UNITED ITALY AND THE DIS-UNITED STATES
1861-1865

Lord John at the Foreign Office—Austria and Italy—Victor Emmanuel and Mazzini—Cavour and Napoleon III.—Lord John’s energetic protest—His sympathy with Garibaldi and the struggle for freedom—The gratitude of the Italians—Death of the Prince Consort—The ‘Trent’ affair—Lord John’s remonstrance—The ‘Alabama’ difficulty—Lord Selborne’s statement—The Cotton Famine.

Foreign politics claimed Lord John’s undivided attention throughout the four remaining years of the Palmerston Administration. It was well for the nation that a statesman of so much courage and self-reliance, cool sagacity, and wide experience, controlled the Foreign Office in years when wars and rumours of war prevailed alike in Europe and in America. He once declared that it had always been his aim to promote the cause of civil and religious liberty, not merely in England, but in other parts of the world, and events were now looming which were destined to justify such an assertion. It is not possible to enter at length into the complicated problems with which he had to deal during his tenure of the Foreign Office, but the broad principles which animated his policy can, in rough outline at least, be stated. It is well in this connection to fall back upon his own words: ‘In my time very difficult questions arose. During the period I held the seals of the Foreign Office I had to discuss the question of the independence of Italy, of a treaty regarding Poland made by Lord Castlereagh, the treaty regarding Denmark made by Lord Malmesbury, the injuries done to England by the republic of Mexico, and, not to mention minor questions, the whole of the transactions arising out of the civil war in America, embittered as they were by the desire of a party in the United States to lay upon England the whole blame of the insurrection, the “irrepressible conflict” of their own fellow-citizens.’ Both of these questions were far-reaching and crucial, and in his attitude towards Italy and America, when they were in the throes of revolution, Lord Russell’s generous love of liberty and vigour of judgment alike stand revealed.

Prince Metternich declared soon after the peace of 1815 that Italy was ‘only a geographical expression.’ The taunt was true at the time, but even then there was a young dreamer living who was destined to render it false. ‘Great ideas,’ declared Mazzini, ‘create great nations,’ and his whole career was devoted to the attempt to bring about a united Italy. The statesmanship of Cavour and the sword of Garibaldi were enlisted in the same sacred cause. The petty governments of the Peninsula grew suddenly impossible, and Italy was freed from native tyranny and foreign domination. Austria, not content with the possession of Lombardy, which was ceded to her by the treaty of 1815, had made her power felt in almost every direction, and even at Naples her authority prevailed. The Austrians were not merely an alien but a hated race, for they stood between the Italian people and their dream of national independence and unity, and native despotism could always count on their aid in quelling any outbreak of the revolutionary spirit. The governments of the country, Austria and the Vatican apart, were rendered contemptible by the character of its tyrannical, incapable, and superstitious rulers, but with the sway of such powers of darkness Sardinia presented a bright contrast. The hopes of patriotic Italians gathered around Victor Emmanuel II., who had fought gallantly at Novara in 1849, and who possessed more public spirit and common-sense than the majority of crowned heads. Victor Emmanuel ascended the throne of Sardinia at the age of twenty-eight, immediately after the crushing disaster which seemed hopelessly to have wrecked the cause of Italian independence. Although he believed, with Mazzini, that there was only room for two kinds of Italians in Italy, the friends and the enemies of Austria, he showed remarkable self-restraint, and adopted a policy of conciliation towards foreign Powers, whilst widening the liberties of his own subjects until all over the land Italians came to regard Sardinia with admiration, and to covet ‘liberty as it was in Piedmont.’

