Pacific Railway
The commissioners of the United States were instructed to consider (1) the fisheries; (2) the navigation of the St. Lawrence River; (3) reciprocal trade between the United States and the Dominion of Canada; (4) the Northwest water boundary and the Island of San Juan; (5) the claims of the United States against Great Britain for compensation for injuries committed by rebel cruisers; and (6) claims of British subjects against the United States for losses and injuries arising out of acts committed during the recent Civil War.
On the 27th of February (1871), the Commission had their first meeting, in Washington city. Lord Tenterden, Secretary of the British Commission, and J. C. Brancroft Davis, Assistant Secretary of State of the United States, were chosen clerks of the Joint High Commission. They held many meetings and the subjects were fully discussed, when a treaty was agreed to, which provided for the settlement, by arbitration, by a mixed commission, of all claims on both sides for injuries by either governments to the citizens of the other, during the Civil War, and for the permanent settlement of all questions in dispute between the two nations. This treaty was signed on the 8th of May, 1871, and was speedily ratified by the two governments.
The conclusion of the treaty was followed by the appointment of arbitrators. The United States appointed Charles Francis Adams; and Great Britain, Sir Alexander Cockburn. The two governments jointly invited the Emperor of Brazil, the King of Italy, and the President of the Swiss Confederation, each to appoint an arbitrator. The Emperor appointed Baron d'Itazuba; the King chose Count Frederick Sclopis; and the President of the Swiss Confederation appointed James Staempfli. J. C. Bancroft Davis was appointed agent of the United States; and Lord Tenterden, of Great Britain. These gentlemen formed what was termed the "Tribunal of Arbitration."
On the 15th of December, 1871, the "Tribunal" assembled at Geneva, in Switzerland, where Count Sclopis was chosen to preside. After two meetings, it was adjourned to the middle of June, 1872. A final meetings was held in September, the same year; and on the 14th of that month, its decision on the Alabama claims was announced. That decision decreed that the government of Great Britain should pay to the Government of the United States, the sum of $15,500,000 in gold, to be given to citizens of the latter for losses incurred by the depredations of the Alabama, and other Anglo-Confederate cruisers. That amount was paid into the Treasury of the United States, a year afterward, through the agency of the banking firms of Drexel, Morgan & Co. and Jay Cooke & Co., who made a contract with the British government to pay this award on or before the 10th of September, 1873. This transaction was performed in the following manner, without moving a dollar of coin:
The contracting bankers, from time to time, bought bills of exchange, which they deposited in comparatively small amounts, and received coin or gold certificates for such deposits, and purchased United States bonds. Those bonds and coin certificates they finally exchanged with the Secretary of the Treasury for a single certificate for $15,500,000, which reads as follows: "It is hereby certified that fifteen million five hundred thousand dollars have been deposited with the Treasurer of the United States, payable in gold, at his office, to Drexel, Morgan & Co., Morton, Bliss & Co., and Jay Cooke & Co., or their order." This was endorsed by these parties to pay the amount to the British minister at Washington, and the British Consul-General at New York. The minister and consul endorsed it with an order to pay the amount to Hamilton Fish, Secretary of State; and he, in turn, endorsed it with an order to pay it to W. A. Richardson, Secretary of the Treasury. The money was invested in the new five per cent. bonds of the United States of the funded loan, redeemable after the first day of May, 1881; and a commission was appointed to distribute the award among the just claimants for damages.
The question of boundary on the Pacific coast between our country and the British possessions, was referred to the Emperor of Germany, who decided in favor of the claims of the United States, which gave to our territory the island of San Juan, the domain in dispute. So was settled by the peaceful and just method of arbitration, most exciting questions, which, at one time, threatened to be referred to the arbitrament of the sword.
Allusion has been made to the electro-magnetic telegraph, and the first establishment of communication between America and Europe by it. That invention, conceived more than a century ago, was first brought to perfection and made a medium for the transmission of language instantly over great spaces, by Samuel Finely Breese Morse of New York, and was first presented to public notice in the year 1838. He filed a caveat at the Patent Office in the autumn of 1837, and gave a private exhibition of its marvellous power, in the New York University, in January, 1838, when intelligence was instantly transmitted through a circuit of ten miles of wire, and plainly recorded on a cylinder.