nt, and the diplomatic details which
ordinarily would have required months to adjust were now settled by
cable in an hour. The first proposal for a Joint High Commission was
made by Sir Edward Thornton on the 26th of January, 1871; and the
course of events was so rapid that in twenty-seven days thereafter
the British Commissioners landed in New York _en route_ to Washington.
They sailed without their commissions, which were signed by the Queen
at the castle of Windsor on the sixteenth day of February and forwarded
to them by special messenger. This was extraordinary and almost
undignified haste, altogether unusual with Plenipotentiaries of Great
Britain. It was laughingly said at the time that the Commissioners
were dispatched from London "so hurriedly that they came with
portmanteaus, leaving their servants behind to back their trunks and
follow." For this change of view in the British Cabinet and this
courier-like speed among British diplomatists, there was a double
cause,--the warning of the Franco-Prussian war, and President Grant's
proposition to pay the _Alabama_ Claims from the Treasury of the
United States--and wait. Assuredly the President did not wait long!

The gentlemen constituting the Joint High Commission were well known
in their respective countries, and enjoyed the fullest measure of
public confidence, thus insuring in advance the acceptance of whatever
settlement they might agree upon.(5) The result of their deliberations
was the Treaty of Washington, concluded on the eighth day of May, 1871.
It took cognizance of the four questions at issue between the two
countries, and provided for the settlement of each. The _Alabama_
claims were to be adjusted by a commission to meet at Geneva, in
Switzerland; all other claims for loss or damage of any kind, between
1861 and 1865, by subjects of Great Britain or citizens of the United
States, were to be adjusted by a commission to meet in Washington;
the San Juan question was to be referred for settlement to the
Emperor of Germany, as Umpire; and the dispute in regard to the
fisheries was to be settled by a commission to meet at Halifax, Nova
Scotia.

The basis for adjusting the _Alabama_ claims was promptly agreed upon.
This question stood in the forefront of the treaty, taking its proper
rank as the principal dispute between the two countries. Her
Britannic Majesty had authorized her High Commissioners and
plenipotentiaries "to express in a friendly sp