It is not easy to say how much of this change, which has become chronic, may be referred to British pirates; but it cannot be doubted that they contributed largely to produce it.

The sacrifice of precious life is beyond human compensation; but there may be an approximate estimate of the national loss in treasure.

The Rebellion was suppressed at a cost of more than four thousand million dollars, a considerable portion of which has been already paid, leaving twenty-five hundred millions as a national debt to burden the people.

It will be for a wise statesmanship to determine how this fearful accumulation, like Ossa upon Pelion, shall be removed out of sight, so that it shall no longer overshadow the two countries.

It is easy to see that there may be occasions, where, overtopping all individual damages, are damages suffered by the nation, so that reparation to individuals would be insufficient.

Nor can the claim of the nation be questioned simply because it is large, or because the evidence with regard to it is different from that in the case of an individual.

Impartial history will record the national losses from British intervention, and it is only reasonable that the evidence of these losses should not be excluded from judgment.

Because the case is without precedent, because no nation ever before received such injury from a friendly power, this can be no reason why the question should not be considered on the evidence.

Every British pirate was a public nuisance, involving the British Government, which must respond in damages, not only to the individuals who have suffered, but also to the National Government, acting as paterfamilias for the common good of…

Thus by an analogy of the Common Law in the case of a Public Nuisance, also by the strict rule of the Roman Law, which enters so largely into International Law, and even by the rule of the Common Law relating to Damages, all losses…

If the case against England is strong, and if our claims are unprecedented in magnitude, it is only because the conduct of this power at a trying period was most unfriendly, and the injurious consequences of this conduct were on a scale…

Life and property were both swallowed up, leaving behind a deep-seated sense of enormous wrong, as yet unatoned and even unacknowledged, which is one of the chief factors in the problem now presented to the statesmen of both countries.

The attempt to close this great international debate without a complete settlement is little short of puerile.

With the lapse of time and with minuter consideration the case against England becomes more grave, not only from the questions of international responsibility which it involves, but from better comprehension of the damages, which are seen…

The mass of a mountain cannot be measured at its base; the observer must occupy a certain distance; and this rule of perspective is justly applicable to damages which are vast beyond precedent.

Shall these claims be liquidated and cancelled promptly, or allowed to slumber until called into activity by some future exigency?

There are many among us, who, taking counsel of a sense of national wrong, would leave them to rest without settlement, so as to furnish a precedent for retaliation in kind, should England find herself at war.

There are many in England, who, taking counsel of a perverse political bigotry, have spurned them absolutely; and there are others, who, invoking the point of honor, assert that England cannot entertain them without compromising her honor.

It is not difficult to imagine one of our countrymen saying, with Shakespeare’s Jew, “The villany you teach me I will execute, and it shall go hard but I will better the instruction”; nor is it difficult to imagine an Englishman firm in…

Meanwhile good men must unite to make it impossible.

The truth must be told,--not in anger, but in sadness.

England has done to the United States an injury most difficult to measure.

At a great epoch of history, not less momentous than that of the French Revolution or that of the Reformation, when Civilization was fighting a last battle with Slavery, England gave her name, her influence, her material resources to the…

Strange that the land of Wilberforce, after spending millions for Emancipation, after proclaiming everywhere the truths of Liberty, and ascending to glorious primacy in the sublime movement for the Universal Abolition of Slavery, could do…

Like every departure from the rule of justice and good neighborhood, her conduct was pernicious in proportion to the scale of operations, affecting individuals, corporations, communities, and the nation itself.