Attaching Pauncefote's name to the treaty was a
delicate act of international courtesy since there is Pauncefote's
word for it, privately spoken, that he had nothing to do with the
writing of it.
Hay draughted the treaty by himself probably with the cognizance of
Root and Lodge, the great lawyer who was his associate in the
Cabinet and his closest personal friend in the Capitol. Hay then
handed it to Pauncefote, the British minister here. Pauncefote
transmitted it to the foreign office in London which received it
with surprise and probably with satisfaction, for the Clayton-
Bulwer treaty which it in a sense revived, had been forgotten for
nearly half a century. Delay is the rule of foreign offices.
Perhaps Mr. Hay's treaty was not so generous as it seemed on first
reading, a suspicion which seems to have been justified by the
interpretation put upon it by the final authority upon
international engagements, the Republican National Convention at
Chicago. And if it was as generous as it seemed let not America
think Great Britain too eager in accepting it, let America pay a
little to overcome the reluctance of Great Britain in setting her
approval upon the new contract.
At last, after much apparent hesitation, the foreign office agreed
to the new treaty in consideration of America's throwing in, with
it an arbitration of the Bering Sea dispute.
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