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. You all know from history how in time of profound peace, and only a few miles outside the Virginia Capes, the British frigate Leopard fired into the national frigate Chesapeake, pouring broadside upon broadside, killing three persons and wounding eighteen, some severely, and then, boarding her, carried off four others as British subjects. This was in the summer of 1807. The brilliant Mr. Canning, British Minister of Foreign Affairs, promptly volunteered overtures for an accommodation, by declaring his Majesty’s readiness to take the whole of the circumstances of the case into consideration, and “to make reparation for _any alleged injury to the sovereignty of the United States_, whenever it should be clearly shown that such injury has been actually sustained and that such reparation is really due.”[70] Here was a good beginning. There was to be reparation for an injury to the national sovereignty. After years of painful negotiation, the British Minister at Washington, under date of November 1, 1811, offered to the United States three propositions: first, the disavowal of the unauthorized act; secondly, the immediate restoration, so far as circumstances would permit, of the men forcibly taken from the Chesapeake; and, thirdly, a suitable pecuniary provision for the sufferers in consequence of the attack on the Chesapeake; concluding with these words:--
“These honorable propositions are made with the sincere desire that they may prove satisfactory to the Government of the United States, and I trust they will meet with that amicable reception which their conciliatory nature entitles them to. I need scarcely add how cordially I join with you in the wish that they might prove introductory to a removal of all the differences depending between our two countries.”[71]
I adduce this historic instance to illustrate partly the different forms of reparation. Here, of course, was reparation to individuals; but there was also reparation to the nation, whose sovereignty had been outraged.
There is another instance, which is not without authority. In 1837 an armed force from Upper Canada crossed the river just above the Falls of Niagara, and burned an American vessel, the Caroline, while moored to the shores of the United States. Mr. Webster, in his negotiation with Lord Ashburton, characterized this act as “of itself a wrong, and an offence to the sovereignty and the dignity of the United States, … for which, to this day, no atonement, or even apology, has been made by her Majesty’s Government,”[72]--all these words being strictly applicable to the present case. Lord Ashburton, in reply, after recapitulating some mitigating circumstances, and expressing a regret “that some explanation and apology for this occurrence was not immediately made,” proceeds to say:--