selves against such acts. That both before and after the acts in question warm sympathy and hospitality were extended to the offenders by a large number of the leading and influential citizens of the province of Canada, and the acts themselves were vindicated and approved by some of the official government newspaper organs in the province; and that such sentiments prevailed there that magistrates and peace officers in many instances refused search-warrants and the necessary assistance to enforce the same; in consequence of which many of the offenders were allowed to escape without arrest and carry with them the plundered property. The memorials charged Her Majesty's government and official authorities in Canada to have been culpably negligent in permitting the raid in question from their borders, and in permitting the returning band, under fresh pursuit, to escape into Canada and obtain asylum therein, and in refusing to surrender them, with their booty, to the United States, and in neglecting and refusing, upon full notice and demand, to restore to the United States or to the claimants the money and property of the claimants so carried off by the raiders.

Proofs taken on the part of the claimants fully established the facts of the depredations committed at Saint Albans, as alleged in the several memorials, and that those depredations were committed by a body of men who came separately or in small detachments from Canada in the guise of ordinary travellers and without any open or apparent organization or military array. That their first apparent action in an organized body or in unison commenced at Saint Albans, on the 19th October, 1864, and continued less than an hour. That immediately after the committing of the depredations charged in the complaint they retreated in a body toward Canada; were closely pursued by the citizens of Saint Albans and vicinity, who rallied for that purpose; and that the pursuit was only abandoned upon the retreating party entering the province of Canada. The party acted under the command of one Bennett H. Young, a lieutenant in the army of the Confederate States, and all its members were claimed to have been connected with the regular military service of the confederates.

The arrest, examination, detention, discharge, re-arrest, and final dis charge of some of the party, substantially as alleged in the memorial, were also established by proofs on the part of the claimants. Testimony was taken on both sides bearing upon the question of the knowledge by the authorities of Canada of the intentions of the confederates to organize a raid from Canada upon Saint Albans or other frontier towns of the United States, and as to the conduct of those authorities in regard to taking any measures to prevent or suppress such intended raid.

Among the witnesses examined on the part of the claimants to show such knowledge by the Canadian authorities, and their failure to take proper steps to prevent or suppress the raid, were Guillaume Lamothe chief of police of the city of Montreal at the time of the raid, and Jacob Rynders, a detective in the employ of the United States at Montreal at

the same time. The evidence of these and other witnesses tended to establish the fact that the raid upon Saint Albans was arranged and organized in Canada; that the fact that that raid or similar raids were in contemplation was known to high officers of the Canadian government, among others to Sir George E. Cartier and Sir Etienne Taché, then members of the Canadian ministry; to Col. William Ermatinger, a stipendiary magistrate, having the entire control of the police force and militia for the district of Montreal, embracing all the frontier towns in Lower Canada bordering upon the United States; to Lamothe himself, chief of police for the city of Montreal; and to Judge Coursol, govenment superintendent of police for the city and district of Montreal.

The claimants also put in evidence the report of Frederick William Torrance, esq., who was commissioned in January, 1865, by the Canadian government to investigate and report upon the proceedings connected with the arrest, examination, commitment, and discharge of the raiders, the seizure of the moneys found upon them, and the circumstances connected with the giving up of such moneys; also, whether there was any refusal to execute any warrant for the re-arrest of the accused; if so, by whom and for what reason; and generally to obtain authentic information of all matters and things connected with such arrest, discharge, and re-arrest of the prisoners, and the seizure, detention, and giving up of the moneys. In this report, made to the Canadian government and dated 18th May, 1865, Mr. Torrance went fully over the whole ground committed to his investigation, Messrs. Coursol and Lamothe appearing before him and being permitted to cross-examine witnesses. The report recited the facts found by him, including the transactions at Saint Albans substantially as alleged in the memorials; the flight of the raiders into Canada, closely pursued by the citizens of Vermont; the arrest in Canada of several of the raiders by the local authorities in the district bordering upon Vermont; the seizure upon the persons of those arrested and in deposits where secreted by them of about $87,000 plundered from the banks; the subsequent taking of jurisdiction of the cases of the persons arrested by Judge Coursol, and the transfer of those persons to Montreal; the examination of the prisoners, or some of them, before Judge Coursol, the government of Canada, the United States, and the prisoners all being represented upon such examination, and the same having been continued from the 7th November to the 13th December, including an adjournment of several weeks during that time to enable the defendants to make proof of their relations to the government of the Confederate States, and to show that their acts were those of lawful belligerents and not of private robbers. That on the 13th December an objection was raised by the counsel for the prisoners to the jurisdiction of Judge Coursol, which objection had some days previously been made the subject of a private interview between Judge Coursol and the counsel for the prisoners; and that thereupon the prisoners were immediately discharged, and the money found upon them,

