States, or his ignorance of the time prescribed for the filing of petitions, or by reason of fraud, accident, or mistake. It was chiefly for the purpose of examining and deciding the claims filed under this provision that Congress, by an act approved July 22, 1876, extended the existence of the court again till the 1st of the following January, the powers of the clerk being also extended for an additional period, not to exceed two months after that date. Summary of the Court's The court adjourned on the 29th of December 1876 having disposed of all the business before it. The gross amount of the 1,383 claims filed in the six months ending on the 22d of January 1875 was $12,673,451.44, exclusive of interest. This sum however did not include several claims in which it was simply stated that certain property was destroyed, no estimate of its value being offered. In the three months allowed by the act of March 6, 1876, for the filing of additional petitions, 685 claims were received, amounting to $1.825,865.55. Altogether the court disposed of 2,068 claims, aggregating $14,499,316.99, exclusive of interest. The total amount of the judgments was $9,316,120.25, including interest. Nearly all the claims were for the loss of property destroyed by one of the cruisers named in the act, or for the loss of mariners' wages and personal effects occasioned by the destruction of the vessel on which such mariners were serving, or, in the case of whalers, for the loss of catch and of shares of the "lay."3 The necessity of disposing of a large number of claims Services of Counsel. in a short time threw upon the counsel for the United States, who was required to represent the government in each case, an onerous duty. For a time he was by direction of the court assisted in the trial of causes by a member of the bar whom he selected with the court's approval. Assistant counsel were also employed in many cities of the country for the purpose of examining and crossexamining witnesses whose testimony had to be taken there. Testimony. In some cases oral testimony was given before the court. Apart from these cases testimony was generally taken before commissioners appointed by the court, preference being given in the making of such appointments to commissioners of the circuit courts of the United States, and in foreign countries to secretaries of legation and consular officers of the United States. On March 7, 1876, the day after this act was approved, the court adopted the following special rule: "In case of any claimant who may desire to present a claim under the provisions of an act approved March 6, 1876, and w may be absent from the United States at the time of the making or of presenting his petition, such petition may be presented and verified by the attorney in fact of such claimant, or by any agent specially authorized thereto, or by any person acting as agent or next friend; but in every case of a petition filed without precedent authority specifically given, the court will require subsequent ratification of such petition or claim by the claimant. Such agency or ratification shall, in every case, be duly established by proof to the satisfaction of the court." 219 Stats. at L. 96. Testimony was taken on notice, and either on written interrogatories or on oral examination by attending counsel, in almost every State or Terr.tory in the Union, and in Great Britain, France, Germany, Japan, China, India, Peru, the West Indies, the Hawaiian Islands, and other foreign countries. Mode of Trial. The usual mode of trial was necessarily simple. The claimant filed a petition setting forth his demand, and the United States joined issue by the clerk's entering on the record a general denial. Printed briefs were submitted, wherever necessary. The judges on important questions delivered written opinions. For the purpose of estimating the value of ships and The Trinity Masters." materials used in navigation, the services of three experienced officers of the revenue marine, Captains McGowan, Ottinger, and Henriques, were secured. These officers came familiarly to be known as the "Trinity Masters;" and their expert testimony, given orally at the trial, on behalf of the government, proved to be of great assistance.2 The clerk of the court, Mr. Davis, who performed Services of the Clerk, the duties of his office in such a manner as to secure the commendation of the judges and of the Secretary of State, prepared for the convenience of the court and bar a printed docket and issued the opinions of the judges in printed form immediately on their delivery. At the conclusion of his labors, besides settling the accounts of the court and placing its records in the Department of State, he presented to the Secretary of State a report which contains, in addition to a general statement of the business and powers of the court, remarks on the principal points decided and the text of the more important opinions delivered by the court.4 The opinions of the court, together with the dissentOpinions of the Court. ing opinions, were collected and bound in two small volumes, which form part of the printed records. In these volumes the paging is not continuous. By the act of June 23, 1874, the judges constituted Powers of the Judges. a "court;" but it does not follow that they possessed, in general, judicial powers not expressly conferred by the statute. In one case Porter, J., delivering the opinion of the court, said: "The act of Congress has conferred on this court almost unprecedented powers, by making us judges both of the law and the facts of every case, and giving no appeal from our judgments to any other tribunal; but the court is nevertheless one, not of general, but of special and limited jurisdiction, and clearly no claimant can bring himself within Davis's Report, 11. 