excite, or, at any rate, to aggravate, 
