I.—Statement of Sir Roundell Palmer, made at the seventh conference, on the 27th June, 1872.1
Farther argument appears to Her Britannic Majesty’s Counsel to be necessary on the following, among other points, as to all which he is prepared to show that the new arguments now advanced by the Counsel of the United States are either wholly erroneous and unwarranted, or calculated to mislead, unless corrected by proper explanations and qualifications.Points upon which he desires further argument.
[The statement then continues, as shown post, images 380 to 384 inclusive, and closes as follows:]
IV.—As to the particular ships, Florida, Alabama, Georgia, and Shenandoah.
Her Britannic Majesty’s Counsel does not here particularize various new matters now brought forward or suggested in the Argument of the United States as to each of these ships. If those matters should appear to the Arbitrators to be of any importance, it is not doubted that they will ask for and receive the explanations and answers concerning them, which Her Majesty’s Counsel will be ready at the proper time to give.
General reasons why further arguments on the above points should be allowed.
1. The character of the documentary evidence presented in the several volumes of the Appendix to the Case of the United States, containing a large mass of miscellaneous papers, or extracts from papers, laid before the Congress of the United States, as to much of which it was necessarily impossible for Her Britannic Majesty’s Government to anticipate the use which would be made of them in argument until the present Argument of the United States was presented.
2. The course taken by the Government of the United States in withholding (as far as was possible) their reply as well to the Case as to the Counter Case of Great Britain until the Argument was delivered, so as to make it impossible for the arguments to be at the same time delivered on the part of Her Britannic Majesty’s Government, to deal adequately by anticipation with many important views which it was intended by the United States to present to the Tribunal.
3. The new and copious use made in the Argument by the United States of extracts from the works of Sir Robert Phillimore, and from speeches and writings of various British statesmen in Parliament and elsewhere, to many of which no reference had been before made, and some of which are actually now appended as new matter to the Argument itself.
- This application was denied, and the reply which follows was not received by the Tribunal.↩