Office of the Historian

Record of the proceedings of the tribunal of arbitration at the thirty-second conference held at Geneva, in Switzerland, on the 14th of September, 1872.

[Geneva, Switzerland, September 14, 1872.]

Signature of award and dissolution of tribunal. The conference was held with open doors, pursuant to adjournment. All the arbitrators and the agents of the two governments were present.

The protocol of the last conference was read and approved, and was signed by the president and secretary of the tribunal.

The president then presented the decision of the tribunal on the question of the “Alabama claims,” and directed the secretary to read it; which was done, and the decision was signed by Mr. Charles Francis Adams, Count Frederic Sclopis, Mr. Jacques Stæmpfli, and Viscount d’Itajuba, arbitrators, in the presence of the agents of the two governments.

A copy of the decision thus signed was delivered to each of the agents of the two governments, respectively, and the tribunal decided to have a third copy placed upon record; they further decided that the decision should be printed and annexed to the present protocol.1

Sir Alexander Cockburn, as one of the arbitrators, having declined to assent to the decision, stated the grounds of his own decision, which the tribunal ordered to be recorded as an annex to the present protocol.2

The tribunal resolved to request the council of state of Geneva to receive the archives of the tribunal and to place them among its own archives.

The president, Count Sclopis, then directed the secretary to make up the record of the proceedings of the tribunal at this thirty-second and last conference, as far as completed; which was done, and the record having been read and approved, was signed by the president and secretary of the tribunal and the agents of the two governments.

Thereupon the president declared the labors of the arbitrators to be finished and the tribunal to be dissolved.

  • FREDERICK SCLOPIS.
  • J. C. BANCROFT DAVIS.
  • TENTERDEN.
  • ALEX. FAVROT, Secretary.
  1. For a copy of this paper, see post, No. iii.↩
  2. This paper was not annexed to the official protocol delivered to ‘the agent of the United States. A paper entitled “Reasons of Sir Alexander Cockburn for dissenting from the award of the tribunal of arbitration” was published in the supplement to the London Gazette of the 24th of September, 1872, and a copy of this number of the Gazette was transmitted to the agent of the United States as the paper that should have been annexed to the protocol. This paper is printed hereafter uuder the title “Sir A. Cockburn’s Opinions.”↩