Our deliberations and conclusions were, of course, kept secret. It was of the utmost importance that nothing should get out regarding them. Our sessions were delayed and greatly prolonged, partly on account of the amount of work to be done in studying the many questions involved, and partly because we hoped that, more and more, British opinion would tend to the submission of the whole question to the judgment of a proper international tribunal; and that Lord Salisbury, the prime minister, who, in his rather cynical, "Saturday-Review," high-Tory way, had scouted the idea of arbitration, would at last be brought to it. Of course, every thinking Englishman looked with uneasiness toward the possibility that a line might be laid down by the United States which it would feel obliged to maintain, and which would necessitate its supporting Venezuela, at all hazards, against Great Britain. The statesmanship of Mr. Cleveland and Mr. Olney finally triumphed. Most fortunately for both parties, Great Britain had at Washington a most eminent diplomatist, whose acquaintance I then made, but whom I afterward came to know, respect, and admire even more during the Peace Conference at The Hague--Sir Julian, afterward Lord, Pauncefote. His wise counsels prevailed; Lord Salisbury receded from his position; Great Britain agreed to arbitration; and the question entered into a new stage, which was finally ended by the award of the Arbitration Tribunal at Paris, presided over by M. de Martens of St. Petersburg, and having on its bench the chief justices of the two nations and two of the most eminent judges of their highest courts. It is with pride and satisfaction that I find their award agreeing, substantially, with the line which, after so much trouble, our own commission had worked out. Arbitration having been decided upon, our commission refrained from laying down a frontier-line, but reported a mass of material, some fourteen volumes in all, with an atlas containing about seventy-five maps, all of which formed a most valuable contribution to the material laid before the Court of Arbitration at Paris. It was a happy solution of the whole question, and it was a triumph of American diplomacy in the cause of right and justice.