In 1880, Mr. Evarts, the Secretary of State, invited me to act as counsel for the Government in defence of the claims of French citizens for losses sustained during the Civil War. There were more than seven hundred cases and the claims amounted to more than thirty-five million dollars including interest. The recoveries fell below six hundred and thirty thousand dollars. The printed record covered sixty thousand pages, and my printed arguments filled about two thousand pages. The discussion and decisions involved many important questions of international law, citizenship, the construction of treaties, and the laws of war. The chairman was Baron de Arinos. He was a man of unassuming manners, of great intelligence, and of extensive acquaintance with diplomatic subjects. He was reserved, usually, but he was never lacking in ability when a subject had received full consideration at his hands. As far as I recall his decisions, when he had to dispose of cases on which the French and American commissioners differed, I cannot name one which appeared to be unjust. The insignificant sum awarded was due to many circumstances. Of those, who as French citizens had suffered losses during the war, many had become American citizens by naturalization. Again others were natives of Alsace and Lorraine, and the commission held that they were not entitled to the protection of France in 1880 when the treaty was made. But the losses were chiefly due to the absence of adequate evidence as to the ownership of the property for which claims were made, and to the enormous exaggerations as to values in which the claimants indulged. COURTS-MARTIAL Between the year 1880 and the year 1895 there were five general courts- martial held in the city of Washington and I appeared for the defendants in four of them. I was also retained for the investigation of two cases of officers of the Navy who had been convicted by courts-martial, one of them held in the waters of China and the other on the coast of Brazil. The latter, the case of Reed, which may be found in volume 100 of the United States Reports, became important as the first attempt by the Supreme Court to define and limit the jurisdiction of the civil tribunals over the proceedings of courts-martial. The courts consist of thirteen officers of the service to which the accused may belong, and by a majority in number they are his seniors in rank, if the condition of the service will permit such a selection.