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18th Congress.]

No. 371. 

[1st Session.

  SUPPRESSION OF THE SLAVE TRADE.

COMMUNICATED TO THE SENATE IN EXECUTIVE SESSION APRIL 30, 1824, AND THE INJUNCTION OF SECRECY SINCE REMOVED.

To the Senate of the United States:

I transmit to the Senate, for their constitutional advice with regard to its ratification, a convention for the suppression of the African slave trade, signed at London, on the 13th ultimo, by the minister of the United States, residing there, on their part, with the plenipotentiaries of the British Government, on the part of that nation, together with the correspondence relating thereto; part of which is included in a communication made to the House of Representatives on the 19th ultimo, a printed copy of which is among* the documents herewith sent.

Motives of accommodation to the wishes of the British Government render it desirable that the Senate should act definitively upon this convention as speedily as may be found convenient.

JAMES MONROE.

Washington, April 30, 1824.

List of papers sent.

Mr. Rush to Mr. Adams, January 23, 1824. No. 1.

Same to same, March 15, 1824. No. 2.

Convention signed March 13, 1824. Copy.

Counter-projet and protocols.

Printed copy of message of the President to the House of Representatives, March 19, 1824.

No. 1.

London, January 23, 1824.

Sir: 1 received, on the evening of the 20th instant, a note from Mr. Secretary Canning, requesting me to call on the following day at the Foreign Office, for the purpose of meeting there Mr. Huskisson and Mr. Stratford Canning, by which I at once understood that the negotiation which the President has confided to me was now about to have its regular commencement. I went at the time appointed, when, meeting these gentlemen, I was informed by them that their instructions, as well as full powers as the plenipotentiaries of this Government, were made out, and that all things were ready on their side for opening the negotiation. I replied that I, too, was ready on the part of the United States, upon which the 23d was fixed upon for our first meeting.

The negotiation has accordingly been opened this day, in due form, at the Office of the Board of Trade. At the wish of Mr. Secretary Canning, specially expressed at the Foreign Office the day before yesterday, the subject of the slave trade is that upon which we have first entered. Our introductory conferences

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upon it occupied a couple of hours, when an adjournment took place until Thursday next, the 29th instant. It was agreed that the same subject should then be resumed, and, without discussing others, proceeded with until it should be finished.

In making my reports to you of this negotiation, for the information of the President, my intention is not to make them from meeting to meeting, a course that might often prove unsatisfactory and unavailing, but to wait the issue of the whole, or, at any rate, the completion of some one subject, before I proceed to write about it. This was the plan pursued at the joint negotiation with this court in 1818, in which I bore a share, and I hope will be approved. I will take care to deviate from it whenever circumstances may seem to render a deviation necessary and proper. As, moreover, I must, simultaneously with this negotiation, attend to the business of the legation, it has occurred to me, that, as often as I may find it necessary to write to you respecting the latter, whilst the negotiation is in progress, I will go on with the regular series in numbering my despatches, treating those that I shall write on the negotiation as distinct, and so numbering them.

I cannot flatter myself with the expectation that the work of the negotiation will be very soon done. The subjects are many and complicated. The session of Parliament is at hand, and will, when it arrives, make heavy calls upon the time of one of the British plenipotentiaries; added to which, the daily interruptions to which my own time is liable—always the lot of the permanent incumbent of this mission— will be too liable to increase the unavoidable obstacles to frequent and rapid conferences. I can only repeat, that my best endeavors shall not be spared, and I presume to hope that my past conduct in this trust will be accepted as the pledge of my future diligence. Although there have been delays in bringing on the negotiation, all my preliminary correspondence in relation to it will, I trust, have not arisen through my instrumentality.

The standing of one of the British plenipotentiaries is so well known with us that I need not speak of it. The other, Mr. Huskisson, (first named in the commission,) is of the Cabinet, a distinguished member of the House of Commons, the president of the Board of Trade, and Treasurer of the Navy. Besides his reputation for talents, which is high, he seems to be no less generally regarded as a man of liberal principles and conciliating temper.

I have the honor to remain, with very great respect, your obedient servant,

RICHARD RUSH.

Hon. John Quincy Adams, Secretary of Stale.

No. 2.

London, March 15, 1824.

Sir: I have the honor to inform you that I concluded and signed, on behalf of the United States, the day before yesterday, a convention with this Government for the suppression of the slave trade, which instrument I herewith transmit to your hands, to be laid before the President.

In my despatch, No. 355, written previously to the commencement of the negotiation, I mentioned that Mr. Secretary Canning had expressed a wish that the subject of the slave trade should be treated separately from all others on which I had received the instructions of my Government, and that I had not thought it necessary to object to this course. In pursuance of it, this subject was accordingly taken up separately, and was the first upon which we entered, as you have already been informed in my despatch, which announced the formal opening of the negotiation. The only deviation from the course indicated in my latter despatch has been, that other subjects have since been gone into, though none, as yet, finished, a mode of proceeding that was found eligible.

With the convention, I also transmit the protocols of the several conferences at which its provisions were discussed and settled; and, for the better understanding of the whole subject, I proceed to give you a more full account of the nature and progress of the discussions than can be afforded by the protocols.

