ALABAMA CLAIMS. 175 
Britain in this perilous controversy with the United 
States, have ever been punished in any way. Indict- 
that the delay was caused by the insanity of Sir J. Harding, 
which made it necessary to call in other parties. What other 
parties? Why, forsooth, the other two “Law Officers of the 
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, ¢.¢., 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 eéi- 
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. Harding. 
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 withholding 
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 was; and if he desires to 
vindicate his honor, of which he 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 Maury, for 
