They provide, in the seventh place, that the high contracting parties would "agree to observe these rules as between themselves in the future, and to bring them to the knowledge of other maritime powers, and to invite them to accede to them."
And they provide, finally, that the result of the proceedings of the Tribunal and the Board of Assessors, in case such board should be appointed, should be accepted as a final settlement of all the claims known as the Alabama Claims, and should be a bar to any further proceedings in regard to them.
It will be seen that the Government of the United States had in this Treaty substantially won all of the points for which it had contended.
Triumph of the
diplomacy of the
United States.
It is true that Her Majesty's Government qualified its acceptance of the rules to be applied in determining its responsibility by inserting an explanation in the Treaty of the following tenor: "Her Britannic Majesty has commanded her High Commissioners and Plenipotentiaries to declare that Her Majesty's Government cannot assent to the foregoing rules as a statement of principles of international law which were in force at the time when the claims mentioned in Article I. arose, but that Her Majesty's Government, in order to evince its desire of strengthening the friendly relations between the two countries and of making satisfactory provision for the future, agrees that, in deciding the questions between the two countries arising out of those claims, the Arbitrators should assume that Her Majesty's Government had undertaken to act upon the principles set forth in these rules."
And it is also true that, while, according to the letter of the Treaty, the United States Government was left unfettered as to the character of the claims which it might lay before the Arbitrators, Her Majesty's Government had been led to expect more moderation in this respect than the popular sentiment in the United States seemed to indicate.
The two Governments and the high personages invited by them proceeded in due time to appoint the Arbitrators. The President of the United
The arbitrators,
agents and counsel.
The President of the United States also appointed Mr. J. C. Bancroft Davis as the agent of the United States before the Tribunal, and Mr. Caleb Cushing, Mr. William M. Evarts and Mr. Morrison R. Waite as counsel.