ere effectively maintained.
Canadian fishery questions were adjusted, and the boundary of San Juan
remitted to the arbitration of the newly made German Emperor.

(M133) After thirty-seven sittings, spread over a period of two months,
the treaty was signed on May 8, in a room decorated with flowers, with the
good omen of brilliant sunshine, and everybody in such good humour that
the American secretary of the commission tossed up with Lord Tenterden
which should sign first,--the Englishman happily winning. The treaty began
by the declaration that her Britannic Majesty authorised the commissioners
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 these vessels. It embraced a definition of the rules of maritime
neutrality, which some legal text-writers have applauded, and other legal
text-writers have therefore condemned. Finally, and most important of all,
whether we look at the immediate purpose or at its contribution to a great
though slow-moving cause, the treaty of Washington secured a judgment by
the arbitration of a tribunal, of all claims growing out of acts committed
by the cruisers, "and generically known as the _Alabama_ Claims." The
tribunal was to consist of five members named by Great Britain, the United
States, Switzerland, Italy, and Brazil.

The effect of the rules of Washington as applied at Geneva remains, as I
have said, a topic of controversy. Maine, for example, while admitting
that the result for the occasion was good, holds that by making the rule
of neutral duty more severe, it marked reaction rather than progress in
the general drift of international law.(263) Others maintain that the
amended foreign enlistment Act of 1870, which is in fact a partial
incorporation of the Washington rules, went far beyond what international
law requires, and made a new crime out of an act, namely the building of a
ship, which is not forbidden either by the law of nations or by other
municipal laws.(264)

IV

(M134) Once, after some crowning mercy in the war, President Lincoln said
to his cabinet, "Now, gentlemen, we have got our harpoon into the monster,
but we must still take uncommon care, or else by a single flop of his tail
he will send us into all eternity." This wholesome caution, too often
overlooked by headlong politicians, was suddenly