He gathered around him men who were in sympathy with modern ideas of liberty and progress. Amongst them was Count Cavour, a statesman destined to impress not Italy alone, but Europe, by his honesty of purpose, force of character, and practical sagacity. From 1852 to 1859, when he retired, rather than agree to the humiliating terms of the Treaty of Villafranca, Cavour was supreme in Sardinia. He found Sardinia crippled by defeat, and crushed with debt, the bitter bequest of the Austrian War; but his courage never faltered, and his capacity was equal to the strain. Victor Emmanuel gave him a free hand, and he used it for the consolidation of the kingdom. He repealed the duties on corn, reformed the tariff, and introduced measures of free trade. He encouraged public works, brought about the construction of railways and telegraphs, and advanced perceptibly popular education. He saw that if the nation was to gain her independence, and his sovereign become ruler of a united Italy, it was necessary to propitiate the Western Powers. In pursuance of such a policy, Cavour induced Piedmont to join the Allies in the Crimean War, and the Italian soldiers behaved with conspicuous bravery at the battle of Tchernaya. When the war closed Sardinia was becoming a power in Europe, and Cavour established his right to a seat at the Congress of Paris, where he made known the growing discontent in Italy with the temporal power of the Papacy.

In the summer of 1858 Napoleon III. was taking the waters at PlombiÈres, where also Count Cavour was on a visit. The Emperor’s mood was leisured and cordial, and Cavour took the opportunity of bringing the Court of Turin into intimate but secret relations with that of the Tuileries. France was to come to the aid of Sardinia under certain conditions in the event of a war with Austria. Napoleon was not, of course, inclined to serve Victor Emmanuel for naught, and he therefore stipulated for Savoy and Nice. Cavour also strengthened the position of Sardinia by arranging a marriage between the Princess Clotilde, daughter of Victor Emmanuel, and the Emperor’s cousin, Prince Napoleon. Alarmed at the military preparations in Sardinia, and the growth of the kingdom as a political power in Europe, Austria at the beginning of 1859 addressed an imperious demand for disarmament, which was met by Cavour by a curt refusal. The match had been put to the gunpowder and a fight for liberty took place. The campaign was short but decisive. The Austrian army crossed in force the Ticino, then hesitated and was lost. If they had acted promptly they might have crushed the troops of Piedmont, whom they greatly outnumbered, before the soldiers of France could cross the Alps. The battle of Magenta, and the still more deadly struggle at Solferino between Austria and the Allies, decided the issue, and by the beginning of July Napoleon, for the moment, was master of the situation.

The French Emperor, with characteristic duplicity, had only half revealed his hand in those confidential talks at PlombiÈres. Italy was the cradle of his race, and he too wished to create, if not a King of Rome, a federation of small States ruled by princes of his own blood. The public rejoicings at Florence, Parma, Modena, and Bologna, and the ardent expression of the populace at such centres for union with Sardinia, made the Emperor wince, and showed him that it was impossible, even with French bayonets, to crush the aspirations of a nation. Napoleon met Francis Joseph at Villafranca, and the preliminaries of peace were arranged on July 11 in a high-handed fashion, and without even the presence of Victor Emmanuel. Lombardy was ceded to Sardinia, though Austria was allowed to keep Venetia and the fortress of Mantua. France afterwards took Nice and Savoy; and the Grand Duke of Tuscany and the Duke of Modena were restored to power. The Treaty of ZÜrich ratified these terms in the month of November. Meanwhile it was officially announced that the Emperor of Austria and the Emperor of the French would ‘favour the creation of an Italian Confederation under the honorary presidency of the Holy Father.’

The Countess Martinengo Cesaresco, in a brilliant book published within the last few months on ‘The Liberation of Italy,’ in describing Lord John Russell’s opposition to the terms of peace at Villafranca, and the vigorous protest which, as Foreign Minister, he made on behalf of England, says: ‘It was a happy circumstance for Italy that her unity had no better friends than in the English Government during those difficult years. Cavour’s words, soon after Villafranca, “It is England’s turn now,” were not belied.’[39] With Lord John at the Foreign Office, England rose to the occasion. Napoleon III. wished to make a cat’s-paw of this country, and was sanguine enough to believe that Her Majesty’s Government would take the proposed Italian Confederation under its wing. Lord Palmerston, Mr. Gladstone, and Lord John Russell, were not, however, the men to bow to his behests, and the latter in particular could scarcely conceal his contempt for the scheme of the two emperors. ‘We are asked to propose a partition of the peoples of Italy,’ he exclaimed, ‘as if we had the right to dispose of them.’

