The Americans then withdrew the obnoxious part of their “case,” and the arbitrators awarded to the United States £3,229,000 damages against England for the depredations committed by three out of the ten Confederate cruisers which, it was alleged, the British Government had negligently permitted to escape from British ports. The American claim for naval expenses incurred in chasing these cruisers was, however, rejected, because the arbitrators held that it could not be practically distinguished from the general cost of the war. The Lord Chief Justice of England--one of the members of the Tribunal--concurred in the judgment as regards the _Alabama_. He differed from all his colleagues in regard to the _Florida_, and he and the Brazilian arbitrator differed from the majority as to the case of the _Shenandoah_.[39] The failure of the English Government to seize the _Florida_ and _Alabama_, when they put into British ports after they had made their escape, was evidently the fact which bore most strongly against England in the opinion of the Geneva Tribunal. The American claims for damages in respect of the _Georgia_, _Chickamauga_, _Nashville_, _Retribution_, _Sumter_, and _Tallahassee_, were rejected. On the whole, public opinion on both sides of the Atlantic, though not quite satisfied with the verdict, allowed that there had been a fair fight and a fair trial. Lord Chief Justice Cockburn’s dissenting judgment, however, expressed the feeling of the English people, which was this. “Let us admit,” they said, “the _ex post facto_ rule making neutrals liable for damages if they do not exercise ‘due diligence’--the ‘dueness of diligence’ to be always proportionate to the mischief the vessels might do--in preventing the escape of cruisers, and in re-capturing them when they get the chance. English officials were, however, not aware that, when these cruisers escaped and when on re-entering British ports they were not detained, international law demanded from them more ‘dueness’ of diligence than they had exercised or been taught to exercise. Hence it surely was wrong to give damages for their unconscious negligence, just as if their negligence had been conscious.” This argument, indeed, Sir Alexander Cockburn pressed to the point of cutting down to zero the claim for damages in respect of the _Shenandoah_ and _Florida_.