I offered, in the first instance, to the British plenipotentiaries, and without any alteration, the projet that came inclosed to me in your despatch, No. 65, of the 24th of June, explaining and recommending its provisions by such considerations as were to be drawn from your despatch, and others that seemed apposite. They remarked, that they hoped it would be borne in mind that the plan offered was not of the choice of Great Britain, her preference having been distinctly made known to Europe, as well as to the United States, for a different plan; nor was it, they said, necessary towards the more effectual abolition of the traffic by her own subjects, her home statutes and prohibitions being already adequate to that end. As regarded the latter intimation, I replied, that the United States stood upon at least equal ground with Great Britain, their existing laws against the slave trade being marked by even a higher tone of severity, and the consequent exclusion of their citizens from all participation in the trade being, as was believed, so far as the virtue of municipal laws could avail, not less effectual. As to the preference of Great Britain for a different plan, I contented myself with alluding, without more of retrospect, to the uniform objections that had been made to it by the leading powers of Europe, especially by Prance and Russia, as well as by the United States; and with remarking, that my Government had charged me with the duty of presenting the projet in question, under the two-fold view of bringing forward, according to the wish of Great Britain, a substitute for the plan that had been rejected, and to carry into effect a resolution which had passed the House of Representatives of the United States upon this subject at the close of the last session of Congress. I added, that it was the sincere belief of my Government, rendering, at the same time, full justice to all the past efforts of Great Britain in the cause of abolition, that if she could see her way to the acceptance of the plan now offered, combining, as it did, the great principle of denouncing the slave trade as piracy, with a system of international co-operation for its suppression, the evil would be more effectually extirpated, and at a day not distant, than by any other modes that had heretofore been devised. The British plenipotentiaries replied, that they would give it a candid examination, esteeming themselves fortunate, considering the great moral interests at stake, and which both nations had alike at heart, if they could reconcile its acceptance with the opinions and convictions which had hitherto guided the conduct of their Government on this subject. They gave their unhesitating assent to the principle of denouncing the traffic as piracy by the laws of Great Britain, provided we could arrive at a common mind on all other parts of the plan proposed.

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After they had had the plan a proper time under consideration, they expressed their fears that parts of it would prove ineffectual, unless with modifications and additions, which they would proceed to enumerate. These were principally as follows: They said that as soon as the two powers, by their mutual laws, had rendered all participation in the slave trade piracy, and, by a formal convention, agreed to unite their naval efforts for its suppression, it might be expected that the subjects and citizens of each who meditated a commission of the offence would no longer venture to assume the proper flag of either country, but seek to shroud their guilt under that of some third power not yet a party to the convention. British subjects or American citizens might, for example, readily charter a Danish, a Swedish, or a Russian vessel, and, under cover of either of these flags, with simulated papers and other fraudulent contrivances, pursue the traffic, whilst the true owner of the vessel remained in ignorance of the real and guilty transaction. Were such transgressors, the British plenipotentiaries asked, to be screened from all detection and punishment, though the vessel should be afterwards restored? I answered, that I presumed not, and that the words of the second article of the projet, or for the account of their subjects or citizens. were, as I supposed, intended to meet such a case, or other similar attempts to get rid, by evasive pretexts, of the penalties created by the convention. They agreed in ascribing to them this meaning, but thought that some more distinctive provision would be necessary to prevent such evasions. They further asked, suppose a British subject or an American citizen to be taken whilst engaged in the slave trade on board of a vessel not belonging to either power, or navigated on account of the subjects or citizens of either, and brought into Great Britain or her dominions, or into the United States, ought he not to be tried indiscriminately in either country, since the laws of each would alike brand him as a pirate? This inquiry, if answered in the affirmative, involving a conflict with one of the primary provisions of the plan, the British plenipotentiaries did not press, but, on the contrary, willingly withdrew it. They proposed, in lieu of it, that the subjects or citizens of either party, taken under such circumstances, should be sent home for trial before the tribunals of their own country; and to the proposition, as altered in this essential particular, I said that there would, probably, be no exception taken, for it might happen that British subjects thus offending would be found within the jurisdiction of the United States; and if their own citizens were ever justly captured whilst so offending, as a law of Congress already subjected them when in this predicament to the doom of pirates, I did not anticipate from my Government any objection to their being sent home for trial in our own courts, under whatever circumstances or by whatever country they might be lawfully seized.

Would not serious or fatal embarrassments, they also asked, arise in regard to evidence, under the criminal prosecution against the crew of the slave trading vessel for the act of piracy, as provided by the eighth article of the projet? If the libel against the vessel took place first, as was supposed would be the case, how could the captain or crew be examined on interrogatories, since the fact of the condemnation of the vessel would draw after it their own guilt? Their answers, consequently, might bring them into jeopardy. I replied, that the commander or boarding officer, and other persons belonging to the capturing vessel, being sent in as witnesses against the accused vessel, might, perhaps, under a convention of a character like the present, supersede, in some degree, the necessity of examining the crew, as was usual in admiralty causes; but that if this would not be proper as a general rule, it might hold good, to some extent, in cases where the interior arrangements and structure of the vessel, and, above all, the actual presence of slaves, combined to establish more unequivocally, to the very eye, the iniquity of the voyage. At all events, the objection, if valid, which was not admitted, could go no further than to except from the criminal prosecution those of the crew, supposed to be few in number, who might be selected as witnesses on the part of the State or Crown, leaving the rest open to all the penal inflictions of the convention. The British plenipotentiaries ultimately agreed that the objection was unfounded, on learning from their law officers that the right of a witness not to answer, where a confession of guilt might be involved, was merely a general shield thrown over him, to be used or not, according to circumstances and the opinion of the court, without otherwise affecting the action at law or public prosecution, in the course of which the right might be claimed. It was an independent right that stood upon its own basis, the existence and knowledge of which was not previously to foreclose the institution of this or any other prosecution any more than it would the institution of a suit in a court of chancery or before any other judicial tribunal.