Lord John contended that if Austria, by virtue of her presence on Italian soil, was a member of the suggested confederation, she, because of the Vatican, the King of Naples, and the two dukes, would virtually rule the roost. He wrote to the British Minister at Florence in favour of a frank expression on the part of the people of Tuscany of their own wishes in the matter, and declared in the House of Commons that he could have neither part nor lot with any attempt to deprive the people of Italy of their right to choose their own ruler. He protested against the presence in Italy of foreign troops, whether French or Austrian, and in despatches to Paris and Vienna he made the French and Austrian Governments aware that England was altogether opposed to any return to that ‘system of foreign interference which for upwards of forty years has been the misfortune of Italy and the danger of Europe.’ Lord John urged that France and Austria should agree not to employ armed intervention for the future in the affairs of Italy, unless called upon to do so by the unanimous voice of the five Great Powers of Europe. He further contended that Napoleon III. should arrange with Pius IX. for the evacuation of Rome by the troops of France. He protested in vain against the annexation of Savoy and Nice by France, which he regarded as altogether a retrograde movement. In March 1860, in a speech in the House of Commons, he declared that the course which the Emperor Napoleon had taken was of a kind to produce great distrust all over Europe. He regarded the annexation of Savoy, not merely as in itself an act of aggression, but as one which was likely to ‘lead a nation so warlike as the French to call upon its Government from time to time to commit other acts of aggression.’ England wished to live on the most friendly terms with France. It was necessary, however, for the nations of Europe to maintain peace, to respect not merely each others’ rights, but each others’ boundaries, and, above all, to restore, and not to disturb that ‘commercial confidence which is the result of peace, which tends to peace, and which ultimately forms the happiness of nations.’ When Napoleon patched up a peace with Francis Joseph, which practically ignored the aspirations of the Italian people, their indignation knew no bounds, and they determined to work out their own redemption.

Garibaldi had already distinguished himself in the campaign which had culminated at Solferino, and he now took the field against the Bourbons in Naples and Sicily, whilst insurrections broke out in other parts of Italy. France suggested that England should help her in arresting Garibaldi’s victorious march, but Lord John was too old a friend of freedom to respond to such a proposal. He held that the Neapolitan Government—the iniquities of which Mr. Gladstone had exposed in an outburst of righteous indignation in 1851—must be left to reap the consequences of ‘misgovernment which had no parallel in all Europe.’ Garibaldi, carried thither by the enthusiasm of humanity and the justice of his cause, entered Naples in triumph on September 7, 1860, the day after the ignominious flight of Francis II. Victor Emmanuel was proclaimed King of Italy two days later, and when he met the new Parliament of his widened realm at Turin he was able to declare: ‘Our country is no more the Italy of the Romans, nor the Italy of the Middle Ages: it is no longer the field for every foreign ambition, it becomes henceforth the Italy of the Italians.’

Lord John’s part in the struggle did him infinite credit. He held resolutely to the view all through the crisis, and in the face of the censure of Austria, France, Prussia, and Russia, that the Italians were the best judges of their own interests, and that the Italian revolution was as justifiable as the English revolution of 1688. He declared that, far from censuring Victor Emmanuel and Count Cavour, her Majesty’s Government preferred to turn its eyes to the ‘gratifying prospect of a people building up the edifice of their liberties, and consolidating the work of their independence, amid the sympathies and good wishes of Europe.’ Foreign Courts might bluster, protest, or sneer, but England was with her Foreign Minister; and ‘Punch’ summed up the verdict of the nation in generous words of doggerel verse:

The utmost enthusiasm prevailed in Italy when the terms of Lord John’s despatch became known. Count Cavour and General Garibaldi vied with each other in emphatic acknowledgments, and Lord John was assured that he was ‘blessed night and morning by twenty millions of Italians.’ In the summer of 1864 Garibaldi visited England, and received a greater popular ovation in the streets of the metropolis than that which has been accorded to any crowned head in the Queen’s reign. He went down to Pembroke Lodge to thank Lord John in person for the help which he had given to Italy in the hour of her greatest need. Lord John received a beautiful expression of the gratitude of the nation, in the shape of an exquisite marble statue by Carlo Romano, representing Young Italy holding in her outstretched arms a diadem, inscribed with the arms of its united States. During subsequent visits to Florence and San Remo he was received with demonstrations of popular respect, and at the latter place, shortly after his final retirement from office in 1866, he said, in reply to an address: ‘I thank you with all my heart for the honour you have done me. I rejoice with you in seeing Italy free and independent, with a monarchical government and under a patriotic king. The Italian nation has all the elements of a prosperous political life, which had been wanting for many centuries. The union of religion, liberty, and civil order will increase the prosperity of this beautiful country. ’