2 Hackett's Geneva Award Acts, 11. 3 Hackett's Geneva Award Acts, 20; S. Ex. Doc. 21, 44 Cong. 2 sess. 154-155. 4 S. Ex. Doc. 21, 44 Cong. 2 sess. In this report Mr. Davis adverted to the services of Mr. Creswell, and called attention to the assistance rendered, in the transaction of the business of the court, by Messrs. J. Scott Laughton, J. C. Poor, Thornton Carusi, Arthur O'Conor and R. W. C. Mitchell, the shorthand reporter. this jurisdiction without an exact and faithful compliance with the terms of the act."1 In another case the court, holding that it had power to permit the amendment of claims, expressed the opinion that it possessed the same power in respect to the amendment of pleadings as "belonged generally to other courts;" but it based its decision principally on the provision of the act of 1874, which expressly conferred on it the power to make rules for the government of its procedure.2 In yet another case the court held that it had no power to decide conflicting questions of title between claimants, or to compel claimants to interplead. Its powers were, said the court, "identical with those given to the commissioners under the Spanish treaty," as determined by the Supreme Court of the United States in the case of Comegys v. Vasse, 1 Peters, 193, in which it was held that those commissioners had power to decide upon the amount and validity of claims against the United States, but not upon the conflicting rights of parties to the sums awarded by them.3 In one case in which certain claims of counsel were not allowed, counsel requested the court, which had delivered no opinion, to state its rulings on the points of law involved, contending that it was a court of the United States and that an appeal from its rulings would lie to the Supreme Court of the United States. The motion was not allowed.1 Where a claimant failed to aver in his petition that Claimants Who Were? he did at all times during the late rebellion bear true allegiance to the United States," so as to bring himself within the terms of the twelfth section of the act of 1874, Porter, J., delivering the opinion of the court, after observing that how the amount of the award at Geneva was made up was not known, and that the act of Congress must be the chief guide in the actual work of distribution, said: "It is clear to us that the government had the right to prescribe the terms on which claimants should present their claims. They were not strong enough to compel payment of the money by Great Britain, and when this government obtained it the claimants had no power to demand it, and no legal right to it except that which the government by its own acts chose to accord. They must, therefore, take their respective shares of it subject to all the conditions which the government has thought it fit to appoint, or not take them at all." The court, however, looked to the correspondence in relation to the Alabama claims, and to the proceedings before the Geneva tribunal, in order to determine what was meant in the act of Congress by "all claims admissible under this act directly resulting from damage caused by the so-called insurgent cruisers," etc. And on the ground, among others, that claims for personal injuries were not put forward by the United States either in the diplomatic correspondence or * * * ! Williams v. United States, No. 45, Davis's Report, 30, 32. Davis's Report, 125. 3 Davis's Report, 112. This ruling was followed by the second Court of Commissioners of Alabama Claims, in the case of Small v. United States, No. 1942, class 1. See also Butler v. Goreley, 146 U. S. 303. 4 Davis's Report, 23. 5 Williams v. United States, No. 45, Davis's Report, 31. before the Geneva tribunal, the court held that it was not the intention of Congress that such claims should be allowed, such an intention not having been clearly expressed. In another case the court, in considering whether a British subject could assert a claim upon the fund, said: "Whilst, as before said, these preliminary discussions and negotiations are of no binding authority upon this court, yet does not national courtesy and good faith require of us to suppose that Congress in creating this court never intended we should distribute this fund other than for the purposes for which Great Britain supposed she was paying it? * If Great Britain supposed, as seems to have been the case, that in paying this money it was to indemnify those who had been injured by her failure to execute her own municipal laws, would she not regard any action on our part in indemnifying her own subjects for her neglect as inconsistent with the objects and purposes for which she agreed to the arbitration in the first place, and to the payment of the money in the second place?" 2 All claims, of which there were several, for loss of property destroyed by cruisers other than the Alabama and the Florida and their tenders, and the Shenandoah after she left Melbourne, were dismissed for want of jurisdiction.3 National Losses. 