They next drew my attention to the fifth article, which provides that no person shall be taken out of the captured vessel; a point that I had declared would be considered by my Government as indispensable. What, then, they asked, might sometimes be the lot of the slaves? Suppose an hundred of them, or even more, on board the captured vessel, and that vessel perhaps a small one; suppose them all crowded together under such circumstances of cruelty, that disease was among them, and death daily thinning their numbers; a supposition not exaggerated under all the recollections of this afflicting traffic, but too likely to be often realized as long as it was continued; what, in such a case, was to be done? I replied, that I did not, for myself, understand the word person as applicable in this sense to the slaves, but to the crew of the vessel. Nor did I regard the term cargo, against which a prohibition of removal alike indispensable existed, as descriptive, under this convention, of the slaves. Hence, when the removal of the latter, or of any portion of them, should be found obviously necessary from imperious motives of humanity, I saw no sufficient reason for questioning the propriety of allowing, under suitable regulations, such removal to take place.

As no person belonging to the crew was to be taken out, the British plenipotentiaries, continuing their remarks upon the fifth article, next said that a power on the part of the capturing ship to confine the crew below, or otherwise restrain them, would be absolutely necessary, in contingencies to be fairly imagined, to give full effect to the principles which the projet intended to secure. The delinquent vessel, as often happened, might be powerfully manned. These men rendered fierce, not to add desperate, by their vocation, and the perils to which by capture they would become exposed, could not want the desire and would naturally watch the opportunity of overcoming the captors in whose custody they were placed. Ought not, therefore, the captors to be furnished with adequate means of keeping the mastery over them until the captured vessel was safely conveyed to her destination?

Such were the principal amendments or suggestions which the British plenipotentiaries at an early stage put forward, and they were discussed between us in a temper frank and amicable. They declared that they did not offer them in the spirit of objection, but under sincere wishes to secure for the plan at all points the recommendations and potency which it must be supposed each nation equally aimed at imparting to it. It was designed to act upon a stubborn as well as malignant class of offenders, whose cunning was not behind their depravity, and who had hitherto put to scorn the efforts of good men in all

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countries to check the stupendous enormity of their deeds. They concluded with saying that they would present to my consideration a counter-projet, on the part of Great Britain, embracing what they deemed to be the necessary provisions upon the whole subject. I replied, that the articles of the plan which I had submitted had not been drawn up to the exclusion of others that Great Britain might, in turn, have to propose; nor were they all to be insisted upon in the shape in which they first stood. There were, indeed, cardinal principles in them that could on no account be departed from; but there were others, as well as much of detail, open to whatever alterations or additions both parties might be able to agree in thinking proper and useful. This was the spirit in which I knew it to be the desire of my Government that the negotiation should be conducted.

The essential principles of our plan, as gathered from my best attention to it, in connexion with your instructions, I considered to be: 1st. That this nation was to declare the slave trade piracy by act of Parliament. 2d. That the captured vessel was to be sent to her own country for trial before its own tribunals, and never before those of the capturing power. 3d. That no individual belonging to the crew was ever to be taken out of the accused vessel. 4th. That the capturing officer should be laid under the most effective responsibility for his conduct, in all respects. 5th. That no merchant vessel under the protection or in the presence of a ship-of-war of her own nation was ever to be visited by a ship-of-war of the other nation. I informed the British plenipotentiaries, unreservedly, that I could consent to nothing that did not give full security to each and all of the above principles. I knew that some of them bespoke a great change in pre-existing principles and usages under the maritime code of the world; but the change was not for light but high objects, and was believed by my Government to be the only means by which they could be adequately and permanently secured.

At the fourth conference their counter-projet was brought forward. I was happy to find that it acceded to all the principles that are above recapitulated, adopting, too, and largely, the language in which our own articles had been framed. To its first article, however, or rather to that passage in it which relates to convoy, I took strong exception, owing to the manner in which it was worded and the import that it might bear. I also objected as strongly to the phraseology of so much of its tenth article as purported to save to both parties all their existing rights; upon both these passages; upon their second article, bringing under the cognizance of the convention the subjects or citizens of either power surreptitiously chartering the flag of a third power; upon that part of their seventh article, also, bringing within the pale of the convention the subjects or citizens of either power found on board the slave trading vessel of a third power, though not chartered or owned by them; and upon those parts of their fourth article which make provision for restraining the crew of the captured vessel and removing the slaves, full discussions followed at the fourth, the fifth, and the sixth conferences. More than once I was not without apprehensions that the whole work would fall through. More than once it rested upon a difficult balance, awakening solicitude for its fate. To their passage on convoy I objected, on full consideration, absolutely, and urged the reinsertion of our own article on this subject in its very words, as being simple, intelligible, and appropriate. They as strenuously resisted its reinsertion, not, as they repeatedly and unequivocally declared, from any desire ever to exercise the power which it interdicted, and which would, therefore, render the reinsertion superfluous, but because they objected to the word convoy and to the whole formality of our article, which would be embarrassing in its comparison with the arrangements settled on this point in the treaty between Great Britain and the Netherlands of May, 1818. Finally, as I could not give up the principle, but was not tenacious of the word, I agreed to drop it on having any other words, however few, that would carry the principle, but not more than the principle. Their own words, viz: except when in the presence of a ship-of-war of its own nation, would, I said, satisfy me, provided all that followed were expunged; and to this they assented. To the part expunged I had many objections, and, amongst others, that it approximated closely to the article in their treaty with the Netherlands, if, indeed, constructively, it might not have become identical with it, though the British plenipotentiaries protested against intending to give it any such character or meaning. It implied, also, I thought, the indecorum of presupposing that the naval officers of either power could be lax in the execution of their own duty.

