Twenty Years of Congress, Volume 2 / From Lincoln to Garfield, with a Review of the Events Which Led to the Political Revolution of 1860

by James Gillespie Blaine

Mr. Fish was utterly astounded by this proposition submitted by Sir Edward Thornton and coming almost as a personal and pressing request from Lord Granville. The one Minister who was regarded as especially disqualified by Mr. Maurice Delfosse, the representative of Belgium at Washington. The disqualification did not convey a personal reflection upon that gentleman, but was based upon the relations of his government to the Government of Great Britain. The Kingdom of Belgium owed its origin to the armed interposition of Great Britain, and its continuance, to her friendship and her favor. Its first monarch Leopold, who had been but five years dead when the Treaty of Washington was negotiated, had married the Princess Charlotte, daughter of the Price-Regent of England; he was brother to Queen Victoria's mother, and to Prince Albert's father; he held the rank of Marshal in the British Army, and had been for a long period in receipt of an annual allowance of fifty thousand pounds from the British Exchequer. He was on terms of the most affectionate friendship with the Queen and was her constant and confidential adviser.

His son and successor Leopold II., the reigning monarch, cousin of Queen Victoria, had married an Austrian princess, and the unfortunate Carlotta, widow the Emperor Maximilian, was his sister. The House of Hapsburg associated the American support of the Mexican President Juarez with the death of Maximilian, and might not be well disposed towards the Government of the United States. It was not therefore an altogether happy circumstance that the Austrian Ambassador in London had been designated as the person to choose a third Commissioner, in the event of the British and American Governments failing to agree in his selection. A sense of honest dealing at the outset had plainly suggested the ineligibility of a Belgian subject to the third Commissionership, and suggested also the impropriety of leaving to the Austrian Ambassador in London the selection of the Commissioner. The narrative will show that the British Government had determined upon the one or the other, and in the end accomplished both.

The reply of Mr. Fish to Sir Edward's extraordinary communication of August 19 was prompt and pointed. In a note of August 21 he courteously affected to believe that a grave mistake had occurred in the transmission of Lord Granville's telegram. He could not believe that Lord Granville, advised of the inability of the Government of the United States to assent to the selection of Mr. Delfosse, would deliberately propose that gentleman. Mr. Fish was sure that there had been "some mis-conveyance of information or instruction, for which the telegraph must have been responsible." He reminded Sir Edward that in an interview with him in Washington he (Mr. Fish) had declared that "while entertaining a high personal regard for the character and abilities of the Belgian Minister to his country, there are reasons in the political relations between his government and that of Great Britain why the representative of the former could not be regarded as an independent and indifferent arbitrator on questions between the Government of her Majesty and the United States." Mr. Fish still further reminded Sir Edward that during the session of the Joint High Commission, when the question of referring the Fishery dispute to the head of some foreign State was under discussion, Earl de Grey, chairman of the British Commissioners, in proposing several powers, voluntarily said to the American Commissioners, "I do not name Belgium or Portugal, because Great Britain has treaty arrangements with them that might be supposed to incapacitate them."

Five days later Sir Edward advised Mr. Fish that "as the matters which are to be considered by the Commission deeply concern the people of Canada, it was necessary to consult the Government of the Dominion upon the point of so much importance as the appointment of a third Commissioner; and some delay was therefore unavoidable. . . . I have now [continued Sir Edward] the honor to inform you that her Majesty's Government has received a communication from the Governor-General of Canada (Lord Dufferin) to the effect that the Government of the Dominion strongly objects to the appointment of any of the foreign Ministers residing at Washington as third Commissioner on the above mentioned Commission, and prefers to resort to the alternative provided by the treaty; namely, to leave the nomination to the Austrian Ambassador at London."

The State Department was justified by this time in considering that the British Government was resorting to devices for delay. Circumstances all pointed in that direction. The Government of the United States had submitted the names of six Ministers, representing countries of which at least four held more intimate relations with Great Britain than with the United States. Specific reasons had been given for not mentioning others. After a totally unreasonable delay (from July 11 to August 19) the English Government responded, proposing the very name that had originally been objected to by the United States—proposing it with the urgency of a personal request from Lord Granville. When it was found that our Government would not accept Mr. Delfosse, the intelligence came within a week that the Canadian Government objected to any foreign Minister, who had been residing in Washington, as third Commissioner. Of course this objection excluded Mr. Delfosse with all the others, for Mr. Delfosse had resided in Washington several years longer than the majority of those who had been proposed by the United States.

