’Amicable negotiations may take place, either between the Powers themselves between whom a dispute has arisen, or jointly with a third Power.  The part to be taken by the latter, for the purpose of ending the dispute, differs essentially according to one or other of two cases; whether the Power, in the first place, merely interposes its good offices to bring about an agreement; or, secondly, is chosen by the two parties, to act as a mediator between them.’  And he adds:  ’mediation differs essentially from good offices; a State may accept the latter, at the same time that it rejects mediation.’

If there were any affront indeed in this case, it was an affront received equally from both parties; for Spain also declined our mediation, after having solicited our good offices, and solicited again our good offices, after declining our mediation.  Nor is the distinction, however apparently technical, so void of reason as it may at first sight appear.  There did not exist between France and Spain that corporeal, that material, that external ground of dispute, on which a mediation could operate.  The offence, on the side of each party, was an offence rankling in the minds of each, from a long course of irritating discussions; it was to be allayed rather by appeal to the good sense of the parties, than by reference to any tangible object.  To illustrate this:  suppose, for example, that France had in time of peace possessed herself, by a coup de main, of Minorca; or suppose any unsettled pecuniary claims, on one side or the other, or any litigation with respect to territory; a mediator might be called in.  In the first case to recommend restitution, in the others to estimate the amount of claim, or to adjust the terms of compromise.  There would, in either of these cases, be a tangible object for mediation.  But where the difference was not external; where it arose from irritated feelings, from vague and perhaps exaggerated apprehensions, from charges not proved, nor perhaps capable of proof, on either side, in such cases each party felt that there was nothing definite and precise which either could submit to the decision of a judge, or to the discretion of an arbitrator; though each might at the same time feel that the good offices of a third party, friendly to both, would be well employed to soothe exasperation, to suggest concession, and, without probing too deeply the merits of the dispute, to exhort to mutual forbearance and oblivion.  The difference is perfectly intelligible; and, in fact, on the want of a due appreciation of the nature of that difference, turns much of the objection which has been raised against our having suggested concession to Spain.