The words of their tenth article, designed to save existing rights, I also struck out, declaring that those which formed the concluding passage of our own ninth article must be received as the substitute for them. Why, I asked, mention existing rights at all? By the universal rule of interpretation, applicable to treaties, they would remain unchanged. The treaty or convention that we were forming was special in its objects; special in its powers; special in its concessions. All other rights, whatever they might be, on either side, that did not range within the peculiar orbit of this convention, as novel as beneficent in its grand intention, were necessarily left just as they were before. But they continued to insist upon the exclusion of my words and the retention of their own until the close of the sixth conference, when they agreed to allow mine to stand, and to abandon theirs, in the parts from which I did not feel authorized to withdraw my opposition. The last member of the sentence upon this point, in the article as it now stands in the convention, viz: nor be taken to affect in any other way the existing rights of either of the high contracting parties, is that with which, in the end, they became satisfied. It will be seen how essentially it varies from the parallel passage as first submitted in their counter-projet.

To the sending home of our citizens for trial if taken in the act of piracy under the flag of a third power, as provided in their seventh article, I objected, on more consideration, as not likely to bring with it the due practicable reciprocity when the convention went into operation. Great Britain had the right under existing treaties to seize the slave trading vessels of Portugal, of Spain, and of the Netherlands; whereas the United States, as yet, had no such correlative right. But the British plenipotentiaries earnestly pressed its adoption, with a view to the more full attainment of all the objects of the convention now and hereafter. In the face of our own act of Congress of the 15th of May, 1820, which already subjects to death as a pirate any citizen of the United States convicted of being of the crew or ship's company of any foreign vessel engaged in the slave trade; in the face, too, of the general rule of public law, which has heretofore authorized the punishment of pirates by the courts of whatever nation they may be brought before, I did not feel called upon to persist in my opposition. I could scarcely continue to urge as very objectionable the being furnished with the means (should the occasion arise) of executing our own laws upon our own citizens, by whomsoever they might be detected and secured, whilst in the act of violating them. The British plenipotentiaries, moreover, remarked that the whole convention exhibited a preponderance of concession on the side of Great Britain in accommodation to the principles and views of the United States. At our instance she was about, by a new statute of her realm, to make the slave trade piracy; at our instance she agreed that the captured vessel and crew should be sent to their own country for trial, a course also new to all her past maritime doctrines and

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experience; and as regarded all the incidental consequences flowing from these two fundamental concessions, she still, at our instance, gave up or modified many of her former national and jurisprudential practices and predilections. They said, too, that the preponderance of burden under the convention would lie with Great Britain, both in the greater number of public ships that she would employ in the suppression of the traffic, and in the fact of the United States not having colonial dependencies, as Britain had, to serve as ready depots for those detected in it. I was far from lending my concurrence to these sentiments, which were to be taken with their just qualifications. The occasion, I remarked, was one where, instead of each nation pushing adverse rights, or striving for superior advantages, it ought rather to be considered that each was equally and spontaneously surrendering up a portion of its anterior system; each moving under one and the same impulse, towards one and the same object; each proposing to itself no other interests than those of benevolence and justice; no other gain (yet how great the gain!) than that of protecting the innocent, and laying prostrate the guilty. It was a negotiation with this distinguishing feature, that it looked exclusively to the benefit of a third party, assuming reciprocal duties and burdens for its sake, and flinging aside, as alien to the benign spirit in which it was conceived and undertaken, every selfish end or feeling. To the obligations, no less elevated than interesting, that sprung from such a negotiation, it was believed that neither party was insensible, and that both stood alike anxious to hail its favorable results. In mentioning the sentiments which the British plenipotentiaries expressed it must not be understood that I report them as having been uttered in complaint; and it would be an omission inexcusable in me were I not to add that they cordially and zealously responded to the enlarged and animating objects of the international compact which we were endeavoring to adjust.

To their second article, bringing under the penalties of the compact the subjects or citizens of either power, chartering the vessel of a third power for the purpose of carrying on the trade, I assented, believing that it did no more than effectuate the intention of our own second article, under words more full. To the provision in their fourth article, giving a power for laying the crew of the captured vessel under such restraints as might become indispensable for their detention and safe delivery, I also consented; varying its language to such as it will now be seen in the convention. I considered, in fact, such a power as only analogous, under one view, to that which is familiar to all jurisprudence, of securing an accused party between the time of arrest and of trial; and as doubly called for in this instance, in that it went to the necessary safeguard and protection of those who were constituted, by the convention, its incipient ministers of justice. With a like variation in the language, I consented to the passage, in the same article, which gives power for removing the slaves. The preservation of their lives, or other urgent motive of humanity, is made the condition of their removal, and a stipulation is superadded that they are to be accounted for to the Government of the country to which the captured vessel belongs, and be disposed of according to its laws.

I have thus indicated all the changes appearing to me to be important between the projet which you committed to me and the convention as it has been signed. A few other deviations, verbal, or in arrangement, will be perceived, but have not struck me as sufficiently material to call for particular notice or elucidation. The less so as I write under the pressure of other duties, arising out of the general negotiation, and with a desire to secure for the convention as early an arrival at Washington as possible; considerations which, I trust, will account for and excuse my omitting to trace, by minute marginal parallels, the whole of the alterations superinduced upon the counter-projet before the work was terminated. It is only left for me to hope that this despatch, with its inclosures, will render the progress of the negotiation intelligible. It may be needless in me to say that I have done all in my power to make the result satisfactory. The motive for using all practicable expedition in making up my despatch is, that should the convention be approved by the President, the option may not be lost of submitting it to the consideration of the Senate before the present session of Congress reaches its close. Should it, looked at as a whole, meet acceptance in the eyes of my Government, and become, happily, the era of a new and saving spirit introduced into the laws of nations for the relief of Africa, her redeemed and grateful children will have cause to pour out the fervent thanksgiving of their hearts towards those Christian powers that have at length been enabled, and rejoice that they have been enabled, to arrest the portentous desolation that for long ages has swept over their land, filling it with the concentration of every human woe. Then, at last, may we all hope, and not in vain, to see their tears dried up, their sufferings turned to joy, their groans to songs of benediction.

