2023-08 Raynors HCA Live
This lot is closed for bidding. Bidding ended on 8/26/2023
March 12, 1889. Treasurer of the United States. Payable in the amount of 69 cents. Issued for reparations paid to under the terms of settlement of the "Alabama Claims".After the Civil War the United States sought restitution from Great Britain which, despite its neutrality, had allowed Confederate cruisers bent on destroying U.S. commerce to come and go from its ports during the war. The U.S. government and private citizens claimed millions of dollars of damage and loss at the hand of these cruisers. The Treaty of Washington, signed by the U.S. and Britain in early 1871, among other things, provided for arbitration of these claims. In the fall of that year, representatives of the two countries went to Geneva to argue their cases before an international arbitration tribunal, the first of its kind. The United States' case was argued by former Assistant Secretary of State Bancroft Davis, along with lawyers Caleb Cushing, William M. Evarts, and Morrison R. Waite, under the direction of Secretary of State Hamilton Fish and Secretary of Treasury George Boutwell. On the tribunal were Charles Francis Adams representing the U.S., Chief Justice Sir Alexander Cockburn of Great Britain, along with arbitrators from Brazil, Italy, and Switzerland. At the conclusion, Great Britain agreed to pay the U.S. the $15,500,000 (£3,200,00) awarded by the tribunal to cover the depredations of the cruisers Alabama, Florida, and Shenandoah.
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