This language was quoted with approval by a British writer in 1825.1 In 1850 another British writer said:

We must look, not only at the traffic which is even now before us, but we must take into account its natural increase from the greater cheapness and rapidity of the new route. We must also look at the growing importance of Oregon and to the certainty of the crowd of small steamers that will rapidly accumulate on the Pacific from the smoothness of its waters and the abundance of the easily worked coal of Vancouver Island.

At the same time, although the view is thus bright, there is no great likelihood that it will attract any amount of English money. . . . In the United States, however, the feeling is very different, and every year vast works are quietly undertaken there and carried to completion in a way which would surprise those numberless people who are too apt complacently to believe that all the world stands still, except when funds are sent from London. . . ."I would not speak of it," said one of their writers a few years back, "with sectional or even national feeling, but if Europe is indifferent, it would be glory surpassing the conquest of kingdoms to make this greatest enterprise ever attempted by human force entirely our

own.

We may rely, therefore, that the day is gone by when the undertaking could be neglected for want of funds. If carried out entirely by capitalists in the United States, it will probably be pushed forward with less rapidity than would otherwise be the case; but this will be far more than compensated by the exercise of greater economy and certainty.2

1 A succinct View and Analysis, etc., by R. B. P. Pitman, p. 110. 2 Westminster Rev. (Am. Ed.) April, 1850, pp. 70, 71.

When this was written the Erie Canal, built by the State of New York, was twenty-five years old, and work on the Panama Railroad was just about to begin. The latter was completed in 1855. Each of these enterprises cost from $7,000,000 to $8,000,000. This money was raised for the Erie Canal by taxation in the State of New York and for the Panama Railroad by private subscription, partly British, but for the greater part United States. The cost of the prospective canal across Nicaragua was variously estimated at from $20,000,000 to $50,000,000. But the population of the United States in 1850 was over 23,000,000, while the people of New York in 1825, when they completed the Erie Canal, numbered a little over 1,000,000.

That the United States, in its negotiation of the Clayton-Bulwer Treaty, was actuated by any sense of financial necessity would seem to be an after-thought of a few publicists and historians. Its. motive in negotiating the treaty was simply to remove the obstruction and danger to the canal constituted by British encroachments and pretentions in Central America.

VI

THE TREATY OF WASHINGTON (1871). GENERAL CONCLUSION

The Treaty of Washington

This treaty had several purposes. Its principal one was to settle the claims of the United States based on the operations, during the Civil War, of Confederate commerce destroyers built and equipped within British jurisdiction. The most notable of these vessels was the Alabama, and the claims came consequently to be known collectively as the Alabama Claims. They were of two kinds : direct and indirect. The direct claims were based on the actual destruction and capture of ships and cargoes by the Confederate vessels, and the indirect on the following forms of damage incidental to such depredation: the transfer of a large part of the commercial marine of the United States to the British flag, the enhanced payment of insurance, the prolongation of the war, and the addition of a large sum to the cost of it. These were also called national claims or consequential claims. The money liability of Great Britain for both direct and indirect damages was estimated by

Charles Sumner as $2,500,000,000 or more. A joint high commission composed of five British and five United States commissioners met in Washington and agreed upon the terms of a treaty for the arbitration of all the claims. It contained among others, the following provisions:

Article I. Whereas differences have arisen between the Government of the United States and the Government of Her Britannic Majesty, and still exist, growing out of the acts committed by the several vessels which have given rise to the claims generically known as the "Alabama Claims":

And whereas Her Britannic Majesty has authorized her High Commissioners and Plenipotentiaries to express in a friendly spirit, the regret felt by Her Majesty's Government for the escape, under whatever circumstances, of the Alabama and other vessels from British ports and for the depredations committed by those vessels.

Now, in order to remove and adjust all complaints and claims on the part of the United States, and to provide for the speedy settlement of such claims which are not admitted by Her Britannic Majesty's Government, the high contracting parties agree that all the said claims growing out of acts committed by the aforesaid vessels and generically known as the "Alabama Claims," shall be referred to a tribunal of arbitration to be composed of five Arbitrators, to be appointed in the following manner; that is to say: One shall be named by the President of the United States; one shall be named by Her Britannic Majesty; His Majesty the King of Italy shall be requested to name one; the President of the Swiss Confederation shall be requested to name one; and His Majesty the Emperor of Brazil shall be requested to

name one.

The ratifications were exchanged at London on the 17th of June, 1871. The following arbitrators were appointed:

By President Grant: late minister at London.

Charles Francis Adams,

By Queen Victoria: Sir Alexander Cockburn, Lord Chief Justice of England.

By the King of Italy: Count Frederic Sclopis, of Turin, Senator.

By the President of Switzerland: Jacques Staemfli.

By the Emperor of Brazil: Baron Itajubi, then his Majesty's minister plenipotentiary at Paris.

Each party had an agent "to represent it generally." That of the United States was J. C. Bancroft Davis; that of Great Britain, Lord Tenterden. The counsel for Great Britain was Sir Roundell Palmer, who had as assistant, Professor Montague Bernard. The counsel for the United States was composed of Caleb Cushing, W. M. Evarts, B. R. Curtis, and M. R. Waite.

The tribunal assembled at Geneva, Switzerland, on the 15th of December, 1871. Mr. Davis and Lord Tenterden presented the cases of their respective governments, and the tribunal directed that the respective counter cases, additional documents, correspondence, and evidence called for or permitted by the treaty be delivered to the secretary of the tribunal on or before the 15th of