UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA. CHAPTER XIV. Complaints of the American Government and its Claims for Redress.-Correspondence with Mr. Adams.-Despatch of Secretary Fish.Recapitulation of Facts.-Case of the Alabama; the Question stated. Was there Neglect ?-Was there a Violation of Neutrality? -Remarks on this Subject.-The Neutrality Laws of England and America. Proposals for the Revision of them in England; in the United States. ON the facts related in the preceding chapter the Government of the United States founded a long series of representations, complaints, and demands, gradually rising higher and higher, the nature and substance of which will appear from the following statement. The first complaint of actual injury sustained by the United States after the departure of the Alabama was conveyed by Mr. Adams in language of great moderation: "The injuries to which the people of the United States are subjected by the unfortunate delays experienced in the case of my remonstrance against the fitting out of the gun-boat '290,' now called the Confederate steamer Alabama, are just beginning to be reported. I last night received intelligence from Gibraltar that this vessel has destroyed ten whaling-ships in the course of a short time at the Azores. "I have strong reason to believe that still other enterprises of the same kind are in progress in the ports of Great Britain at this time: indeed, they have attained so much notoriety as to be openly announced in the newspapers of Liverpool and London. In view of the very strong legal opinion which I had the honour to present to your Lordship's consideration, it is impossible that all these things should not excite great attention in the United States. I very much fear they will impress the people and the Government with a belief, however unfounded, that their just claims on the neutrality of Great Britain have not been sufficiently estimated. The extent to which Her Majesty's Chap. XIV. flag, and some of her ports, have been used to the end of carrying on hostile operations, is so universally understood that I deem it unnecessary further to dwell upon it. But in the spirit of friendliness with which I have ever been animated towards Her Majesty's Government, I feel it my duty to omit no opportunity of urging the manifestation of its well-known energy in upholding those laws of neutrality upon which alone the reciprocal confidence of nations can find a permanent base.' "1 To this Lord Russell replied that, "much as Her Majesty's Government desire to prevent such occurrences, they are unable to go beyond the law, municipal and international."2 Mr. Adams rejoined : "I am well aware of the fact to which your Lordship calls my attention in the note of the 4th instant, the reception of which I have the honour to acknowledge, that Her Majesty's Government are unable to go beyond the law, municipal and international, in preventing enterprises of the kind referred to. But in the representations which I have had the honour lately to make, I beg to remind your Lordship that I base them upon evidence which applies directly to infringements of the municipal law itself, and not to anything beyond it. The consequence of an omission to enforce its penalties is therefore necessarily that heretofore pointed out by eminent Counsel, to wit, that 'the law is little better than a dead letter;' a result against which 'the Government of the United States has serious ground of remonstrance.' 1993 On the 20th November, 1862, after referring to the directions issued, as we have seen, by the British Government for the detention of the Alabama, but issued too late, he proceeded : "It thus appears that Her Majesty's Government had become so far convinced of the true nature of the enterprise in agitation at Liverpool from the evidence which I had had the honour to submit to your Lordship's consideration, and from other inquiry, as to have determined on detaining the vessel. So far as this action went, it seems to have admitted the existence of a case of violation of the laws of neutrality in one of Her Majesty's ports of which the Government of the United States had a right to complain. The question will then 1 Mr. Adams to Earl Russell, 30th September, 1862. 3 Mr. Adams to Earl Russell, 9th October, 1862. remain how far the failure of the proceedings thus admitted to have Chap. XIV. been instituted by Her Majesty's Government to prevent the departure of this vessel affects the right of reclamation of the Government of the United States for the grievous damage done to the property of their citizens in permitting the escape of this lawless pirate from its jurisdiction." He referred to the Seventh Article of the Treaty of 19th November, 1794, between Great Britain and the United States (Lord Grenville's Treaty) as a precedent warranting a demand for redress in like cases, and concluded: "Armed by the authority of such a precedent; having done all in my power to apprise Her Majesty's Government of the illegal enterprise in ample season for affecting its prevention; and being now enabled to show the injurious consequences to innocent parties relying upon the security of their commerce from any danger through British sources, ensuing from the omission of Her Majesty's Government, however little designed, to apply the proper prevention in due season, -I have the honour to inform your Lordship of the directions which I have received from my Government to solicit redress for the national and private injuries already thus sustained, as well as a more effective prevention of any repetition of such lawless and injurious proceedings in Her Majesty's ports hereafter." Lord Russell, in reply, disputing the application which Mr. Adams had