to the amount of about $87,000, was surrendered to them by the chief of police, under the private advice of Judge Coursol, though without any judicial order to that effect. The report of Mr. Torrance acquitted both Judge Coursol and Mr. Lamothe of the imputation of being influenced by corrupt motives. It showed that after the discharge of the prisoners by Judge Coursol, new complaints were made on behalf of the claimants or their Government before Mr. Justice Smith, on which warrants issued for the re-arrest, and that the execution of these warrants was refused by Mr. Lamothe and one of his deputies. Under the instructions of Sir George E. Cartier, and under the stimulus of a reward offered by the government of Canada for the re-arrest of the prisoners, five of them were shortly afterwards re-arrested upon the warrants issued by Justice Smith, and on examination, were discharged by him, on the ground that their acts at Saint Albans were belligerent acts and not crimes subjecting them to extradition under the treaty between the United States and Great Britain.

Mr. Torrance stated his conclusions upon the whole case to the following effect:

That Mr. Lamothe, as chief of police, committed an improper act in the surrender of the money to the prisoners without official directions from Judge Coursol, as whose agent he held the money, so to deliver it. That the oral and unofficial instruction of Judge Coursol to Mr. Lamothe to the effect that the prisoners, if liberated, would be entitled to the possession of the money, was not a sufficient justification to Lamothe for its delivery, but was an improper instruction on the part of Judge Coursol, and might have misled Lamothe.

That Judge Coursol, if his decision that he had no jurisdiction of the case was a correct one, was in fault for having omitted to communicate with the Government before announcing such decision and discharging the prisoners, and had laid himself open to the imputation of a grave dereliction of duty in a matter of national importance. And, on the other hand, if his decision that he had no jurisdiction was erroneous, he was liable to a criminal prosecution by indictment for malfeasance in his office by reason of the discharge of the prisoners.

And, finally, that the government of Canada was responsible to the Government of the United States for the acts of Judge Coursol and Mr. Lamothe, and was under obligation to restore the booty brought into the province by the belligerents.

Under this report the government of Canada subsequently refunded to the claimants, to whom the same belonged, the sum of about $58,000, the gold value of the $87,000 seized from the arrested raiders and sub. sequently returned to them. This payment did not include anything on account of the still larger sums plundered and carried off by the raiders, and which never came to the hands of the Canadian authorities.

On the part of the defence various prominent officials of Canada were examined, among them Viscount Monck, governor-general of Canada

at the time of the raid; Sir John A. McDonald, K. C. B., and Sir George E. Cartier, Bart., members of the Canadian ministry at the same time, whose evidence tended to show the absence of any such knowledge or information on their part, in regard to any intended invasion of the United States from Canada, as to call upon them for any precautionary acts beyond those actually taken by the government, and to sustain the claim on the part of Her Majesty's government, that the provincial government of Canada were chargeable with no lack of due diligence in failing to prevent the perpetration of the wrongs alleged by raiders proceeding from Canada in the manner above detailed.