Mr. Fish very justly and sharply rebuked this interposition of the Government of Canada. On September 6 he wrote to Sir Edward that "the reference to the people of the Dominion of Canada seems to imply a practical transfer to that Province of the right of nomination which the treaty gives to her Majesty." He informed Sir Edward that "in the opinion of the President, a refusal on his part to make a nomination, or to concur in the conjoint nomination contemplated by the treaty, on the ground that some local interest (that for instance of the fishermen of Gloucester) objected to the primary mode of filling the commission intended by the treaty, might well be regarded by her Majesty's Government as a departure from the letter and spirit of the treaty." Mr. Fish went still farther: "In the President's opinion, such a course on his party might justify the British Government in remonstrating, and possibly in hesitating as to its future relations to the Commission." The rebuke was not too severe, because if the matter was to be left to the judgment of the people of Canada, it would have been far wiser to remand the negotiation originally to the authorities of the Dominion, with whom the United States could probably have come to an agreement much more readily than with the Imperial Government.

On the 24th of September Sir Edward advised Mr. Fish that he was instructed by Earl Granville to propose that "the Ministers of the United States and of her Majesty, at the Hague, should be authorized to see if they could not agree upon some Dutch gentleman to act as third Commissioner, who would be acceptable to both Governments." Mr. Fish replied to Sir Edward, two days later, that in regard to the plan of selecting "some Dutch gentleman," through the American and English Ministers at the Hague, he was directed by the President to say that such mode of appointment "varies from the provisions of the treaty, which has received the Constitutional assent of the Senate. The President, therefore, does not feel himself at liberty to entertain a proposition which would require the conclusion of a new treaty in Constitutional form before the proposition could be assented to by the United States." Mr. Fish added, with a justifiable brusqueness not often found in his diplomatic correspondence, that "it is deeply to be regretted that her Majesty's Government has made no effort to comply with that provision of the Twenty-third Article of the Treaty, whereby it was agreed that the third Commissioner should be named by the President of the United States and her Brittanic Majesty conjointly."

A reply came from Sir Edward on the 1st of October. To Mr. Fish's charge that no effort had been made on the part of her Majesty's Government, he answered by reminding him that he had proposed Mr. Delfosse, and also "some Dutch gentleman" to be agreed upon by the Ministers of England and the United States at the Hague. Mr. Fish replied on the 3d of October, in a somewhat caustic review of the entire correspondence, in which he clearly proved that "the effort of this Government to carry into execution the provisions of the Twenty-third Article of the treaty have hitherto failed from no fault or negligence on its part." He closed his note by renewing the statement that "the President earnestly hopes that the two Governments will yet agree upon a third Commissioner, and to that end is willing to waive the question of the time within which the joint nomination should be made."

After protracted correspondence Sir Edward advised Mr. Fish that her Majesty's Government considered that the three months having expired, the appointment of the third Commissioner rested with the representative in London of the Emperor of Austria and King of Hungary. Mr. Fish argued to the contrary in a dispatch of October 25th. He was unable to perceive that any right of nomination had passed beyond the control of the two Governments, and still entertained the hope that an effort might be made by her Majesty's Government to agree upon a third Commissioner, in the spirit of the treaty and with the concurrent appointment of the two Governments. Sir Edward replied, on December 2, as instructed by Lord Granville, that "her Majesty's Government, concurring with the Law Officers of the Crown, thinks the Article is explicit as to the appointment of the third Commissioner being left to the Austrian representative in London if not made within a certain date," and added: "Her Majesty's Government, therefore, consider that the Government of the Dominion of Canada might complain if the nomination were not made as provided for by the treaty; and that if the arbitrator were to give a decision unfavorable to Canada great discontent might arise in consequence in the colony." Earl Granville, therefore, asked that the two Governments might agree upon an "identic note to be addressed to the Austrian Government by the representatives of the United States and Great Britain, requesting that the Austrian embassador at London may be authorized to proceed with the nomination of the third Commissioner."

Having by this dilatory if not tortuous process thrown the choice of the third Commissioner into the hands of the Austrian Ambassador at London, the British Government evidently felt that it had won a great advantage. If that Government had reason to fear the influence of any foreign Minister residing at Washington,—unless he should be one representing a country dependent upon British power for its origin and existence,—it assuredly could not doubt that an Austrian Ambassador, residing in London, instinctively hostile to a Republican government, and cherishing a special grievance against the United States, would lean to the English side of any question submitted to arbitration. Beyond these considerations came the social influences in the richest capital of the world—all favorable to England, all hostile to the United States. Apparently believing that the United States would shrink from presenting the case of the fisheries to a commission in which Great Britain had so manifest an advantage, that Government proposed (before the Commission could sit) to open negotiations looking to a renewal of the Reciprocity Treaty between Canada and the United States. The British authorities had in their own hands, as they naturally supposed, a strong leverage, by which our Government could be coerced, as it had been in 1854, into reciprocity of trade upon other products. It was to be a series of moral coercions, either accomplished or attempted. Coerced into accepting Mr. Delfosse as third Commissioner, we were now to be coerced into a commercial treaty for the benefit of Canada in order to escape the possible award on the fisheries.