NEWS OF THE WEEK,
THE recent correspondence between Mr. Adams and Earl Rua- sell on the American claims for the losses caused by the escape of Confederate cruisers from our ports is discussed in another column. Here we will only say that Mr. Adams manages the awkward duty of bringing round America from an advocate for the widest possible neutral rights to an advocate for the widest possible belligerent rights with great adroitness, while Earl Russell is not in this correspondence quite himself, but appears anxious, desultory, and embarrassed. Earl Russell makes a sufficiently strong case, though he might have put it stronger, for an early recognition of the belligerent rights of the South, and quotes a precedent, which Mr. Adams feels to be nearly unanswerable, to show that the United States refused steadily in the case of Portugal decidedly more plausible claims than she urges on us now. On the other hand, Mr. Adams puts the case of negligence against the Liverpool authorities in per- mitting the escape of the Alabama with almost unanswer- able force, and points out with great ability the disastrous results that may follow to us from disowning too completely the responsibility of neutrals for the equipment of ships of war for belligerents. It would be well if we could avail ourselves of the recent belligerence of the United States, to induce them to give up some of those dangerous claims on the part of neutrals for which they formerly contended against Portugal.
