Among the more important American arbi trations with other nations in the century before 1900 are the following: With Spain.—A commission, under article 21 of the treaty of 1795 with Spain provided for a commission which met at Philadelphia in 1797 99 and awarded $325,440 to the United States for depredations on American commerce before 1794. To settle spoliation claims arising after 1795 a commission was appointed in 1802, but the provisions governing it were rejected by the United States. Diplomatic relations which were suspended in 1805 were resumed at the close of the Napoleonic wars and resulted in the Treaty of Florida, in 1819, by which all claims were adjusted. In 1870, on the suggestion of Secre tary Fish, the case of the Colonel Lloyd Aspin wall, an American vessel seized near Cuba by the Spanish authorities, was submitted to a board of arbitration which met at New York in the same year and awarded $19,702 to the United States. By an agreement of 1871 a mixed com mission was created to adjust claims resulting from the Cuban insurrection. It met at Wash ington and concluded its labors by February 1883. In 1885 the question of damages for wrongful seizure and detention of the American bark Masonic was referred to Baron Blanc, the Italian Minister at Madrid.
With France.-- The United States and France did not succeed so well in settling their disputes by arbitration. In 1800 they agreed upon a convention for settling disputed claims for depredations after 1788. France did not carry out faithfully her part of the agreement, but in 1803 she concluded another convention providing a commission and the payment of claims. Subsequent depredations produced new claims which France delayed to pay. In 1831 these claims and French counterclaims were adjusted by a commission which awarded the United States an indemnity of $5,558,108. The delay of France in paying led to a rupture of diplomatic relations, but through the media tion of Great Britain in 1836 the claims were paid. In 1880 a board was created to adjust the claims growing out of the Mexican troubles of 1862-67, the American Civil 1Var and the Franco-German War (q.v.). It completed its work in 1884 and awarded $612,000 to France.
With Mexico.— By the treaty of 1339 with Mexico, the adjustment of miscellaneous claims was submitted to a mixed commission, composed of two Mexican commissioners and an umpire (a citizen of Prussia). In the treaty of 1848 the United States and Mexico agreed to submit all disputes to arbitration, and in 1868 they provided for the settlement of all claims after 1848 by a joint commission which held its first meeting in 1869 and finally completed its work in 1876. The award was in favor of the United
States($4,125,622 in favor of citizens of the United States and $150,498 in favor of citizens of Mexico), but Mexico delayed final settle ment, claiming that the award was unjust. Un der the convention of 1889 (and in harmony with the arbitral boundary stipulations of the treaties of 1828, 1853 and 1882) a permanent board, called the International Boundary Com mission, was established to determine questions arising from changes in the course of Rio Grande and the Colorado rivers along the boundary between the United States and Mexico.
With Venezuela.— In 1866 a mixed com mission was created to settle American claims against Venezuela. In 1868 it awarded $1,253, 310 to the United States. Fraud being charged, the claims were finally (1885) submitted to a second commission which in 1890 awarded $980,572 to the United States. Another claims case with Venezuela was that of the Venezuela Steam' Navigation Company in 1892.
Among other cases arbitrated were the fol lowing: Claims for the brig General Arm strong in 1851 (with Portugal); Panama riot claims, in 1857-62 (with New Granada); claims for the brig Macedonia, 1858-63 (with Chile); claims for the United States and Paraguay Navigation Company, 1859 (with Paraguay) ; claims against Costa Rica, in 1860; claims against Ecuador, in 1862; Colombian claims of 1861 and of 1864; Peruvian claims, 1863 and 1868-69; claims for the steamer Montijo, 1874 (with Colombia) ; Pelletier and Lazare claims, 1884 (with Hayti) ; Bokkelen claims, 1888 (with Hayti); the Carlos Butterfield claims, 1888 (with Denmark); Chilean claims, 1892-94; the Santos claims, 1893-96 (with Ecuador).
The Russian seal cases, resulting from the seizure of four American vessels in Bering Sea, in 1891, by a Russian cruiser, was (by protocol of 8 Sept. 1900) submitted to the decision of an arbiter who in 1902 gave a decision award ing $114,670 in favor of the United States.
In addition to submitting its own cases to arbitration, the United States through its offi cials (the President and diplomatic representa tives) in the latter part of the 19th century acted as arbitrator in several cases. She has acted as mediator in numerous cases, the most important being to secure an armistice between Spain and the several trans-Andean South American countries in 1871, and in adjusting a long-standing boundary dispute between Chile and the Argentine Republic in 1881. Her gov ernment has often created tribunals, under her own statutes, to execute conventional obliga tions and. to settle questions of international relations.