remark to excite mortification, even on the part of the collector, the person referred to by the Secretary of State. A collector may possess all possible intelligence and every virtue, and yet misapprehend the law in a new case, under such a complicated system as the custom-house regulations of the United States. To suppose, then, that Mr. Gibbs became hostile to the Company from this trivial incident, is a violent and unreasonable supposition,- —a supposition which would not hold good in regard to men generally, and is peculiarly unjustifiable in reference to Mr. Gibbs, whose amiability of character, generosity of nature, and freedom from the prejudice of narrow minds, are signally and honorably conspicuous.

The next complaint against Mr. Gibbs is, that he became clerk of the American Commissioner in this case. The argument of the Company seems to insinuate that Mr. Gibbs, actuated by a settled hostility to the Company, obtained the situation of clerk, for the mere purpose of pursuing the Company with his hostility. Such a suggestion as this would be more appropriate in a sensational romance than in real life. In the case of Mr. Gibbs it is entirely out of place, and does more credit to the imagination of the learned counsel who prepared the argument, than to his other intellectual faculties.

The naked fact of the case in this connection, stripped of all rhetorical embellishment, is, that Mr. Gibbs, though one of the clerks of the Commissioner, has taken some interest in ascertaining what persons could give evidence in the case, and what their evidence was, and giving this information to the counsel for the United States.

It is not perceived, that there is anything improper in this conduct on the part of Mr. Gibbs. He was clerk to the Commissioner on the part of the United States, and another gentleman was clerk to the Commissioner on the part of Great Britain. Each clerk had an equal right to inspection of the records, and their proper verification. There is no pretence that Mr. Gibbs has not discharged all the business acts required of him as clerk. Upon this point no complaint is made. The objection is that Mr. Gibbs has gone outside of his sphere of official action, and aided in bringing evidence into the case.

Mr.

Gibbs's offence is in aiding to produce evidence. It is difficult to see what is wrong in such a procedure.

The object of the Commission was to receive evidence on the subject of the Company's claims. Any citizen of the United States, feeling a just interest in his country, if he had been aware of the existence of competent evidence bearing on the subject-matter of investigation before this Commission, would most unquestionably have been authorized, without being subject to the charge of officiousness, to communicate to the proper representative of the United States the information in his power. Indeed, his silence on the subject would not be the full discharge of his civic duties. Mr. Gibbs, by becoming one of the clerks of this Commission, did not cease to be a citizen of the United States, and did not relieve himself from the civic obligations arising out of that relation. He was as free to take the interest he did in the case as any other citizen.

It is not pretended that he produced interested witnesses or false evidence. The Company, if they were confident of the merit of their claim, should desire the fullest possible investigation, and, instead of complaining of Mr. Gibbs for throwing light upon their case, should rather have been grateful to him. Parties who have meritorious claims do not object to the fullest consideration of them. They court scrutiny. It is only those who have a bad claim, who fly from the light and avoid investigation.

It must be remembered, in justice to Mr. Gibbs, that he was peculiarly situated in this matter. He had lived in Wash

ington Territory; he had had intimate acquaintance with the operations of the Company in that Territory; he had seen many of their posts; he had studied the country as a man of science; he knew a great many people who had been living in Washington Territory. In short, he possessed information in regard to the Company, and in regard to witnesses, superior to, perhaps, any one in this part of the United States. Under these circumstances, what was Mr. Gibbs to do? The Company were pressing an exorbitant claim before the Commission, which he, in common with many other persons of intelligence, might well consider in the last degree unconscionable. If he

did nothing, he committed what he supposed was an injustice to the United States. The path of duty seemed to him to be plain. It was to inform the counsel for the United States of the names of such persons as he knew were proper to be witnesses in the case.

Objection is further made that Mr. Gibbs prepared some of of his own interrogatories. But when we consider the fact of an intelligent witness, with abundance of leisure, and counsel pressed with business engagements, we can readily understand how this may, very properly, be done, for the mere purpose of expediting matters. Every proper examination of witnesses, produced by a party, presupposes some knowledge of the points to which the witness is to speak, to be communicated to counsel. This is usually done by previous conversation of the counsel with the witness, and noting the substance of his statement. Where the witness is intelligent, and comprehends clearly the matter on which he is to be examined, there can be no objection to his preparing himself the statement of facts with which he is familiar. This preparation may as well take the form of interrogatories as not. As a matter of convenience, to save time, Mr. Gibbs, doubtless, drew up the particular interrogatories referred to. If there is nothing improper in the interrogatories, it matters but little by whom they are prepared. And no exception is taken to the form of the interrogatories in this instance. It seems to us, therefore, that the fact that they were prepared by Mr. Gibbs is a circumstance of no importance.