The inclosures of this despatch are: 1st. The convention. 2d. The British counter-projet, marked C. 3d. Copies of the first, second, fourth, fifth, sixth, and seventh protocols. I have ventured to omit sending a copy of our own projet, marked B; it having been submitted in the precise state in which I had it from you. Nor do I employ a special messenger for conveying the convention; not having done so when I forwarded the treaty of 1818, a course that was not disapproved. I shall now, as then, commit it to the care of our consul at Liverpool, with a request that he will get it on shipboard with all speed, and under the best auspices he can command.

I have the honor to remain, with very great respect, your obedient servant,

RICHARD RUSH.

Hon. John Quincy Adams,

Secretary of State.

CONVENTION.

The United States of America and his Majesty the King of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, being desirous to co-operate for the complete suppression of the African slave trade, by making the law of piracy, as applied to that traffic under the statutes of their respective Legislatures, immediately and reciprocally operative on the vessels and subjects or citizens of each other, have, respectively, appointed their plenipotentiaries to negotiate and conclude a convention for that purpose, that is to say: on the part of the United States of America, Richard Rush, Envoy Extraordinary and Minister Plenipotentiary from those States to the court of his Majesty; and, on the part of his Britannic Majesty, the Right Honorable William Huskisson, a member of his Majesty's most honorable Privy Council, President of the Committee of Privy Council, for Affairs of Trade and Foreign Plantations, Treasurer of his Majesty's Navy,

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and a member of the Parliament of the United Kingdom; and the Right Honorable Stratford Canning, a member of his said Majesty's most honorable Privy Council, and his Envoy Extraordinary and Minister Plenipotentiary to the United States of America; which plenipotentiaries, after duly communicating to each other their respective full powers, found to be in proper form, have agreed upon and concluded the following articles:

Article I. The commanders and commissioned officers of each of the two high contracting parties, duly authorized under the regulations and instructions of their respective Governments, to cruise on the coasts of Africa, of America, and of the West Indies, for the suppression of the slave trade, shall be empowered under the conditions, limitations, and restrictions hereinafter specified, to detain, examine, capture, and deliver over for trial and adjudication by some competent tribunal of whichever of the two countries it shall be found on examination to belong to, any ship or vessel concerned in the illicit traffic of slaves, and carrying the flag of the other, or owned by any subjects or citizens of either of the two contracting parties, except when in the presence of a ship-of-war of its own nation; and, it is further agreed that any such ship or vessel, so captured, shall be either carried or sent by the capturing officer, to some port of the country to which it belongs, and there given up to the competent authorities, or be delivered up for the same purpose to any duly commissioned officer of the other party; it being the intention of the high contracting powers that any ship or vessel within the purview of this convention, and seized on that account, shall be tried and adjudged by the tribunals of the captured party, and not by those of the captor.

Article II. In the case of any ship or vessel detained under this convention, by the cruisers of either of the two contracting parties, on suspicion of carrying on the slave trade, being found, on due examination by the boarding officer, to be chartered on account of any of the subjects or citizens of the other party, although not actually bearing the flag of that party, nor owned by the individuals on whose account she is chartered, or by any other citizens or subjects of the same nation, it is hereby agreed that, in such case also, upon the delivery of the said vessel to the tribunals of that country to which the persons on whose account she is chartered belong, the vessel, cargo, and crew, shall be proceeded against in like manner as any other vessel, cargo, and crew, within the purview of this convention, in so far as the general practice under the law of nations will allow.

Article III. Whenever any naval commander or commissioned officer of either of the two contracting powers shall, on the high seas, or anywhere not within the exclusive jurisdiction of either party, board, or cause to be boarded, any merchant vessel bearing the flag of the other power, and visit the same as a slave trader, or on suspicion of her being concerned in the slave trade; in every such case, whether the vessel so visited shall or shall not be captured and delivered over, or sent into the ports of her own country for trial and adjudication, the boarding officer shall deliver to the master or commander of the visited vessel a certificate in writing, signed by the said boarding officer, and specifying his rank in the Navy of his country, together with the names of the commander by whose orders he is acting, and of the national vessel commanded by him; and the said certificate shall further contain a declaration purporting that the only object of the visit is to ascertain whether the merchant vessel in question is engaged in the slave trade, or not; and, if found to be so engaged, to take and deliver her to the officers or tribunals of her own country, being that of one of the two contracting parties, for trial and adjudication.

In all such cases, the commander of the national vessel, whether belonging to Great Britain or to the United States, shall, when he makes delivery of his capture, either to the officers or to the tribunals of the other power, deliver all the papers found on board the captured vessel, indicating her national character, and the objects of her voyage, and, together with them, a certificate, as above, of the visit, signed with his name, and specifying his rank in the Navy of his country, as well as the name of the vessel commanded by him, together with the name and professional rank of the boarding officer by whom the said visit has been made.

This certificate shall also contain a list of all the papers received from the master of the vessel detained or visited, as well as those found on board the said vessel; it shall also contain an exact description of the state in which the vessel was found when detained, and the statement of the changes, if any, which have taken place in it, and of the number of slaves, if any, found on board at the moment of detention.

