Her Majesty's Government are the sole guardians of their own honor.

They cannot admit that they have acted with bad faith in maintaining the neutrality they professed.

The law officers of the Crown must be held to be better interpreters of a British statute than any foreign Government can be presumed to be..." He consented to a commission, but drew the line at any probing of England's good faith.
We persisted.

In 1868, Lord Westbury, Lord High Chancellor, declared in the House of Lords that "the animus with which the neutral powers acted was the only true criterion." This is the test which we asked should be applied.

We quoted British remarks about us, Gladstone, for example, as evidence of unfriendly and insincere animus on the part of those at the head of the British Government.
Replying to our pressing the point of animus, the British Government reasserted Russell's refusal to recognize or entertain any question of England's good faith: "first, because it would be inconsistent with the self-respect which every government is bound to feel...." In Mr.John Bassett Moore's History of International Arbitration, Vol.