repeated claims for damages
done to American ships and goods. For a long time Great Britain was
firm. Her foreign secretary denied all obligations in the premises,
adding somewhat curtly that "he wished to say once for all that Her
Majesty's government disclaimed any responsibility for the losses and
hoped that they had made their position perfectly clear." Still
President Grant was not persuaded that the door of diplomacy, though
closed, was barred. Hamilton Fish, his Secretary of State, renewed the
demand. Finally he secured from the British government in 1871 the
treaty of Washington providing for the arbitration not merely of the
_Alabama_ and other claims but also all points of serious controversy
between the two countries.

The tribunal of arbitration thus authorized sat at Geneva in
Switzerland, and after a long and careful review of the arguments on
both sides awarded to the United States the lump sum of $15,500,000 to
be distributed among the American claimants. The damages thus allowed
were large, unquestionably larger than strict justice required and it is
not surprising that the decision excited much adverse comment in
England. Nevertheless, the prompt payment by the British government
swept away at once a great cloud of ill-feeling in America. Moreover,
the spectacle of two powerful nations choosing the way of peaceful
arbitration to settle an angry dispute seemed a happy, if illusory, omen
of a modern method for avoiding the arbitrament of war.

=Samoa.=--If the Senate had its doubts at first about the wisdom of
acquiring strategic points for naval power in distant seas, the same
could not be said of the State Department or naval officers. In 1872
Commander Meade, of the United States navy, alive to the importance of
coaling stations even in mid-ocean, made a commercial agreement with the
chief of Tutuila, one of the Samoan Islands, far below the equator, in
the southern Pacific, nearer to Australia than to California. This
agreement, providing among other things for our use of the harbor of
Pago Pago as a naval base, was six years later changed into a formal
treaty ratified by the Senate.

Such enterprise could not escape the vigilant eyes of England and
Germany, both mindful of the course of the sea power in history. The
German emperor, seizing as a pretext a quarrel between his consul in the
islands and a native king, laid claim to an interest in the Samoan
group. England, aware of the dangers arisi