Article IV. Whenever any merchant vessel of either nation shall be visited under this convention, on suspicion of such vessel being engaged in the slave trade, no search shall in any such case be made on board the said vessel, except what is necessary for ascertaining, by due and sufficient proofs, whether she is or is not engaged in that illicit traffic. No person shall be taken out of the vessel so visited (though such reasonable restraints as may be indispensable for the detention and safe delivery of the vessel may be used against the crew) by the commanding officer of the visiting vessel, or under his orders; nor shall any part of the cargo of the visiting vessel be taken out of her till after her delivery to the officers or tribunals of her own nation; excepting only when the removal of all or a part of the slaves, if any, found on board the visited vessel shall be indispensable, either for the preservation of their lives, or from any other urgent consideration of humanity, or for the safety of the persons charged with the navigation of the said vessel after her capture. And any of the slaves so removed shall be duly accounted for to the Government of that country to which the visited vessel belongs, and shall be disposed of according to the laws of the country into which they are carried; the regular bounty, or head-money, allowed by law, being in each instance secured to the captors, for their use and benefit, by the receiving Government.

Article V. Whenever any merchant vessel, of either nation, shall be captured under this convention, it shall be the duty of the commander of any ship belonging to the public service of the other, charged with the instructions of his Government for carrying into execution the provisions of this convention, at the requisition of the commander of the capturing vessel, to receive into his custody the vessel so captured, and to carry or send the same for trial and adjudication into some port of his own country, or of its dependencies. In every such case, at the time of the delivery of the vessel, an authentic declaration shall be drawn up in triplicate, and signed by the commanders both of the delivering and receiving vessels; one copy, signed by both, to be kept by each of them, stating the circumstances of the delivery, the condition of the captured vessel at the time of delivery, including the names of her master or commander, and of every other person, not a slave, on board at that time, and exhibiting the number of the slaves, if any, then on board of her, and a list of all the papers received or found on board at the time of capture, and delivered over with her. The third copy of the said declaration shall be left in the captured vessel, with the papers found on board, to be produced before the tribunal charged with the adjudication of the capture.

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And the commander of the capturing vessel shall be authorized to send any one of the officers under his command, and one or two of his crew, with the captured vessel, to appear before the competent tribunal as witnesses of the facts regarding her detention and capture; the reasonable expenses of which witnesses in proceeding to the place of trial, during their detention there, and for their return to their own country, or to their station in its service, shall be allowed by the court of adjudication, and defrayed, in the event of the vessel being condemned, out of the proceeds of its sale; in case of the acquittal of the vessel, the expenses, as above specified, of these witnesses, shall be defrayed by the Government of the capturing officer.

Article VI. "Whenever any capture shall be made under this convention by the officers of either of the contracting parties, and no national vessel of that country to which the captured vessel belongs is cruising on the same station where the capture takes place, the commander of the capturing vessel shall, in such case, either carry or send his prize to some convenient port of its own country, or of any of its dependencies, where a court of vice admiralty has jurisdiction, and there give it up to competent authorities for trial and adjudication.

The captured vessel shall then be libelled according to the practice of the court taking cognizance of the case; and, if condemned, the proceeds of the sale thereof, and of its cargo, if also condemned, shall be paid to the commander of the capturing vessel, for the benefit of the captors, to be distributed among them according to the rules of their service respecting prize money.

Article VII. The commander and crew of any vessel captured under this convention and sent in for trial shall be proceeded against, conformably to the laws of the country whereinto they shall be brought, as pirates engaged in the African slave trade; and it is further agreed that any individual, being a citizen or subject of either of the two contracting parties, who shall be found on board any vessel not carrying the flag of the other party, nor belonging to the subjects or citizens of either, but engaged in the illicit traffic of slaves, and lawfully seized on that account by the cruisers of the other party, or condemned under circumstances which, by involving such individual in the guilt of slave trading, would subject him to the penalties of piracy, he shall be sent for trial before the competent court in the country to which he belongs, and the reasonable expenses of any witnesses belonging to the capturing vessel, in proceeding to the place of trial, during their detention there, and for their return to their own country, or to their station in its service, shall, in every such case, be allowed by the court and defrayed by the country in which the trial takes place; but every witness belonging to the capturing vessel shall, upon the criminal trial for piracy, be liable to be challenged by the accused person and set aside as incompetent, unless he shall release his claim to any part of the prize money upon the condemnation of the vessel and cargo.

Article VIII. The right reciprocally conceded by the two contracting parties of visiting, capturing, and delivering over for trial the merchant vessels of the other engaged in the traffic of slaves shall be exercised only by such commissioned officers of their respective navies as shall be furnished with instructions for executing the laws of their respective countries against the slave trade.

For every vexatious and abusive exercise of this right, the boarding officer and the commander of the capturing or searching vessel shall, in each case, be personally liable in costs and damages to the master and owners of any merchant vessel delivered over, detained, or visited by them under the provisions of this convention.

Whatever court of admiralty shall have cognizance of the cause, as regards the captured vessel, in each case the same court shall be competent to hear the complaint of the master or owners, or of any person or persons on board the said vessel or interested in the property of her cargo at the time of her detention, and, on due and sufficient proof being given to the court of any vexation and abuse having been practiced during the search or detention of the said vessel, contrary to the provisions and meaning of this convention, to award reasonable costs and damages to the sufferers, to be paid by the commanding or boarding officer convicted of such misconduct.

The Government of the party thus cast in damages and costs shall cause the amount of the same to be paid, in each instance, agreeably to the judgment of the court, within twelve months from the date thereof.

In case of any such vexation and abuse occurring in the detention or search of a vessel detained under this convention, and not afterwards delivered over for trial, the persons aggrieved, being such as are specified above, or any of them, shall be heard by any court of admiralty of the country of the captors before which they make complaint thereof, and the commanding and boarding officer of the detaining vessel shall, in such instance, be liable, as above, in costs and damages to the complainant, according to the judgment of the court, and their Government shall equally cause payment of the same to be made within twelve months from the time when such judgment shall have been pronounced.

