“My dear Mr. Colfax,—Having read this morning a brief telegraphic summary of the speech which you delivered at Brooklyn on Washington’s Birthday, I feel constrained to address you on the subject upon which you have spoken with so much emphasis. I refer to the Treaty of Washington. I share your opinion that neither nation will dare, in the face of civilization, to destroy the treaty; but nevertheless the crisis is a grave one. It therefore behooves every one who can assist to bring about a better understanding on the points of difference between the two countries to make his contribution to that end. This is my apology for addressing you.
“The grave misunderstanding which has arisen between Great Britain and the United States is due to the widely different manner in which the Treaty of Washington has been from the outset interpreted by the two nations. I have not met a single person on this side of the Atlantic who expresses any desire “to back out” of the treaty, or refuse the fulfilment of any one of the obligations which it is believed to impose; nay, more, my conviction is that if the British people were satisfied that the principle of referring vague and indefinite claims to arbitration had somehow or other crept into the treaty, they yet would, while passing emphatic votes of censure on their representatives at Washington, at the same time never dream of calling back the pledge which Lord Ripon and his colleagues had given on their behalf.
“The excitement which followed the publication of the American case was occasioned by the belief—universal among all classes of the English people—that their own interpretation of the treaty was the right one, and that indeed no other interpretation had ever been or would be given to it. It is desirable that Americans should remember this fact—that until the publication of the American case nobody on this side of the water had the remotest idea that the Washington Treaty contemplated more than arbitration with reference to the direct losses inflicted by the Alabama and other Confederate cruisers which escaped from British ports during our civil war. This is not a matter of surmise; it is demonstrable on the clearest evidence. I therefore contend that whether the public sentiment of England be well founded or not, its existence is so natural that even if we Americans are wholly in the right we ought to make every allowance for it—in fact, treat it with generous forbearance.
“So early as June 12th last, when Lord Russell, in moving a resolution for the rejection of the treaty, charged the Americans with having made no concessions, Lord Granville retorted by pointing to the abandonment of the claim for consequential damages. ‘These were pretensions,’ he said, ‘which might have been carried out under the former arbitration, but they entirely disappear under the limited reference.’ There could be no mistake as to his meaning, because in describing the aforesaid ‘pretensions’ he quoted the strong and explicit language which Mr. Fish had employed. We are bound to believe that Lord Granville spoke in perfect good faith, especially as the American minister was present during the debate, and sent the newspaper verbatim report of it to his own government by the ensuing mail. When the debate took place the ratification of the treaty had not been exchanged. If Lord Granville was in error, why did not General Schenck correct him?
“On the same occasion the Marquis of Ripon, also replying to Lord Russell’s taunt, remarked that ‘so far from our conduct being a constant course of concession, there were, as my noble friend behind me [Earl Granville] has said, numerous occasions on which it was our duty to say that the proposals made to us were such as it was impossible for us to think of entertaining.’ This, also, was understood to refer to the indirect claims.
“Turning to the debate which took place in the House of Commons on the 4th of August, one searches in vain for any remark in the speeches of Mr. Gladstone, Sir Stafford Northcote, or Sir Roundell Palmer which indicated any suspicion that the Alabama claims had assumed the portentous character which now attaches to them. The doubt which Lord Cairns at one time entertained had been set at rest by the ministerial explanations made at the time in the House of Lords, and not a single argument advanced in the Lower House, either in support of or in opposition to the treaty, touched upon the question of these claims. Even Mr. Baillie Cochrane, the well-known Conservative member, who denounced the treaty on all sorts of grounds, and whose avowed object was to pick as many holes in it as possible, was unable to allege that England had consented to an arbitration which might involve her in indefinite liabilities.
“Sir Stafford Northcote, in the course of his humorous speech—a speech instinct with good feeling towards the United States—said that ‘a number of the claims under the convention which was not adopted [the Johnson-Clarendon Treaty] were so vague that it would have been possible for the Americans to have raised a number of questions which the commissioners were unwilling to submit to arbitration. They might have raised the question with regard to the recognition of belligerency, with regard to constructive damages arising out of the recognition of belligerency, and a number of other matters which this country could not admit. But if honorable gentlemen would look to the terms of the treaty actually contracted they would see that the commissioners followed the subjects very closely by making a reference only to a list growing out of the acts of particular vessels, and in so doing shut out a large number of claims which the Americans had previously insisted upon, but which the commissioners had prevented from being raised before the arbitrators.’ All this points unmistakably to the definite and limited character of the claims which, in the judgment of the English negotiators, were alone to be submitted to arbitration.
“It seems to me that Judge Williams, in the speech he made at the banquet I had the honor to give to the British High Commissioners in New York, expressed sentiments which can only be similarly construed. ‘Many persons,’ he said, ‘no doubt, will be dissatisfied with their [the Joint High Commissioners’] labors; but to deal with questions so complicated, involving so many conflicting interests, so as to please everybody, is a plain impossibility; but in view of the irritation which the course of Great Britain produced in this country during our late rebellion, and in view of the one-sided and generally exaggerated statements of our case made to the people, the American commissioners consider themselves quite fortunate that what they have done has met with so much public favor in all parts of the country and among men of all political parties.’
“That true friend of America, the Duke of Argyll, speaking in the Upper House, was equally emphatic. ‘The great boon we have secured by this treaty,’ he said, ‘is this: that for the future the law of nations, as between the two greatest maritime states in the world, is settled in regard to this matter, and that for this great boon we have literally sacrificed nothing except the admission that we are willing to apply to the case of the Alabama and that of other vessels those rules, I do not say of international law, but of international comity, which we have ourselves over and over again admitted.’ It is impossible that the duke would have expressed himself in language so hopeful and so contented if behind ‘the case of the Alabama and that of other vessels’ he had seen looming up the colossal demands which were originally embodied in Senator Sumner’s memorable oration.
“The views thus put forward sank deep into the public mind, and the treaty was accepted and ratified by popular opinion on this basis. General Schenck, several months after the delivery of the above speeches, in addressing a Lord Mayor’s banquet at the Guildhall, bade the English ministry and Lord Ripon ‘congratulate themselves upon the success with which they have endeavored to bring about friendly relations between the United States and Great Britain.’