Mr. Mactavish states in his examination, (U. S. Miscellaneous Ev., p. 69,) that the counsel for the Company gave him questions, and that he then wrote off his answers, returning both questions and answers to the counsel, and further states, that he may have consulted with his counsel about his answers. He further testifies as follows:

"Int. 154. Did you not, at some time after your answers were sent to Judge Day, alter them in consultation with him, either by leaving out certain parts of them, or by adding to them?

"Ans. I may have done so, but I have no recollection of it now." (U. S. Ev. Mis., p. 70.)

This mode of preparing a witness for examination would seem to estop the Company from complaining of a witness merely preparing his own interrogatories.

Complaint is made, in connection with Mr. Gibbs, that the manuscript evidence has not been correctly printed. In reference to L. Brooke's evidence, it appears that the words "as to" are printed, though they do not exist in the manuscript. This is evidently a mere error of the printer, and does not alter the sense in the slightest degree.

The argument continues: "And, on the same page, $1 per acre is printed, instead of $100, which it ought to be." (Argument for Co., p. 167.) What shows conclusively that this was a mere error of the printer, overlooked in the correction of the proof sheets, is the fact, that the statement made is in reference to ten acres of land purchased by General Ingalls in Vancouver, which statement is printed correctly in General Ingalls' evidence, (Answer to Int. 26, U. S. Ev., Pt. 2, p. 7,) as follows:

"In 1860 I purchased some ten acres of land in Vancouver, at what I considered the most eligible site on the river, for $1,000, and during the present year have sold it for the same." That is to say, the context indicated the error of the printed price per acre, and no misapprehension was occasioned by this error.

Such is the slender foundation upon which this complaint rests. From this we may judge of the spirit with which Mr. Gibbs has been pursued in this case.

The effort is evidently to punish him for being instrumental in the production of important witnesses. His offence is not so much, we imagine, in his own testimony, as in the testimony brought into the case on his information.

We regret that the Company have thought it expedient to wage such unrelenting war against Mr. Gibbs. His signal probity is too well known to require any further defence at our hands. His gifted intellect, his scholarly attainments, his devotion to scientific pursuits, his generosity of character, command for him the respect and esteem of all who know him.*

*In the Supplement and Appendix for the United States, it will be shown under what circumstances and impulses of duty he acted, so as completely to vindicate him from all imputation in the premises.

V. Motion of the Company in amendment of its Memorial.

Since the filing of the memorial, the Company have moved to amend, so as to increase the amount claimed by them in the sum of $459,900.

The original amount claimed in the memorial is $3,822,036 67. The total amount now claimed under the amendment is, $4,281,036. Of this increased amount of $459,900, the sum of $413,666 66 is set down for the land at Vancouver.

The reason of the proposed increase is stated in the motion to amend to be, "because it appears by the evidence of record, that the lands claimed by the Hudson's Bay Company at each of the posts of Vancouver and Colvile, greatly exceed in value the respective amounts stated and claimed for them in the memorial." (Argument for Company, p. 15.)

The motion comes in long after the close of the evidence on both sides. We deny the right of the Company to file such a motion at such a time. We protest against it as too late. We insist that, if received, it shall be regarded as reopening the whole case for additional evidence. The United States can and will, if permitted, produce much and conclusive additional evidence to the falsity of the new claims of the Company.

It is generally presumed that a party states his own claim. with sufficient liberality. At any rate, such is the ordinary experience in business transactions. The bias of interest is generally sufficiently operative to insure this result.

Where, therefore, a party, after ample time, as in this case, and elaborate preparation, fixes his own claim, a subsequent departure from his own estimate is calculated at least to awaken surprise; ordinarily it would tend to excite a certain. degree of prejudice against the claim, as being vague and speculative. In the case of the Company, where, by their elaborate system of accounts, and the able officials employed by them, the greatest possible precision and accuracy in all business transactions may readily be arrived at, it seems the more inexcusable that, in the progress of the case, there should