Edward L. Pierce, Memoir and letters of Charles Sumner: volume 4

[399] claims under four heads,—（1) National expenditures in the pursuit of cruisers; (2) Transfer of the American commercial marine to the British flag; (3) Enhanced payments of insurance; and (4) ‘The prolongation of the war, and the addition of a large sum to the cost of the war and the suppression of the rebellion.’ It undertook computations under some of these heads; and, without naming a sum but reciting military events, put on England the responsibility of the war after July 4, 1863 (the day of the battle of Gettysburg), leaving to the tribunal ‘to determine whether Great Britain ought not in equity to reimburse to the United States the expenses thereby entailed upon them,’ with interest at seven per cent from July 1, 1863. Lord Granville¹ thought this ‘an incredible demand,’ involving a ‘magnitude of damages’ which might be ‘enormous;’ and undertaking to compute such a claim from official tables published by our government, found it to amount, without interest, to more than four thousand five hundred millions of dollars!² Davis afterwards charged Sumner with putting forth doctrines and figures which ‘would have shut the door against future negotiation;’ but it was left for him and Mr. Fish to mount far higher in their basis of calculation. It was their ‘Case,’ not any speech from a senator, which came near breaking up the arbitration at Geneva and a peaceful settlement of the controversy.

Our counsel at Geneva in their printed argument maintained with fulness and earnestness and reiteration these national claims, classifying them as in the ‘Case,’ tracing their history