A still more delicate problem of international policy, and one which naturally came much nearer home to English susceptibilities, arose in the autumn of 1861—a year which was rendered memorable on one side of the Atlantic by the outbreak of the Civil War, and on the other by the national sorrow over the unexpected death, at the early age of forty-two, of the Prince Consort. The latter event was not merely an overwhelming and irrevocable loss to the Queen, but in an emphatic sense a misfortune—it might almost be said a disaster—to the nation. It was not until the closing years of his life that the personal nobility and political sagacity of Prince Albert were fully recognised by the English people. Brought up in a small and narrow German Court, the Prince Consort in the early years of her Majesty’s reign was somewhat formal in his manners and punctilious in his demands. The published records of the reign show that he was inclined to lean too much to the wisdom, which was not always ‘profitable to direct,’ of Baron Stockmar, a trusted adviser of the Court, of autocratic instincts and strong prejudices, who failed to understand either the genius of the English constitution or the temper of the English race. It is an open secret that the Prince Consort during the first decade of the reign was by no means popular, either with the classes or the masses. His position was a difficult one, for he was, in the words of one of the chief statesmen of the reign, at once the ‘permanent Secretary and the permanent Prime Minister’ of the Crown; and there were undoubtedly occasions when in both capacities he magnified his office. Even if the Great Exhibition of 1851 had been memorable for nothing else, it would have been noteworthy as the period which marked a new departure in the Prince’s relations with all grades of her Majesty’s subjects. It not only brought him into touch with the people, but it brought into view, as well as into play, his practical mastery of affairs, and also his enlightened sympathy with the progress in art and science, no less than in the commercial activities, of the nation. It was not, however, until the closing years of his life, when the dreary escapades of the Coalition Ministry were beginning to be forgotten, that the great qualities of the Prince Consort were appreciated to any adequate degree. From the close of the Crimean War to his untimely death, at the beginning of the Civil War in America, was unquestionably the happiest as well as the most influential period in a life which was at once sensitive and upright.

It ought in common fairness to be added that the character of the Prince mellowed visibly during his later years, and that the formality of his earlier manner was exchanged for a more genial attitude towards those with whom he came in contact in the duties and society of the Court. Mr. Disraeli told Count Vitzthum that if the Prince Consort had outlived the ‘old stagers’ of political life with whom he was surrounded, he would have given to England—though with constitutional guarantees—the ‘blessing of absolute government.’ Although such a verdict palpably overshot the mark, it is significant in itself and worthy of record, since it points both to the strength and the limitations of an illustrious life. There are passages in Lady Russell’s diary, of too personal and too sacred a character to quote, which reveal not only the poignant grief of the Queen, but the manner in which she turned instinctively in her burst of need to an old and trusted adviser of the Crown. High but artless tribute is paid in the same pages to the Queen’s devotion to duty under the heart-breaking strain of a loss which overshadowed with sorrow every home in England, as well as the Palace at Windsor, at Christmas, 1861.

The last act of the Prince Consort of an official kind was to soften certain expressions in the interests of international peace and goodwill in the famous despatch which was sent by the English Government, at the beginning of December, to the British Ambassador at Washington, when a deadlock suddenly arose between England and the United States over the ‘Trent’ affair, and war seemed imminent. Hostilities had broken out between the North and the South in the previous July, and the opinion of England was sharply divided on the merits of the struggle. The bone of contention, to put the matter concisely, was the refusal of South Carolina and ten other States to submit to the authority of the Central Government of the Union. It was an old quarrel which had existed from the foundation of the American Commonwealth, for the individual States of the Union had always been jealous of any infringement of the right of self-government; but slavery was now the ostensible root of bitterness, and matters were complicated by radical divergences on the subject of tariffs. The Southern States took a high hand against the Federal Government. They seceded from the Union, and announced their independence to the world at large, under the style and title of the Confederate States of America. Flushed by the opening victory which followed the first appeal to the sword, the Confederate Government determined to send envoys to Europe. Messrs. Mason and Slidell embarked at Havana, at the beginning of November, on board the British mail-steamer ‘Trent,’ as representatives to the English and French Governments respectively. The ‘Trent’ was stopped on her voyage by the American man-of-war ‘San Jacinto,’ and Captain Wilkes, her commander, demanded that the Confederate envoys and their secretaries should be handed over to his charge. The captain of the ‘Trent’ made a vigorous protest against this sort of armed intervention, but he had no alternative except to yield, and Messrs. Mason and Slidell were carried back to America and lodged in a military fortress.