4 Only one claim was filed for national losses. This was a claim presented by the Secretary of the Navy ✦ for the loss of the Hatteras, a vessel of war, sunk by the Alabama, and for the loss of the Greenland, a vessel chartered by the Navy Department as a transport and destroyed by the Florida. Several claims were filed by the officers of the Hatteras under the act of June 23, 1874, for the loss of property destroyed when the vessel was sunk, and these claims, which were afterward allowed, were pending when the act of March 6, 1876, was passed, permitting the presentation of further claims. It was under the latter act that the claim in question was filed by the Secretary of the Navy, and when the case was reached the solicitor of the Navy Department and the counsel for the United States submitted the whole matter to the consideration of the court. The court, through Jewell, J., after stating that the presentation of the claims of the officers of the Hatteras might have led the Secretary of the Navy to think it his duty in his official capacity to present the petition, lest he might at some time be thought to have been remiss in the care of his special department and be called to account therefor, expressed a clear opinion that Congress did not intend that the court should consider any claims for property of the United States destroyed by any of the Confederate cruisers. The court said: "It is well known that all claims for compensation for the loss of public property of the United States were either abandoned voluntarily by the counsel of the United States before the arbitrators at Geneva or were absolutely rejected by the tribunal itself, and the only damages awarded were for the value of private vessels and property destroyed. The fund out of which our judgments are paid represents the estimated value of private I Williams v. United States, No. 87, Davis Report, 26. 2 Davis's Report, 35, 41. 3 Davis's Report, 22. 4 Geo. M. Robeson, Secretary of the Navy v. United States, No. 2066, Davis's Report, 120. property alone, and does not include anything based upon the value of public property destroyed. "The reclamation made upon Great Britain was made by our Government in its capacity of sovereign, and not as a mere representative of private interests, and the indemnity received has been paid to the United States as a government. The fund is now in the Treasury, entirely under the control of Congress, invested as directed by Congress, and was so when the act constituting this court was passed. Congress might have refused to pass any act providing for the indemnification of citizens; it might have retained the whole fund; it did appropriate such part of the fund as it judged just and right to be distributed among certain classes of claimants therefor. After the payment of the amount of our judgments, as provided by law, it may still retain the balance remaining, or it may provide for a further distribution among other classes of claimants. But in so doing it will dispose of its own; of money held in the Treasury of the government, free from all restraints except those which ought to influence any sovereign power under the circumstances. No judgment of this court can change the character of this fund, or any part of it, so as to make it in any higher sense the property of the government than it now is. "If our judgment in this respect would have any effect it would be to lessen the right or power of the government over the unused balance. The Navy Department is a part of the government itself, and any award we should make to it would be to the government, and the effect of such award would rather be to lead to the conclusion that the remainder of the fund not needed to satisfy our judgments was not in a just and true sense the property of the United States, over which Congress had supreme power and control. If our judgment is needed to conter upon the United States any title to a part of this fund, it would follow that the government has not a complete title to the remainder. "We are satisfied that Congress did not intend to give us the power to adjudicate upon the rights of the government in regard to this fund." Claims for injuries to the person were rejected. Such Injuries to the Per son. claims were not preferred by the United States, either in the diplomatic correspondence or in the proceedings at Geneva, and the court held that it was the intention of Congress to limit its jurisdiction to claims for the loss of property only. In several cases where claimants asked indemnity for injury to health, occasioned by the exposure, fright, and suffering consequent upon capture, or harsh treatment after capture, while on one of the so-called insurgent cruisers, demurrers were filed and sustained.2 Claims of Insurers. Six claims of insurers, corporate or individual, were allowed, aggregating $111,055.23, exclusive of interest. In all these cases the claimants alleged and proved that their losses in the business growing out of war risks were greater than their premiums and other gains growing out of such risks. In one case in which no allegation to that effect was made, the petition was dismissed.2 Meaning of "True It has been seen that by section 12 of the act of 1874 it was provided that no claim should be allowed "arising in favor of any person who did not at all times during the late rebellion bear true allegiance to the United States." The claimant in a certain case alleged "that he was not at the times mentioned in the petition herein, nor at any other time or times, actively or otherwise, or in any way, engaged in making or carrying on war against the United 1 Williams v. United States, No. 87, Davis's Report, 26. |