The Sun.
London, England, 1869-02-15 00:00:00

AMERICA.

A claim set up by the Ingraham family to the town of
Leeds may perhaps have fallen entirely out of public
memory.
It appears, however, that the affair has not
wholly dropped, nor has another will-o'-the-wisp pursuit
of the same kind. The heirs of one Nicholas Albertson
lay claim to the city of Amsterdam. Both are nice
properties, Leeds being valued at twenty millions sterling,
Amsterdam about twelve. A meeting of the Albertson
heirs has been held, and an agent selected to look after
the property. Two thousand dollars were raised, with the
promise of more, to defray his expenses—all to be ready by
the first of February. Nicholas Albertson landed in
America in 1730, and the family trace their origin to him.
It is pretty certain that in England the statute of limi-
tations will exclude all such claims, and it may be taken
for granted that the canny Dutch will make possession
more than nine points of the law.
The Times correspondent says it is decided that the
Forty-first Congress shall assemble on March 4, imme-
diately after President Grant's inauguration, and that
all the important financial questions about which there has
been so much difference of opinion in the present Congress
shall be allowed to go over to the next one for settlement.
The battle between gold and greenbacks has yet to be
fought. The resumption of specie payments is a question
respecting which endless difference of opinions prevail.
Everybody believes it desirable, but many think it at pre-
sent impracticable.

The Indian war is at an end, and it is now expected
that the hostile tribes will withdraw to their reservations
in peace.

THE ALABAMA CLAIMS.

The great variety of opinions expressed respecting the
treaty for the settlement of the Alabama claims is in itself
a proof of the dangerous vagueness of the document. The
Spectator says the Senate will do well to accept the con-
vention, which, on the other hand, does not make
the concession which Lord Russell refused to
make. It does not refer our recognition of
the South to arbitration. The only thing which the
convention empowers the Commissioners either to discuss
themselves or to refer to an umpire, is a claim for specific
damages, and that all the arguments going to support such
a claim must be considered by the Commissioners or their
umpire in the lump, without power to decide on the vali-
dity of this or that special argument, but only on the vali-
dity of the claim, supported by all the arguments of any
kind which may have been submitted. " All tribunals
listen to the most ridiculous subsidiary arguments, if

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that claim depended only on such arguments, it would be
dismissed at once without a moment's hesitation. This is
not satisfactory reasoning. The Spectator forgets that
very many claims will be, and can be, founded only upon
the presumed illegality of our recognition of the South,
and that an umpire may have to decide a vast
issue solely on this one argument. Thus the
recognition will come in, not as a subsidiary,
but as a primary plea, and in that case Lord Stanley's
concession will not differ substantially from that which
Lord Russell refused to make. There ought certainly
to be a clearer definition on thii point. The Saturday
Review thinks there is little reason to regret
the probable failure of the convention. It was
but the result of a series of mortifying concessions,
and all its provisions were certainly too vague. The
nature of the claims to be preferred ought to have been
specified. The Anglo• American Times argues that if the
arbitration included all that the Americans desire, it would
lay open a boundless field of litigation. England could
claim as much, or more, from America, as America could
claim from England.