II
In 1870, the time arrived when Mr. Gladstone himself, no longer a minister third in standing in a Palmerston government, was called upon to deal with this great issue as a principal in his own administration. In 1868 the conservative government had agreed to a convention, by which a mixed commission, British and American, sitting in London should decide upon the settlement of all claims by the subjects of either country upon the other; and in respect of what were known generically as the Alabama Claims, proposing to refer these to the arbitration of the head of some friendly state, in case the mixed commission should not agree. The idea of a composite court or tribunal, as distinguished from a single sovereign arbitrator, had not yet risen above the horizon. Before this project ripened, Mr. Disraeli was out of government, Lord Clarendon had taken Lord Stanley's place at the foreign office, and the convention, with some modifications, was signed by him (Jan. 14, 1869), and [pg 398] in due course despatched to Washington. There the Senate, not on the merits but for party and personal reasons, refused to ratify. Though this attempt failed, neither of the two English political parties was in a position any longer to refuse arbitration in principle.
Agreement in principle is of little avail, without driving force enough for practice. The driving force was found mainly from a gradual change in English sentiment, though the difficulties with Russia also counted for something. Even so early as 1863 the tide of popular opinion in England had begun slowly to swell in favour of the Northern cause. In 1866 victory across the Atlantic was decided, the union was saved, and slavery was gone. A desire to remove causes of difference between ourselves and the United States grew at a remarkable speed, for the spectacle of success is wont to have magical effects even in minds that would indignantly reject the standards of Machiavelli. While benevolent feeling gained volume in this country, statesmen in America took ground that made the satisfaction of it harder. They began to base their claim for reparation on the original proclamation of British neutrality when the American conflict began. First made in 1866, this new pretension was repeated in despatches of 1867, and in 1869 the American secretary formally recorded the complaint that the Southern insurrection obtained its enduring vitality by resources drawn from England, and as a consequence of England's imperfect discharge of her duties as neutral. England became, they said, the arsenal, the navy-yard, and the treasury of the insurgent Confederacy.
In the discussion of the Clarendon convention of 1869 Mr. Sumner—a man of some great qualities, but too often the slave of words where he thought himself their master—made an extravagant speech against the British government in the senate, assessing the claim of the United States upon this country on principles that would have raised it to the modest figure of some four hundred million pounds sterling due from us to them, or, as Mr. Gladstone himself estimated it, to sixteen hundred millions. It does not matter which. This was only a violent and fantastic exaggeration of an [pg 399] idea of constructive claims for indirect damages that lay slumbering, but by no means extinct, in American minds, until, as we shall see, in 1872 it very nearly led to a disastrous explosion. This idea first found distinct and official utterance in the despatch of 1869. Besides compensating individuals for depredations, we were to pay for the cost to America of chasing the cruisers; for the transfer of most of the American commercial marine to the British flag; for enhanced insurance; and generally for the increased difficulty of putting down the rebellion.
All through 1870 a rather troublesome exchange of letters went on between Washington and the foreign office, and Mr. Gladstone took an active concern in it. “I grieve to trouble you with so much manuscript,” Lord Clarendon writes him on one occasion (Mar. 17, 1870), “but I don't venture single-handed to conduct a correspondence with the United States.... All this correspondence can do nothing but harm, and I have made my answer as short as is consistent with courtesy. I should like to send it on Saturday, but if you have not time to look at it, or think it ought to be seen by the cabinet, I could, make an excuse for the delay to Motley.” All this was in entire conformity to Mr. Gladstone's enduring conception of the right relations between a prime minister and the foreign secretary. We need not follow details, but one must not be omitted. In 1868 a royal commission recommended various material changes in the Foreign Enlistment Act, and in 1870 accordingly a new law was passed, greatly strengthening the hands of the executive, and furnishing due means of self-protection against such nefarious manœuvres as those of the Alabama.[258] By this Act, among other things, it was made an offence to build a ship with reasonable cause to believe that it would be employed in the service of a foreign state at war with a friendly state.
As the year 1870 went on, the expediency of an accommodation with America strengthened in Mr. Gladstone's [pg 400] mind. One member of the cabinet pointed out to the foreign secretary that if there was any chance of a war with Russia about the Black Sea, it would be as well to get causes of differences with America out of the way; otherwise, however unprepared the United States might be at the moment, we should undoubtedly have them on our hands sooner or later.[259] With Mr. Gladstone the desire was not a consequence of the possible troubles with Russia. His view was wider and less specific. He was alive to the extent to which England's power in Europe was reduced by the smothered quarrel with America, but he took even higher ground than this in his sense of the blessing to the world of an absolute reconciliation in good faith between the old England and the new. At first the government proposed (Nov. 28, 1870) to send over Sir John Rose to America. He was one of the many Scots who have carried the British flag in its best colours over the face of the globe; his qualities had raised him to great prominence in Canada; he had enjoyed good opportunities of measuring the American ground; he was shrewd, wise, well read in the ways of men and the book of the world, and he had besides the virtue of being pleasant. Rose himself did not formally undertake the mission, but he applied himself with diligence and success to bring the American government to the project of a joint high commission to examine and consider a situation that there was a common desire to terminate.
The British Commission
On Feb. 1, 1871, Mr. Gladstone was able to report to the Queen the arrival of news that the government of the United States were willing to concur in a commission for the discussion of international questions at present depending, without a previous understanding that liability in respect of the Alabama was to be acknowledged by this country. The cabinet naturally thought that on this they might close, and they at once considered the composition of the commission and the proper instructions. Lord de Grey consented to be its president. Lord Derby, on being invited to join the commission, was very grateful for the compliment but declined, being of opinion that firmness [pg 401] and not concession to the Americans was what was wanted. Sir George Grey declined; so did Lord Halifax. “I asked Northcote,” Lord Granville reports to Mr. Gladstone, “his eyes twinkled through his spectacles. But he said he must ask Lady Northcote, and requested permission to consult Dizzy. The former consented, ditto Dizzy, which looks well.” So the commission was made up of Lord de Grey as the head of it, Northcote, Thornton (the British minister at Washington), Sir John Macdonald, as the representative of Canada, and Mr. Mountague Bernard, a theoretic jurist, who had written a book about our neutrality the year before.[260]
III
The personal relations of Lord de Grey and his brethren with their American colleagues were excellent. They worked hard all day, and enjoyed Washington hospitality in its full strength every night. In business, Mr. Fish occasionally advanced or supported contentions thought by the Englishmen to be almost amusing. For instance, Mr. Sumner in a memorandum (Jan. 17, 1871) to Mr. Fish, had submitted a singular species of political syllogism. He desired nothing so much, he said, as that entire goodwill should prevail between Great Britain and the United States, and that the settlement should be complete. Now the greatest trouble and peril in the way of a complete settlement was Fenianism; Fenianism was excited by the proximity of the British flag over the Canadian border; therefore, the British flag should be withdrawn from the whole hemisphere, including the islands, and the American flag should fly in its stead. In conformity with this tight and simple chain of reasoning, Mr. Fish threw out a hint to Lord de Grey that the cession of Canada might end the quarrel. The English envoy contented himself with the dry remark that he did not find such a suggestion in his instructions.[261]