made of the Treaty of 1794, dwelt upon his admission that the Alabama had sailed, not only without the direct authority or indirect permission of the Government, but in opposition to the municipal law, and in spite of earnest endeavours made to enforce it : "It is not denied that strict orders were given for her detention as soon as it appeared to the legal advisers of the Crown that the evidence might be sufficient to warrant them in advising such a course; and that the Alabama contrived to evade the execution of those orders. Her Majesty's Government cannot, therefore, admit that they are under any obligation whatever to make compensation to United States' citizens on account of the proceedings of that vessel. "As regards your demand for a more effective prevention, for the future, of the fitting out of such vessels in British ports, I have the honour to inform you that Her Majesty's Government, after consultation with the Law Officers of the Crown, are of opinion that certain Chap. XIV. amendments might be introduced into the Foreign Enlistment Act, which, if sanctioned by Parliament, would have the effect of giving greater power to the Executive to prevent the construction, in British ports, of ships destined for the use of belligerents. But Her Majesty's Government consider that, before submitting any proposals of that sort to Parliament, it would be desirable that they should previously communicate with the Government of the United States, and ascertain whether that Government is willing to make similar alterations in its own Foreign Enlistment Act, and that the amendments, like the original statute, should, as it were, proceed pari passu in both countries. I shall accordingly be ready to confer at any time with you, and to listen to any suggestions which you may have to make, by which the British Foreign Enlistment Act and the corresponding Statute of the United States may be made more efficient for their purpose."1 Mr. Adams, in answer, stated afresh what he conceived to be the question at issue : "It is the admitted fact of a violation of a Statute of this kingdom intended to prevent ill-disposed persons from involving it in difficulty by committing wanton and injurious assaults upon foreign nations with which it is at peace, of which Her Majesty's Ministers are invited by a party injured to take cognizance, of which they do take cognizance so far as to prepare measures of prevention, but which, by reason of circumstances wholly within their own control, they do not prevent in season to save the justly complaining party from serious injury. On the substantial points of the case little room seems left open for discussion. The omission to act in season is not denied; the injury committed on an innocent party is beyond dispute. If in these particulars I shall be found to be correct, then I respectfully submit it to your Lordship whether it does not legitimately follow that such a party has a right to complain and to ask redress. And in this sense it matters little how that omission may have occurred, whether by intentional neglect or by accidental delays having no reference to the merits of the question; the injury done to the innocent party giving a timely notice remains the same, and those who permitted it remain equally responsible."2 In February 1863 Lord Russell had a conversation with Mr. Adams, in the course of which the latter said that, on the question whether the law respecting the equipment of vessels for hostile purposes might be improved, his Government was ready to listen to any proposition which the British Government had to make, 1 Earl Russell to Mr. Adams, 19th December, 1862. but that they did not see how their own law on the Chap. XIV. subject could be improved. "I said," writes Lord Russell in reporting the conversation to Lord Lyons, "that the Cabinet had come to a similar conclusion, so that no further proceedings need be taken at present on this subject." Reverting to this part of the question at a subsequent interview, Mr. Adams observed that the law of Great Britain was either sufficient or insufficient for the purposes of neutrality. If sufficient, let the Government enforce it; if insufficient, let the Government apply to Parliament to amend it. "I said," reports Lord Russell, "that the Cabinet were of opinion that the law was sufficient, but that legal evidence could not always be procured. That the British Government had done everything in its power to execute the law. But I admitted that the cases of the Alabama and the Oreto were a scandal, and in some degree a reproach, to our laws."2 On this part of the question the discussion went no further. On the 23rd October, 1863, the American Minister wrote as follows: "My Lord, "It may be within your recollection that in the note of the 17th of September which I had the honour to address to you in reply to yours of the 14th of the same month, respecting the claim for the destruction of the ship Nora, and other claims of the same kind, which I had been instructed to make, I expressed myself desirous to defer to your wishes that they should not be further pressed on the attention of Her Majesty's Government, so far as to be willing to refer the question of the withdrawal of my existing instructions back for the consideration of my Government. I have now the honour to inform your Lordship of the result of that application. "After a careful re-survey of all the facts connected with the outfit and later proceedings of the gun-boat 'No. 290,' now known as the warsteamer Alabama, I regret to report to you that the Government of the United States finds itself wholly unable to abandon the position heretofore taken on that subject." 1 Earl Russell to Lord Lyons, 14th February, 1863. |