The ‘Trent’ arrived at Southampton on November 27, and when her captain told his story indignation knew no bounds. The law of nations had been set at defiance, and the right of asylum under the British flag had been violated. The clamour of the Press and of the streets grew suddenly fierce and strong, and the universal feeling of the moment found expression in the phrase, ‘Bear this, bear all.’ Lord John Russell at once addressed a vigorous remonstrance to the American Government on an ‘act of violence which was an affront to the British flag and a violation of international law.’ He made it plain that her Majesty’s Ministers were not prepared to allow such an insult to pass without ‘full reparation;’ but, at the same time, he refused to believe that it could be the ‘deliberate intention’ of the Government of the United States to force upon them so grave a question. He therefore expressed the hope that the United States of its own accord would at once ‘offer to the British Government such redress as alone could satisfy the British nation.’ He added that this must take the form of the liberation of the envoys and their secretaries, in order that they might again be placed under British protection, and that such an act must be accompanied by a suitable apology. President Lincoln and Mr. Seward reluctantly gave way; but their decision was hastened by the war preparations in England, and the protests which France, Austria, Prussia, Russia, and Italy made against so wanton an outrage.

The war took its course, and it seemed on more than one occasion as if England must take sides in a struggle which, it soon became apparent, was to be fought out to the bitter end. Thoughts of mediation had occurred, both to Lord Palmerston and Lord Russell, and in 1862 they contemplated the thankless task of mediation, but the project was abandoned as at least premature. Feeling ran high in England over the discussion as to whether the ‘great domestic institution’ of Negro slavery really lay at the basis of the struggle or not, and public opinion was split into hostile camps. Sympathy with the North was alienated by the marked honours which were paid to the commander of the ‘San Jacinto;’ and the bravery with which the South fought, for what many people persisted in declaring was merely the right of self-government, kindled enthusiasm for those who struggled against overwhelming odds. In the summer of 1862 a new difficulty arose, and the maintenance of international peace was once more imperilled. The blockade of the Southern ports crippled the Confederate Government, and an armed cruiser was built on the Mersey to wage a war of retaliation on the high seas against the merchant ships of the North. When the ‘Alabama’ was almost ready the Federal Government got wind of the matter, and formally protested against the ship being allowed to put to sea.

The Cabinet submitted the question to the law officers of the Crown; delay followed, and whilst the matter was still under deliberation the ‘Alabama,’ on the pretext of a trial trip, escaped, and began at once her remarkable career of destruction. The late Lord Selborne, who at that time was Solicitor-General, wrote for these pages the following detailed and, of course, authoritative statement of what transpired, and the facts which he recounts show that Lord Russell, in spite of the generous admission which he himself made in his ‘Recollections,’ was in reality not responsible for a blunder which almost led to war, and which when submitted to arbitration at Geneva cost England—besides much irritation—the sum of 3,000,000l.

‘It was when Lord Russell was Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, during the American Civil War, and when I was one of the Law Officers of the Crown, that I first became personally well acquainted with him; and from that time he honoured me with his friendship. In this way I had good opportunities of knowledge on some subjects as to which he has been at times misrepresented or misunderstood; and perhaps I may best do honour to his memory by referring to those subjects.

