more accurately, each effect becomes itself a cause; and so on, from cause to effect, in a longer or shorter series of alternations between cause and effect according to the particular circumstances.

(e) If lawgivers and jurists had been able to say that all damages for wrong should stop at the first effect of the cause, the definition of the rule would be less vague than it is in the common expression; but even then it would be necessary to reflect that the cause does not necessarily operate in a single line only, but frequently in several lines it may operate in diverse directions, and produce many immediate and direct effects, as by radiation from the common centre of the causa causans like a stone cast into water,

Of course, the solution of the problem becomes more and more difficult in proportion to the multiplicity of these different lines of action in which the primitive causes operate to produce effects, which are themselves new causes, and all of them the natural, not to say necessary, consequences of the one definite act of wrong.

(f) As a given event may be, and often is, produced by a plurality of causes working together, so may a wrong be the effect of the action of two or more persons. In such case, the injured party has right of redress against all and each of the wrong-doers, although neither of them may be morally accountable for all the injury, and some one of them may have contributed to the injury in a comparatively small degree. But it is no defence for any of the wrongdoers to say, "I did but co-operate with "others, and that in a comparatively small degree, to inflict the injuries."

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Whether the effect complained of be or not indirectly

!

connected with the cause, whether it be proximate or remote, whether the reputed injury be or not the natural and logical consequence of the alleged act of wrong, all these are in part questions of fact, which cannot be reduced to absolute precision, but of which the competent tribunal must judge.

Thus, in the example so much discussed by writers on the civil law, suppose that the buildings, cattle, and horses of a cultivator are destroyed by the malicious or culpable negligence of another, so as to establish the right of indemnity against the author of the conflagration, how far shall the demand of damages extend?

Reparation must at least comprehend all which it costs to rebuild the farm buildings, and to procure the same number and quality of cattle and horses, and the personal inconvenience and derangement caused by the conflagration.

But the destruction of the buildings and cattle has interrupted cultivation, and deprived the proprietor of his expected crop. Shall this too be included in the indemnity?

And the interruption of culture, and the losses incidental thereto, embarrass the proprietor, so that, in the course of the expenditure to which he is subjected in the purchase of materials of construction and cattle and horses, he becomes indebted; the failure of his crop deprives him of the expected means of payment, his creditors come upon him and seize and sell whatever he has, and thus he becomes ruined and reduced to absolute destitution.

All these disasters are the manifest consequence and effect of the acts of the incendiary. Is the incendiary responsible for them all? Or is he only responsible for

the value of the things consumed? Are the subsequent losses, which are confessedly the natural consequences of the act of wrong, so remote or indirect as to relieve the incendiary of responsibility therefor?

The law does not require that the damage recoverable shall be the necessary effect of the cause, that is, an effect impossible to prevent; it does not require that the damage recoverable shall be the first effect of the cause, but only that the damage shall have efficient cause in the act of wrong.

And the party injured is not to be deprived of redress, if he failed to employ extraordinary means to arrest the progress of his losses, and diminish their amount, provided he took the ordinary steps of prudence to that end.1

All these, we repeat, are considerations of fact, which the competent Tribunal judges according to the circumstances and which do not admit of absolute legal conclusions of law.

(h) Damages. reparation, indemnity, all these are terms to describe the same thing.

Indemnity includes both lucrum cessans and damnum emergens. It includes also moral as well as material damage.

And it involves injury to persons as well as things.

But, in all cases, the question of the amount of damage and its equivalent in pecuniary reparation, becomes one of fact for the consideration and the equitable determination of the competent Tribunal, as illustrated by the

1 Sour lat, De la Responsabilité, tom. I, p. 96.

* Ibid., p. 244.

numerous cases, especially at common law, in which revision of sentence is called for on account of erroneous verdicts of damage.

2. We proceed to apply these considerations to the several heads of injury to the United States growing out of the acts of the Confederate cruisers sub lite, and the consequent damages due by Great Britain, discussing these points in the order in which they appear in the American Case.

(a) The United States claim indemnity for actual properly of the Government in vessels destroyed, and for immediate personal injuries to the officers and crews, caused by the Confederate cruisers, the responsibility for whose acts we have in previous discussion attached to Great Britain.

In our enumeration of the particular facts, we have considered the case of each cruiser in respect of which we claim; we have proceeded to connect each of those cruisers with the British Government, so as, in our opinion, to establish its failure to fulfil the rules of the Treaty in regard to the several cruisers; and we have treated fully the question of diligence as to each of these cruisers, as required by the Treaty rules.

(b) The property destroyed consisted, first, of vessels, with their apparel, equipment and armament, belonging to the Government of the United States.

Statements in detail of the losses of this class, officially certified either by the Secretary of the Treasury or the Secretary of the Navy, according as the vessels appertained to one or the other branch of the public service. appear in the Appendix to the American Case.

There is no question here of indirect or direct damages,

notwithstanding some vague suggestions to that effect in the British Counter-Case.

If a ship destroyed at sea is not a case of direct loss, then there is no sense in language, and no reason in law.

What amount of damage is due in such a case? Surely the value of the thing destroyed is the minimum of such amount, even throwing out of question the element of wrong, and looking at it as one of simple negligence.

How shall the value of the thing destroyed be ascertained? We present official certificates of the value, and we confidently submit, as between Governments, that such official statements are to be received as fact. The British Counter-Case undertakes to contradict such official certificates by means of opinions of the British Admiralty. We reject all such opinions. We refuse to recognise them as available in any sense to detract from the authentic proof contained in the authoritative documents offered by the American Government.

(c) The United States claim indemnity in like manner for vessels and other actual property of private citizens of the United States destroyed, and for immediate personal injuries to the officers and crews, caused by Confederate cruisers, the responsibility of whose acts we have, as we think, already attached to the British Government.

The nature of these reclamations is explained in the American Case and in the Appendix thereto, especially in the seventh volume, and in supplementary documents, there will be found detailed statements, made on oath, with valuations and other particulars for the information of the Tribunal.

The British Counter-Case undertakes to control the