If damages are ever awarded to a friendly power for injuries received, it is difficult to see where they could be more strenuously claimed than in a case which the First Minister of the offending power did not hesitate to characterize so…

The more the case is examined, the more clearly do we discern the character of the transaction.

The dedication of the ship to the Rebel service, from the very laying of the keel and the organization of her voyage, with England as her naval base, from which she drew munitions of war and men, made her departure as much a hostile…

It was in no just sense a commercial transaction, but an act of war.

She was no better than the Flying Dutchman, and so long as she sailed was liable for that original sin, which had impregnated every plank with an indelible dye.

No British cruiser could allow her to proceed, no British port could give her shelter, without renewing the complicity of England.

Thus her depredations and burnings, making the ocean blaze, all proceeded from England, which by three different acts lighted the torch.

Audacity reached its height when iron-clad rams were built, and the perversity of the British Government became still more conspicuous by its long refusal to arrest these destructive engines of war, destined to be employed against the…

It is plain that the ships which were built under the safeguard of this ill-omened Proclamation, which stole forth from the British shores and afterward enjoyed the immunities of British ports, were not only British in origin, but British…

They were British in every respect, except in their commanders, who were Rebel; and one of these, as his ship was sinking, owed his safety to a British yacht, symbolizing the omnipresent support of England.

Thus from beginning to end, from the fatal Proclamation to the rejoicing of the accidental ship and the rejoicing of the House of Commons, was this hostile expedition protected and encouraged by England.

The same spirit which dictated the swift concession of belligerency, with all its deadly incidents, ruled the hour, entering into and possessing every pirate ship.

Rebel Slaveholders, occupied in a hideous attempt, were taken by the hand, and thus, with the official protection and the God-speed of Antislavery England, commenced their accursed work.

I regret, more than I have words to express, this painful fact, that, of all the countries in Europe, this country is the only one which has men in it who are willing to take active steps in favor of this intended Slave Government.

We supply the ships; we supply the arms, the munitions of war; we give aid and comfort to this foulest of all crimes.

From the beginning they went forth with their cargoes of death;--for the supplies which they furnished contributed to the work of death.

The dead spoke, also,--and the wounded still speak.

And now the day of reckoning has come,--but with little apparent sense of what is due on the part of England.

There is an unhappy incident in our relations with Great Britain, which attests how in other days individual losses were only a minor element in reparation for a wrong received by the nation.

Looking at what is due to us on the present occasion, we are brought again to the conclusion that the satisfaction of individuals whose ships have been burnt or sunk is only a small part of what we may justly expect.

As in the earlier cases where the national sovereignty was insulted, there should be an acknowledgment of wrong, or at least of liability, leaving to the commissioners the assessment of damages only.

Besides degrading us and ruining our commerce, its direct and constant influence was to encourage the Rebellion, and to prolong the war waged by Slaveholders at such cost of treasure and blood.

It was a terrible mistake, which I cannot doubt that good Englishmen must regret.

And now, in the interest of peace, it is the duty of both sides to find a remedy, complete, just, and conciliatory, so that the deep sense of wrong and the detriment to the Republic may be forgotten in that proper satisfaction which a…

What with the high rate of insurance, what with these captures, and what with the rapid transfer of tonnage to British capitalists, you have virtually made valueless that vast property.