‘There can be no idea more unfounded than that which would call in question his friendliness towards the United States during their contest with the Confederates. But he had a strong sense, both of the duty of strictly observing all obligations incumbent on this country as a neutral Power by the law of nations, and of the danger of innovating upon them by the admission of claims on either side, not warranted by that law as generally understood, and with which, in the then state both of our own and of the American Neutrality Laws, it would have been practically impossible for the Government of a free country to comply. As a general principle, the freedom of commercial dealings between the citizens of a neutral State and belligerents, subject to the right of belligerents to protect themselves against breach of blockade or carriage of contraband, had been universally allowed, and by no nation more insisted on than by the United States. Lord Russell did not think it safe or expedient to endeavour to restrict that liberty. When asked to put in force Acts of Parliament made for the better protection of our neutrality, he took, with promptitude and with absolute good faith, such measures as it would have been proper to take in any case in which our own public interests were concerned; but he thought (and in my judgment he was entirely right in thinking) that it was not the duty of a British Minister, seeking to enforce British statute law, to add to other risks of failure that of unconstitutional disregard of the securities for the liberty of the subject, provided by the system on which British laws generally are administered and enforced.

‘It was not through any fault or negligence of Lord Russell that the ship “Alabama,” or any other vessel equipped for the war service of the Confederate States, left the ports of this country. The course taken by him in all those cases was the same. He considered that some prima facie evidence of an actual or intended violation either of our own law or of the law of nations (such as might be produced in a court of justice) was necessary, and that in judging whether there was such evidence he ought to be guided by the advice of the Law Officers of the Crown. To obtain such evidence, he did not neglect any means which the law placed in his power. If in any case the Board of Customs may have been ill-advised, and omitted (as Sir Alexander Cockburn thought) to take precautions which they ought otherwise to have taken, this was no fault of Lord Russell; still less was he chargeable with the delay of three or four days which took place in the case of the “Alabama,” in consequence of the illness of the Queen’s Advocate, Sir John Harding; without which that vessel might never have gone to sea.

‘Lord Russell stated to Mr. Adams, immediately afterwards, that Sir John Harding’s illness was the cause of that delay. No one then called that statement in question, which could not have been made without good foundation. But after a lapse of many years, when almost everybody who had known the exact circumstances was dead, stories inconsistent with it obtained currency. Of these, the most remarkable was published in 1881, in a book widely read, the “Reminiscences” of the late Thomas Mozley. The writer appears to have persuaded himself (certainly without any foundation in fact) that “there was not one of her Majesty’s Ministers who was not ready to jump out of his skin for joy when he heard of the escape of the ‘Alabama.’”[40] He said that he met Sir John Harding “shortly after the ‘Alabama’ had got away,” and was told by him that he (Sir John) had been expecting a communication from Government anxiously the whole week before, that the expectation had unsettled and unnerved him for other business, and that he had stayed in chambers rather later than usual on Saturday for the chance of hearing at last from them. He had then gone to his house in the country. Returning on Monday, when he was engaged to appear in court, he found a large bundle of documents in a big envelope, without even an accompanying note, that had been dropped into the letter-box on Saturday evening. To all appearance, every letter and every remonstrance and every affidavit, as fast as it arrived from Liverpool, had been piled in a pigeon-hole till four or five o’clock on Saturday, when the Minister, on taking his own departure for the country, had directed a clerk to tie up the whole heap and carry it to Doctors’ Commons.

‘The facts are, that in the earlier stage of that business, before July 23, the Attorney- and Solicitor-General only were consulted, and Sir John Harding knew nothing at all about it. No part of the statement said by Mr. Mozley to have been made to him could possibly be true; because during the whole time in question Sir John Harding was under care for unsoundness of mind, from which he never even partially recovered, and which prevented him from attending to any kind of business, or going into court, or to his chambers, or to his country house. He was in that condition on July 23, 1862 (Wednesday, not Saturday) when the depositions on which the question of the detention of the “Alabama” turned were received at the Foreign Office. Lord Russell, not knowing that he was ill, and thinking it desirable, from the importance of the matter, to have the opinion of all the three Law Officers (of whom the Queen’s Advocate was then senior in rank), sent them on the same day, with the usual covering letter, for that opinion; and they must have been delivered by the messenger, in the ordinary course, at Sir John Harding’s house or chambers. There they remained till, the delay causing inquiry, they were recovered and sent to the Attorney-General, who received them on Monday, the 28th, and lost no time in holding a consultation with the Solicitor-General. Their opinion, advising that the ship should be stopped, was in Lord Russell’s hands early the next morning; and he sent an order by telegraph to Liverpool to stop her; but before it could be executed she had gone to sea.