Article IX. Copies of this convention and of the laws of both countries actually in force for the prohibition and suppression of the African slave trade shall be furnished to every commander of the national vessels of either party charged with the execution of those laws; and in case any such commanding officer shall be accused by either of the two Governments of having deviated, in any respect, from the provisions of this convention and the instructions of his own Government in conformity thereto, the Government to which such complaint shall be addressed agrees hereby to make inquiry into the circumstances of the case, and to inflict on the officer complained of, in the event of his appearing to deserve it, a punishment adequate to his transgression.

Article X. The high contracting parties declare that the right which in the foregoing articles they have each reciprocally conceded of detaining, visiting, capturing, and delivering over for trial the merchant vessels of the other engaged in the African slave trade, is wholly and exclusively grounded on the consideration of their having made that traffic piracy by their respective laws; and further, that the reciprocal concession of the said right, as guarded, limited, and regulated by this convention, shall not be so construed as to authorize the detention or search of the merchant vessels of either nation by the officers of the Navy of the other, except vessels engaged or suspected of being engaged in the African slave trade, or for any other purpose whatever than that of seizing and delivering up the persons and vessels concerned in that traffic for trial and adjudication by the tribunals and laws of their own country, nor be taken to affect in any other way the existing rights of either of the high contracting parties.

And they do also hereby agree and engage to use their influence, respectively, with other maritime and civilized powers, to the end that the African slave trade may be declared to be piracy under the law of nations.

Article XI. The present convention, consisting of eleven articles, shall be ratified, and the ratifications exchanged at London, within the term of twelve months, or as much sooner as possible.

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In witness whereof, the respective plenipotentiaries have signed the same, and have affixed thereunto the seals of their arms.

Done at London, the thirteenth day of March, in the year of our Lord one thousand eight hundred and twenty-four.

RICHARD RUSH. [L. s.]

W. HUSKISSON. [L. s.]

STRATFORD CANNING. [L. s.]

[With Mr. Rush's No. 2, of March 15, 1824.]

C.

PREAMBLE.

His Majesty the King of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, and the United States of North America, being desirous to co-operate for the complete suppression of the African slave trade, by making the law of piracy, as applied to that traffic under the statutes of their respective Legislatures, immediately and reciprocally operative on the vessels and subjects or citizens of each other, have, respectively, appointed their plenipotentiaries to negotiate and conclude a convention for that purpose: that is to say, on the part of his Britannic Majesty, the Right Honorable William Huskisson, &c, &c, and the Right Honorable Stratford Canning, &c., &c., and on the part of the United States, Richard Rush, Envoy Extraordinary and Minister Plenipotentiary from those States to the court of his Majesty; which plenipotentiaries, after duly communicating to each other their respective full powers, found to be in proper form, have agreed upon and concluded the following articles:

I. The commanding and commissioned officers of each of the two high contracting parties, duly authorized under the regulations and instructions of their respective Governments to cruise on the coasts of Africa, of America, and of the West Indies, for the suppression of the slave trade, shall be empowered, under the conditions, limitations, and restrictions hereinafter specified, to detain, examine, capture, and deliver over for trial and adjudication by some competent tribunal of whichever of the two countries it shall be found on examination to belong to, any ship or vessel concerned in the illicit traffic of slaves, and carrying the flag of the other, or owned by any subjects or citizens of either of the two contracting parties, except when in presence of a ship-of-war of its own nation; in which case the commanding officer of the other party, instead of ordering the detention or search of the suspected vessel himself, shall give information of his suspicions to the commander of the said ship-of-war, and invite him to cause the suspected vessel to be searched and detained under his exclusive authority; provided, however, that the delay required for this purpose be not such, from peculiar and unavoidable circumstances, as to enable the suspected vessel to escape.

It is further agreed that any such ship or vessel, so captured, shall either be carried or sent by the capturing officer to some port of the country to which it belongs, and there given up to the competent authorities, or be delivered up for the same purpose to any duly commissioned officer of the other party; it being the intention of the high contracting powers that any ship or vessel within the purview of this convention, and seized on that account, shall be tried and adjudged by the tribunals of the captured party, and not by those of the captor.

II. In the case of any ship or vessel detained by the cruisers of either of the two contracting parties on suspicion of carrying on the slave trade being found, on due examination by the boarding officer, to be chartered on account of any of the subjects or citizens of the other party, although not actually bearing the flag of that party, nor owned by the individuals on whose account she is chartered, or by any other citizens or subjects of the same nation, it is hereby agreed that in such case also, upon the delivery of the said vessel to the tribunals of that country to which the persons on whose account she is chartered belong, the vessel, cargo, and crew shall be proceeded against in like manner as any other vessel, cargo, and crew within the purview of this convention, in so far as the general practice under the law of nations will allow.

III. Whenever any naval commander or commissioned officer of either of the two contracting powers shall, on the high seas, or anywhere not within the exclusive jurisdiction of either party, board or cause to be boarded any merchant vessel bearing the flag of the other power, and visit the same as a slave trader, or on suspicion of her being concerned in the slave trade, in every such case, whether the vessel so visited shall or shall not be captured and delivered over or sent into the ports of her own country for trial and adjudication, the boarding officer shall deliver to the master or commander of the visited vessel a certificate in writing, signed by the said boarding officer, and specifying his rank in the Navy of his country, together with the names of the commander by whose orders he is acting, and of the national vessel commanded by him; and the said certificate shall further contain a declaration purporting that the only object of the visit is to ascertain whether the merchant vessel in question is engaged in the slave trade or not, and if found to be so engaged, to take and deliver her to the officers or tribunals of her own country, being that of one of the two contracting parties, for trial and adjudication.

