"So early as June 12th last, when Lord Russell, in moving a resolution for the rejection of the treaty, charged the Americans with having made no concessions, Lord Granville retorted by pointing to the abandonment of the claim for consequential damages. 'These were pretensions,' he said, 'which might have been carried out under the former arbitration, but they entirely disappear under the limited reference.' There could be no mistake as to his meaning, because in describing the aforesaid 'pretensions' he quoted the strong and explicit language which Mr. Fish had employed. We are bound to believe that Lord Granville spoke in perfect good faith, especially as the American minister was present during the debate, and sent the newspaper verbatim report of it to his own government by the ensuing mail. When the debate took place the ratification of the treaty had not been exchanged. If Lord Granville was in error, why did not General Schenck correct him? "On the same occasion the Marquis of Ripon, also replying to Lord Russell's taunt, remarked that 'so far from our conduct being a constant course of concession, there were, as my noble friend behind me [Earl Granville] has said, numerous occasions on which it was our duty to say that the proposals made to us were such as it was impossible for us to think of entertaining.' This, also, was understood to refer to the indirect claims. "Turning to the debate which took place in the House of Commons on the 4th of August, one searches in vain for any remark in the speeches of Mr. Gladstone, Sir Stafford Northcote, or Sir Roundell Palmer which indicated any suspicion that the _Alabama_ claims had assumed the portentous character which now attaches to them. The doubt which Lord Cairns at one time entertained had been set at rest by the ministerial explanations made at the time in the House of Lords, and not a single argument advanced in the Lower House, either in support of or in opposition to the treaty, touched upon the question of these claims. Even Mr. Baillie Cochrane, the well-known Conservative member, who denounced the treaty on all sorts of grounds, and whose avowed object was to pick as many holes in it as possible, was unable to allege that England had consented to an arbitration which might involve her in indefinite liabilities.