In argument it was maintained on the part of the claimants that the evidence showed the raid to have been plotted and organized in Canada, under the advice and direction of Messrs. C. C. Clay, jr., and Jacob Thompson, confederate agents commorant in Canada. That the sympathies of the Canadian people and the subordinate officials of the government were largely favorable to the confederate cause and hostile to the Government of the United States. That there was no neutrality law in force in Canada at the time of the raid. That in the absence of such neutrality law and by reason of the sympathies of the Canadian people and officials with the confederates, the confederates were enabled to use Canada as a base of operations—the scene of their plans and arrangements for warlike acts against the United States, as their point of departure upon those raids, and their asylum on their return from them. That supposing it conceded that Lord Monck and all his ministry were without fault on their part personally, the officers immediately charged with the maintaining of neu trality upon the frontier-Coursol, Ermatinger, and Lamothe-were shown to have been fully advised of the contemplated invasions, and to have failed of their duty in reporting their knowledge to the government, if they did fail so to report it, and in taking measures to prevent such invasions.

That the positions of Judge Coursol, as superintendent of police for the city and district of Montreal, and of Colonel Ermatinger, the magistrate charged with the entire control of the police force and the militia for the same district, were such as to make notice to them, in fact notice to the government, and that their failure in any respect to perform their official duty was the failure of the government, and charged Great Britain with the consequences of such neglect.

That the government of Canada was under obligation to constantly watch the movements of these enemies of the United States thus plotting the invasion of a friendly nation from the Canadian soil; should have arrested the persons engaged in such plots, or should have expelled them from Canada; and, if the law was found insufficient, should have called on Parliament to make it sufficient. That it was the duty of the Canadian Parliament to have provided by law the means of preventing such invasions; and that the absence of such municipal law could not

be pleaded in bar of the international liability of the government to perform its duty in preserving neutrality towards the United States, a friendly nation. That in fact the government of Canada actually did nothing to prevent these violations of neutrality from their soil, though with abundant reason, irrespective of proof of actual notice or knowledge, to apprehend such invasions by the confederates commorant in Canada; and that the actual notice of such intentions, brought home to Coursol, Ermatinger, and Lamothe, was a notice to the government itself, which was chargeable with the non-feasance or malfeasance of those officers. That the government of Canada was held to "due diligence" to prevent military operations by the enemies of the United States from the soil of Canada, as a base of operations, against the United States. That the measure of this diligence was to be determined by the nature of the danger to be apprehended from the neutral soil, the magnitude of the danger and the results of negligence, the means of the United States to resist or prevent it, the sympathy and aid which the enemies of the United States might receive in Canada, and the unfriendliness of the people of Canada to the United States, the fact of plans for former raids known to the government of Canada, and the hostile speeches and avowed intentions of the enemies of the United States, found in large numbers in that province. That all these considerations combined to require strict diligence on the part of the Canadian government to prevent hostile incursions into the United States across the long and unpro tected frontier between those States and Canada.

The counsel for the claimants insisted that the Canadian government had entirely failed in the performance of these international duties, and that by reason of such failure Great Britain was liable to the United States for the injuries inflicted by the raiders. That the United States had done all in their power, and all which they were required by inter. national law to do, to protect themselves against such dangers from Canada; and that the Government of those States had in their diplomatic correspondence preferred such claims against the government of Her Britannic Majesty, and had fully provided by the treaty for the submission of them to the decision of the commission.

The counsel for the claimants cited the opinion of Count Sclopis upon the question of due diligence in the tribunal at Geneva; also, on the same subject, 1 Phill., 21, 230 to 232; 3 id., 201 to 237; Halleck, 318, 524. They also cited various passages from the diplomatic correspondence between the governments of the United States and Great Britain during the war, and from the papers before the Geneva tribunal, as well as from the protocols to the treaty of 8th of May, 1871, to show that the Government of the United States had always claimed the British government responsible for the injuries to their citizens by the St. Albans raid, and that these injuries occupied a prominent place among the claims of citizens of the United States against Great Britain