The Sun.
London, England, 1869-06-03 00:00:00

THE ALABAMA CLAIMS.

The correspondence respecting the negotiations with
the United States Government on the Alabama claims,
the British claims, the questions of Naturalisation,,
and the San Juan Boundary, has just been published.
The first despatch is dated February 15, 1868. It is from
Lord Stanley to Mr. Thornton, and states that Mr.
Seward had expressed a wish that some means might be
found of arranging the differences existing between Eng-
land and the United States. The questions causing these
differences were enumerated by Mr. Seward as follows :
The Alabama claims, the San Juan question, the question
of naturalised citizens, their rights and position, and the
fishery question. It was urged on the side of the
United States that the naturalisation and the San Juan
questions should be taken first, and this was accordingly
done. Then came the Alabama claims. On October 21,
1868, Lord Stanley writes that Mr. Reverdy Johnson had
called on him the day before, an " much conversation
passed between us, in the course of which Mr.
Reverdy Johnson again put forward the proposal adverted
to in Mr. Seward's former despatches, viz., that all
•he claims on both sides should be referred to the
aecision of commissioners, who should be, in equal
'umbers, British subjects and American citizens ;
•rho, if they disagreed, should have power to call
;n an umpire; and whose decision with such assistance
should be final." It will thus be seen that the machinery
r,hicb, with a trifling difference, was subsequently adopted
was, like almost all the stipulations, of American origin.
We must call particular attention to another passage
of this despatch. Lord Stanley writes :—" In this
conversation little was said as to the point on Which
'.he former negotiation was broken off—viz., the claim
made by the United States Government to raise before
the arbiter the question of the alleged premature recog-
lition by her Majesty's Government of the Confederates
us belligerents. I stated to Mr. Reverdy Johnson that
we could not on this point depart from the position we
bad taken up, but I saw no impossibility in so
framing the reference as that by mutual consent,
either tacit or express, the difficulty might be avoided."
The Times says it is evident from this conversation, and
from the subsequent Convention, that the grievance of
the Neutrality Proclamation was not insisted upon at that
time by the United States Government. Indeed, as we
shall see presently, it was only revived a few weeks ago
by Mr. Reverdy Johnson as a last device for making
his work palatable to the Senate. Negotiations now
went on rapidly, and on November 10, a " Convention for
the Settlement of ail Outstanding Claims" was signed,
the agreement which was to remove all causes of bitterness
between the two countries being announced with much
complacency by Mr. Johnson at the Lord Mayor's dinner.
Up to this moment her Majesty's Government had no
doubt at all that Mr. Reverdy Johnson was fully autho-
rised by his instructions to agree to the terms actually
settled.

Yet this Convention of November 10 was thrown over
by the American Government. Mr. Thornton writes on
November 30 that Mr. Seward had informed him that the
contents of the Convention were not in accordance with
the instructions given to Mr. Reverdy Johnson, that the
President and his colleague could not approve certain
of the stipulations, and that, in its present form, the
Convention would not receive the sanction of the
Senate. The Ministry in England had been changed,
and it became the duty of Lord Clarendon to decide
on the propriety of a new Convention. The amend-
ments demanded by the United States were numerous and
important, the omission of three articles relating to the
arbitration on the Alabama claims, among other changes,
being required. On December 24 Lord Clarendon
wrote that the Government were prepared to meet the
wishes of the United States, and he sent a draft
Convention, in which everything the Americans asked
was substantially conceded. Finally, the negotia-
tion was completed on January 14, 1869, by the signing
of the second Convention, the instrument which has
been lately rejected by the American Senate. One of
the most singular incidents is yet to be told. As
late as the 22nd of March last, Mr. Reverdy Johnson
called on Lord Clarendon to propose that another amend-
ment should be made in the much-amended Convention.
This was nothing less than that the two Powers should
submit to arbitration all claims of each Government on the
other, as well as the claims of individuals. The intention, of
course, was that the question of the liability of England
for the Queen's Proclamation should be submitted
among the others for the judgment of the tribunal.
Mr. Reverdy Johnson's language is singular:—" My
Government believes, as I ant now advised, that it has a
claim of its own upon her Majesty's Government, be-
cause of the consequences resulting from a premature
recognition of the Confederates during our late war." It
is sufficient to add that this amendment was courteously
declined, and that any further suggestions of the American
Envoy were cut short by the rejection of the Conven-
tion by the American Senate on April 13, after it had
been under consideration for no less a period than three
months. Thus has ended this remarkable negotiation, in
which our Government, the limes thinks, appears to have
carried conciliation and forbearance to the utmost, only
to meet with ever new and more exorbitant demands.

The Triennial Choral Festival in aid of the National
Society for Promoting the Education of the Poor took place
on Wednesday in Westminster Abbey. The sermon was
preached by Dean Stanley.
THE TRUSTEES OF THE PEABODY FUND.—Sir
Stafford Northcote has been appointed one of the trustees
of the Peabody Fund for the benefit of the London poor,
in the room of Sir Emerson Tennent, deceased. The
trustees now are Lord Stanley (chairman), Sir Curtis
Lampson, the American Minister, Sir Stafford Northcote,
and Mr. J. S. Morgan.
THE BANQUET TO MINISTERS.—With reference
to the project which has been broached of entertaining the
two new members of the Reform Club, Earl Granville and
Mr. Gladstone, at a dinner, the London correspondent of
the Bury and Norwich Post says the difficulty as to space
is in the way. The dining-room of the club would not be
nearly large enough for all the members, and though all
would not probably be there, arrangements would have to
be made for them. There is a dislike to go elsewhere
for the banquet, and so the scheme for the moment is in
abeyance.

A DESERTER IN A PACKING-CASE.—A despatch
from Kingston (Canada) to the Toronto Clo'g of the 20th
ult., says : " A man by the name of John Newman was
charged at the police-court this morning with assisting a
soldier of the Royal Artillery to desert, by boxing him
up in a large case, and conveying him to Cape Vincent
by the steamer Watertown. It appeared that the box
containing the man was yesterday afternoon conveyed to
the wharf and carefully deposited upon the two o'clock
boat, as crockery-ware and glass, directed to Mr. R. E. Fox,
St. Lawrence Hotel, Cape Vincent, N.Y. The box was
conveyed to its destination, accompanied by the prisoner,
and carefully deposited upon the wharf there, and when
opened by the direction of the Custom House officers, a
live artilleryman got out, somewhat cramped by his con.
fined position, and rather red in the face, but none the
worse for is temporary boxing,",