FOREIGN AFFAIRS.--_Treaty of Washington_.--The refusal of the English government to pay the damages to American commerce caused by the Alabama and other Confederate cruisers (p. 268) produced bitter feeling, and even threatened war. A high commission, composed of distinguished statesmen and jurists from both countries, accordingly met in Washington, and arranged the basis of a treaty between the United States and Great Britain, settling this and other causes of dispute. According to its provisions, the claim for losses was submitted to a board of arbitrators, who, having convened at Geneva, Switzerland, awarded the United States $15,500, 000 in gold. [Illustration: HON. HAMILTON FISH, JUSTICE NELSON, EARL GREY, PROF. BERNARD, GEN. SCHENCK, ATTY.-GEN. WILLIAMS, LORD TENTERDEN, SIR JOHN MACDONALD. THE HIGH JOINT COMMISSION IN SESSION.] The difficulty with regard to the Northwestern boundary between the United States and British America was submitted to the Emperor of Germany, and was decided in favor of the United States. Thus happily all danger of war was averted, and the great principle of the settlement of disputes by peaceful arbitration rather than by the sword was finally established. _Proposed Annexation of Santo Domingo._ [Footnote: The island of Santo Domingo is the "New World's classic land." Here Columbus founded the first white colony on this side of the Atlantic, and transporting hither animals, trees, shrubs, vines, and grains, so to speak, grafted the old world upon the new. Hither, also, flocked the bold, adventurous, ambitious Spanish multitude (see p. 26). Great cities sprung up, rivaling the majestic proportions of Moorish capitals. Magnificent enterprises were set on foot and prospered. Here Ponce de Leon renewed his ambition, and set forth afresh on an expedition to Porto Rico, and thence to Florida, in search of the Fountain of Youth (see p. 26). "A century before Henry Hudson sailed up the noble river that perpetuates his name--more than a century before the Puritans landed at Plymouth Rock--the city of Santo Domingo was a rich and populous center of industry and trade. Some of its palaces and churches still remain, massive and splendid; among them, the great cathedral begun in 1514 and finished in 1540." But the Spanish policy of greed and oppression gradually undermined itself. In 1795, when Santo Domingo was ceded to France, it was "abandoned to such a degree that it was a mere wilderness, devoted to the grazing of cattle." Yet, in spite of past tyranny, of neglect, and the knowledge that they had been "sold like a herd of cattle" to a foreign master, the Dominicans were loyal to Spain, and when Napoleon I. took possession of Madrid in 1808, they indignantly rose in arms, overpowered the French garrisons, and made themselves masters of their own country. They then rehoisted the Spanish flag, and in 1814, by the treaty of Paris, Santo Domingo was formally restored to that country.