‘Some of the facts relating to Sir John Harding’s illness remained, until lately, in more or less obscurity, and Mr. Mozley’s was not the only erroneous version of them which got abroad. One such version having been mentioned, as if authentic, in a debate in the House of Commons on March 17, 1893, I wrote to the “Times” to correct it; and in confirmation of my statement the gentleman who had been Sir John Harding’s medical attendant in July 1862 came forward, and by reference to his diary, kept at the time, placed the facts and dates beyond future controversy.

‘In the diplomatic correspondence, as to the “Alabama” and other subjects of complaint by the United States, Lord Russell stood firmly upon the ground that Great Britain had not failed in any duty of neutrality; and Lord Lyons, the sagacious Minister who then represented this country at Washington, thought there would be much more danger to our future relations with the United States in any departure from that position than in strict and steady adherence to it. But no sooner was the war ended than new currents of opinion set in. In a debate on the subject in the House of Commons on March 6, 1868, Lord Stanley (then Foreign Secretary), who had never been of the same mind about it with his less cautious friends, said that a “tendency might be detected to be almost too ready to accuse ourselves of faults we had not committed, and to assume that on every doubtful point the decision ought to be against us.” The sequel is well known. The Conservative Government consented to refer to arbitration, not all the questions raised by the Government of the United States, but those arising out of the ships alleged to have been equipped or to have received augmentation of force within the British dominions for the war service of the Confederate States; and from that concession no other Government could recede. For a long time the Government or the Senate of the United States objected to any reference so limited, and to the last they refused to go into an open arbitration. They made it a condition, that new Rules should be formulated, not only for future observance, but for retrospective application to their own claims. This condition, unprecedented and open in principle to the gravest objections, was accepted for the sake of peace with a nation so nearly allied to us; not, however, without an express declaration, on the face of the Treaty of Washington, that the British Government could not assent to those new Rules as a statement of principles of international law which were in force when the claims arose.

‘While the Commissioners at Washington were engaged in their deliberations, I was in frequent communication both with Lord Granville and other members of the Cabinet, and also with Lord Russell, who could not be brought to approve of that way of settling the controversy. He had an invincible repugnance to the reference of any questions affecting the honour and good faith of this country, or its internal administration, to foreign arbitrators; and he thought those questions would not be excluded by the proposed arrangement. He felt no confidence that any reciprocal advantages to this country would be obtained from the new Rules. Their only effect, in his view, would be to send us handicapped into the arbitration. He did not believe that the United States would follow the example which we had set, by strengthening their Neutrality Laws; or that they would be able, unless they did so, to prevent violations of the Rules by their citizens in any future war in which we might be belligerent and they neutral, any more than they had been able in former times to prevent the equipment of ships within their territory against Spain and Portugal. It was not without difficulty that he restrained himself from giving public expression to those views; but, from generous and patriotic motives, he did so. The sequel is not likely to have convinced him that his apprehensions were groundless. The character of the “Case” presented on the part of the United States, with the “indirect claims,” and the arguments used to support them, would have prevented the arbitration from proceeding at all, but for action of an unusual kind taken by the arbitrators. In such of their decisions as were adverse to this country, the arbitrators founded themselves entirely upon the new Rules, without any reference to general international law or historical precedents; and the United States have done nothing, down to this day, to strengthen their Neutrality Laws, though certainly requiring it, at least as much as ours did before 1870.’

Lord Russell then held resolutely to the view that her Majesty’s Government had steadily endeavoured to maintain a policy of strict neutrality, and so long as he was in power at the Foreign Office, or at the Treasury, the demands of the United States for compensation were ignored. Meanwhile, there arose a mighty famine in Lancashire through the failure of the cotton supply, and 800,000 operatives were thrown, through no fault of their own, on the charity of the nation, which rose splendidly to meet the occasion. All classes of the community were bound more closely together in the gentle task of philanthropy, as well as in admiration of the uncomplaining heroism with which privation was met by the suffering workpeople.