Page images
PDF
EPUB

duties of the office he did honor to the Tribunal and to the United States.

The deportment of Mr. Adams as a member of the Tribunal was unexceptionably dignified, manly, courteous, even when compelled on more than one occasion to notice rude acts or words of Sir Alexander Cockburn. While the conduct of the latter was too frequently on the comparatively low plane of the nisi prius attorney of a party before a court, the conduct of the former was uniformly on the higher one of a member of the court and a judge. Hence, in the same degree that the personal influence of Mr. Adams, by reason of his recognized impartiality and integrity, was beneficial to the United States, on the other hand, the influence of Sir Alexander Cockburn, by reason of his petulant irritability and unjudicial partisanship of action, was unfavorable to Great Britain.

Such, then, were the Arbitrators representing the five Governments.

SECRETARY OF THE TRIBUNAL.

Their Secretary, Mr. Alexandre Favrot, was a gentlemanly person of literary attainments and profession, actually residing in Berne, but born in the French-speaking Canton of Neuchâtel, who had become perfectly acquainted with the English language by a sojourn of several years in England.

AGENTS AND COUNSEL.

The Agents of the two Governments, Lord Tenterden and Mr. Bancroft Davis, were peculiarly qualified

for the places they filled, both of them having served in similar capacities in the foreign Department of their respective Governments, and both having assisted in the negotiation of the Treaty of Washington. Their friendly personal relations were advantageous in facilitating the movement of business before the Arbitration.

Mr. Bancroft Davis deserves particular mention. Englishmen may criticise the American "Case," the labor of preparing which devolved chiefly on him; but its indisputable merit should draw to him the applause of every American. His literary accomplishments, his previous diplomatic experience, his knowledge of men and things in Europe, and his devoted and untiring attention to the public interests, were singularly useful to the United States.

Of the persons or qualities of the Counsel of the United States, Mr. Morrison R. Waite, Mr. William M. Evarts, and the writer of this exposition, it would be unbecoming, as it is quite superfluous, here to speak.

In this relation, however, it is proper to call attention to two facts or incidents of national interest or concernment.

In the first place, to the honor of the President of the United States be it said, in the selection of Counsel by him, as for instance in the invitation to Mr. B. R. Curtis, considerations of party were not allowed to exert controlling authority.

Secondly, the Counsel themselves emulated the catholic spirit of the President in subordinating all

personal considerations to the single object of winning a great cause, the greatest ever committed to the charge of members of the Bar, and pending in the highest court ever organized, namely, the suit of the United States against Great Britain before the Tribunal of Arbitration. Although diverse in their habits of mind, and in their lines of experience and action, they acted as a unit in the determination of advice to be given from time to time to the Government or its Agent;-in the preparation of the printed Argument required by the Treaty, a document of five hundred pages, to be signed by them jointly;—and in the subsequent preparation of a number of joint or separate Arguments in compliance with the require.. ments of the Arbitrators. We may appeal to those Arguments as the tangible proof, at any rate, of our concurrent and united dedication, during nine months of continuous and solicitous thought or labor, to the discharge of our duty to our Government and our country, as Counsel under the Treaty of Washington.

Sir Roundell Palmer alone appeared before the Tribunal as eo nomine Counsel of Great Britain; but Mr. Mountague Bernard, elevated to the office of a law-member of the Queen's Council, sat by his side at the Counsels' table, and also Mr. Cohen. The hand of the latter was apparent in the estimates and exhibits presented to the Tribunal to guide them in the determination of the damages to be awarded to the United States.

The recent promotion of Sir Roundell Palmer to the pre-eminent post of Lord Chancellor, by the title

[blocks in formation]

of Lord Selborne, is the appropriate consummation of NIA a professional and parliamentary career of distinguished ability and of unstained honor. In conducting the deliberations of the House of Lords; in presiding over the High Court of Chancery; in participating in the affairs of the Cabinet; in guiding the conscience of the Queen through the embarrassments which now beset the English Church, we may be sure that Lord Selborne will join to the high authority of a skillful debater and a learned jurist the still higher authority of a sincerely conscientious statesman, so as to add incontestable force to Mr. Gladstone's Ministry. And all that authority, we may confidently assume, will be used in the promotion or maintenance of amicable relations between Great Britain and the United States.

This account of the personnel of the Arbitration would be imperfect without mention of the younger but estimable persons who constituted the staff of the formal representatives of the two Governments, namely: on the part of the United States, Mr. C. C. Beaman, as solicitor, and Messrs. Brooks Adams, John Davis, F. W. Hackett, W. F. Pedrick, and Edward T. Waite, as secretaries; and on the part of Great Britain, in the latter capacity or as translators, Messrs. Sanderson, Markheim, Villiers, Langley, and Hamilton. If the labors of these gentlemen were less conspicuous than those of the Agents and Counsel, they were scarcely less indispensable; and they all deserve a place in the history of the Arbitration.

A single observation will close up these personal
G

sketches, and bring us to the consideration of the ul terior proceedings of the Tribunal.

Occasionally, but not frequently, at the present day, we hear in the United States ungracious suggestions touching the personal deportment of Englishmen. No such observations, it is certain, are justified by any experience of the city of Washington. The eminent persons, who, in the present generation, have represented the British Government here, whether in permanent or special missions, such as Sir Richard Packenham, Lord Napier, Lord Lyons, Sir Frederick Bruce, and Sir Edward Thornton, of the former class, and Lord Ashburton, the Earl of Elgin, Earl De Grey, Sir Stafford Northcote, Mr. Mountague Bernard, Sir John A. Macdonald, and Lord Tenterden, of the latter class, with the younger persons of their respective suites, and so many others who have visited this city, were unmistakably and with good cause popular with the Americans. Indeed, it is rather in Continental Europe, and especially in France, and by no means in the United States, that overbearingness or uncourteous deportment toward others is regarded as a trait of Englishmen.

And it is agreeable to remember that, of the ten Englishmen with whom we of the United States came in daily contact at Geneva, and sometimes in circumstances of contentious attitude of a nature to produce coolness at least, all but one were uniformly and unexceptionably courteous in act and manner, and that one Chief Justice of the Queen's Bench.

Is a holder of the office of Chief Justice emanci

« PreviousContinue »