t Britain growing out of the operations of the
Confederate cruisers, known as the Alabama claims, were referred to
arbitrators, by whose award the Government of the United States
received the sum of $15,500,000. But the value of the treaty of 1871
was not in the award made. The people of the United States were
embittered against the Government of Great Britain, and had General
Grant chosen to seek redress by arms he would have been sustained
throughout the North with substantial unanimity. But General Grant
was destitute of the war spirit, and he chose to exhaust all the powers
of negotiation before he would advise a resort to force. A passage
in his inaugural address may have had an influence upon the policy of
the British Government: "In regard to foreign policy, I would deal
with nations as equitable law requires individuals to deal with each
other. . . . I would respect the rights of all nations, demanding
equal respect for our own. _If others depart from this rule in their
dealings with us, we may be compelled to follow their precedent."_

The reference of the question at issue to the tribunal at Geneva was
a conspicuous instance of the adjustment of a grave international
dispute by peaceful methods.

By the sixth article of the treaty of 1871, three new rules were made
for the government of neutral nations. These rules are binding upon
the United States and Great Britain, and the contracting parties
agreed to bring them to the knowledge of other maritime powers, and
to invite such powers to accede to the rules.

In those rules it is stipulated that a neutral nation should not
permit a belligerent to fit out, arm, or equip in its ports any vessel
which it has reasonable ground to believe is intended to cruise or
carry on war against a power with which it is at peace. It was further
agreed, as between the parties to the treaty, that neither would
suffer a belligerent to make use of its ports or waters as a base of
operations against the other. Finally, the parties agreed to use due
diligence to prevent any infraction of the rules so established.

Mr. Fish was then Secretary of State, and to him was General Grant and
the country largely indebted for the settlement of the Alabama
controversy; but the settlement was in harmony with General Grant's
inaugural address.

Before the final adjustment of the controversy, by the decision of the
tribunal at Geneva, General Grant had occasion to consider whether
t