found to be much needed
at the eleventh hour of the treaty of Washington. At the end of 1871, Mr.
Gladstone experienced a severe shock, for he found that the case put in by
America for the arbitrators insisted upon an adjudication by them not only
upon the losses suffered by individual American citizens, but upon the
indirect, constructive, consequential, and national claims first
propounded in their full dimensions by Mr. Sumner. A storm at once arose
in England, and nobody was more incensed than the prime minister. In
reporting to the Queen, he used language of extreme vehemence, and in the
House of Commons (Feb. 9, 1872) when Mr. Disraeli spoke of the indirect
claims as preposterous and wild, as nothing less than the exacting of
tribute from a conquered people, Mr. Gladstone declared that such words
were in truth rather under the mark than an exaggeration, and went on to
say that "we must be insane to accede to demands which no nation with a
spark of honour or spirit left could submit to even at the point of
death." Speaking of the construction put upon the treaty by the
government, he declared such a construction to be "the true and
unambiguous meaning of the words, and therefore the only meaning
admissible, whether tried by grammar, by reason, by policy, or by any
other standard." Some persons argued that this was to accuse the Americans
of dishonesty. "I learn really for the first time," exclaimed Mr.
Gladstone to Lord Granville (Feb. 8), "that a man who affirms that in his
opinion a document is unambiguous in his favour, thereby affirms that one
who reads it otherwise is dishonest." His critics retorted that surely a
construction that could not stand the test of grammar, of reason, of
policy, or any other test, must be due either to insanity or to
dishonesty; and as we could hardly assume General Grant, Mr. Fish, and the
others to be out of their wits, there was nothing for it but dishonesty.

For five anxious months the contest lasted. The difficulties were those of
time and form, often worse than those of matter and substance. Nor would
this have been the first case in which small points hinder the settlement
of great questions. The manner of proceeding, as Mr. Gladstone reports to
the Queen, was of such complication that hours were given almost every day
for many weeks, to the consideration of matter which on the day following
was found to have moved out of view. Suggestions came from Washington,
mostly inadmis