"Sir Stafford Northcote, in the course of his humorous speech--a speech instinct with good feeling towards the United States--said that 'a number of the claims under the convention which was not adopted [the Johnson-Clarendon Treaty] were so vague that it would have been possible for the Americans to have raised a number of questions which the commissioners were unwilling to submit to arbitration. They might have raised the question with regard to the recognition of belligerency, with regard to constructive damages arising out of the recognition of belligerency, and a number of other matters which this country could not admit. But if honorable gentlemen would look to the terms of the treaty actually contracted they would see that the commissioners followed the subjects very closely by making a reference only to a list growing out of the acts of particular vessels, and in so doing shut out a large number of claims which the Americans had previously insisted upon, but which the commissioners had prevented from being raised before the arbitrators.' All this points unmistakably to the definite and limited character of the claims which, in the judgment of the English negotiators, were alone to be submitted to arbitration. "It seems to me that Judge Williams, in the speech he made at the banquet I had the honor to give to the British High Commissioners in New York, expressed sentiments which can only be similarly construed. 'Many persons,' he said, 'no doubt, will be dissatisfied with their [the Joint High Commissioners'] labors; but to deal with questions so complicated, involving so many conflicting interests, so as to please everybody, is a plain impossibility; but in view of the irritation which the course of Great Britain produced in this country during our late rebellion, and in view of the one-sided and generally exaggerated statements of our case made to the people, the American commissioners consider themselves quite fortunate that what they have done has met with so much public favor in all parts of the country and among men of all political parties.'