ranspired, and
the facts which he recounts show that Lord Russell, in spite of the
generous admission which he himself made in his 'Recollections,' was in
reality not responsible for a blunder which almost led to war, and which
when submitted to arbitration at Geneva cost England--besides much
irritation--the sum of 3,000,000_l._

'It was when Lord Russell was Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs,
during the American Civil War, and when I was one of the Law Officers of
the Crown, that I first became personally well acquainted with him; and
from that time he honoured me with his friendship. In this way I had
good opportunities of knowledge on some subjects as to which he has been
at times misrepresented or misunderstood; and perhaps I may best do
honour to his memory by referring to those subjects.

'There can be no idea more unfounded than that which would call in
question his friendliness towards the United States during their contest
with the Confederates. But he had a strong sense, both of the duty of
strictly observing all obligations incumbent on this country as a
neutral Power by the law of nations, and of the danger of innovating
upon them by the admission of claims on either side, not warranted by
that law as generally understood, and with which, in the then state both
of our own and of the American Neutrality Laws, it would have been
practically impossible for the Government of a free country to comply.
As a general principle, the freedom of commercial dealings between the
citizens of a neutral State and belligerents, subject to the right of
belligerents to protect themselves against breach of blockade or
carriage of contraband, had been universally allowed, and by no nation
more insisted on than by the United States. Lord Russell did not think
it safe or expedient to endeavour to restrict that liberty. When asked
to put in force Acts of Parliament made for the better protection of our
neutrality, he took, with promptitude and with absolute good faith, such
measures as it would have been proper to take in any case in which our
own public interests were concerned; but he thought (and in my judgment
he was entirely right in thinking) that it was not the duty of a British
Minister, seeking to enforce British statute law, to add to other risks
of failure that of unconstitutional disregard of the securities for the
liberty of the subject, provided by the system on which British laws
generally are administered and