'There can be no idea more unfounded than that which would call in question his friendliness towards the United States during their contest with the Confederates. But he had a strong sense, both of the duty of strictly observing all obligations incumbent on this country as a neutral Power by the law of nations, and of the danger of innovating upon them by the admission of claims on either side, not warranted by that law as generally understood, and with which, in the then state both of our own and of the American Neutrality Laws, it would have been practically impossible for the Government of a free country to comply. As a general principle, the freedom of commercial dealings between the citizens of a neutral State and belligerents, subject to the right of belligerents to protect themselves against breach of blockade or carriage of contraband, had been universally allowed, and by no nation more insisted on than by the United States. Lord Russell did not think it safe or expedient to endeavour to restrict that liberty. When asked to put in force Acts of Parliament made for the better protection of our neutrality, he took, with promptitude and with absolute good faith, such measures as it would have been proper to take in any case in which our own public interests were concerned; but he thought (and in my judgment he was entirely right in thinking) that it was not the duty of a British Minister, seeking to enforce British statute law, to add to other risks of failure that of unconstitutional disregard of the securities for the liberty of the subject, provided by the system on which British laws generally are administered and enforced. 'It was not through any fault or negligence of Lord Russell that the ship "Alabama," or any other vessel equipped for the war service of the Confederate States, left the ports of this country. The course taken by him in all those cases was the same. He considered that some _prima facie_ evidence of an actual or intended violation either of our own law or of the law of nations (such as might be produced in a court of justice) was necessary, and that in judging whether there was such evidence he ought to be guided by the advice of the Law Officers of the Crown. To obtain such evidence, he did not neglect any means which the law placed in his power. If in any case the Board of Customs may have been ill-advised, and omitted (as Sir Alexander Cockburn thought) to take precautions which they ought otherwise to have taken, this was no fault of Lord Russell; still less was he chargeable with the delay of three or four days which took place in the case of the "Alabama," in consequence of the illness of the Queen's Advocate, Sir John Harding; without which that vessel might never have gone to sea. [Sidenote: LORD SELBORNE'S EXPLANATION]