In all such cases, the commander of the national vessel, whether belonging to Great Britain or to the United States, shall, when he makes delivery of his capture either to the officers or to the tribunals of the other power, deliver all the papers found on board the captured vessel indicating her national character and the objects of her voyage, and, together with these, a certificate, as above, of the visit, signed by his name, and specifying his rank in the Navy of his country, as well as the name of the vessel commanded by him, together with the name and professional rank of the boarding officer by whom the said visit has been made.

This certificate shall also contain a list of all the papers received from the master of the vessel detained or visited, as well as those found on board the said vessel. It shall also contain an exact description of the state in which the vessel was found when detained, and a statement of the changes, if any, which have taken place in it, and of the number of slaves, if any, found on board at the moment of detention.

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IV. Whenever any merchant vessel of either nation shall be visited, under this convention, on suspicion of such vessel being engaged in the slave trade, no search shall in any such case be made on board the said vessel, except what is necessary for ascertaining by positive and sufficient proofs whether she is or is not engaged in that illicit traffic. No person shall be taken out of the vessel so visited, though measures of restraint and personal coercion, necessary for the detention and safe delivery of the vessel, may be employed against its crew by the commanding officer of the visiting vessel or under his orders; nor shall any part of the cargo of the visited vessel be taken out of her till after her delivery to the officers or tribunals of her own nation, excepting only when the immediate removal of all or a part of the slaves, if any, found on board the visited vessel shall be necessary, either for the preservation of their lives or for the safety of the persons charged with the navigation of the said vessel after her capture. And any of the slaves so removed shall be duly accounted for to the Government of that country to which the visited vessel belongs, and shall be disposed of according to the laws of the country into which they are carried, the regular bounty or head-money allowed by law being, in each instance, secured to the captors for their use and benefit by the receiving Government.

V. Whenever any merchant vessel of either nation shall be captured under this convention, it shall be the duty of the commander of any ship belonging to the public service of the other, charged with the instructions of his Government for carrying into execution the provisions of this convention on the coast of Africa, of America, or of the West Indies, at the requisition of the commander of the capturing vessel, to receive into his custody the vessel so captured, and to carry or send the same for trial and adjudication into some port of his own country. In every such case, at the time of the delivery of the vessel, an authentic declaration shall be drawn up in triplicate and signed by the commander, both of the delivering and receiving vessel, one copy signed by both to be kept by each of them, stating the circumstances of the delivery, the condition of the captured vessel at the time of delivery, including the names of her master or commander, and of every other person, not a slave, on board at that time, and exhibiting the number of the slaves, if any, then on board her, and a list of all the papers received or found on board at the time of capture and delivered over with her. The third copy of the said declaration shall be left in the captured vessel, with the papers found on board, to be produced before the tribunal charged with the adjudication of the capture.

And the commander of the capturing vessel shall be authorized to send any one of the officers under his command, and one or two of his crew, with the captured vessel, to appear before the competent tribunal as witnesses of the facts regarding her detention and capture; the reasonable expenses of which witnesses in proceeding to the place of trial, during their detention there, and for their return to their own country, or to their station in its service, shall be allowed by the court of adjudication and defrayed, in the event of the vessel being condemned, out of the proceeds of its sale. In case of the acquittal of the vessel, the expenses, as above specified, of these witnesses shall be defrayed by the Government of the capturing officer.

VI. Whenever any capture shall be made under this convention by the officers of either of the contracting parties, and no national vessel of that country to which the captured vessel belongs is cruising on the same station where the capture takes place, the commander of the capturing vessel shall, in such case, either carry or send his prize to some convenient port of its own country, or of any of its dependencies where a court of vice admiralty has jurisdiction, and there give it up to the competent authorities for trial and adjudication. The captured vessel shall then be libelled according to the practice of the court taking cognizance of the case; and in case of its being condemned, the proceeds of the sale thereof and of its cargo, if also condemned, shall be paid to the commander of the capturing vessel for the benefit of the captors, to be distributed among them according to the rules of their service respecting prize money.

VII. The commander and crew of any vessel captured under this convention, and sent in for trial, shall be proceeded against, conformably to the laws of the country whereinto they shall be brought, as pirates engaged in the African slave trade; and it is further agreed that any individual, being a citizen or subject of either of the two contracting parties, who shall be found on board any vessel not carrying the flag of the other party, nor belonging to the subjects or citizens of either, but engaged in the illicit traffic of slaves, and seized or condemned on that account by the cruisers of the other party under circumstances which, by involving such individual in the guilt of slave trading, would subject him to the penalties of piracy, he shall be sent for trial before the competent court in the country to which he belongs, and the reasonable expenses of any witnesses belonging to the capturing vessel in proceeding to the place of trial, during their detention there, and for their return to their own country, or to their station in its service, shall, in every such case, be allowed by the court, and defrayed by the country in which the trial takes place.

VIII. The right, reciprocally conceded by the two contracting powers, of visiting, capturing, and delivering over for trial the merchant vessels of the other engaged in the traffic of slaves, shall be exercised only by such commissioned officers of their respective navies as shall be furnished with instructions for executing the laws of their respective countries against the slave trade.

For every vexatious and abusive exercise of this right, the boarding officer and the commander of the capturing or searching vessel shall, in each case, be liable in costs and damages to the master and owners of any merchant vessel delivered over, detained, or visited by them, under the provisions of this convention.

Whatever court of admiralty shall have cognizance of the cause, as regards the captured vessel, in each case the same court shall be competent to hear the complaint of the master, or of any person on board, or interested in the property of her cargo, at the time of her detention; and on clear, indubitable proof being given to the court of any vexation and abuse having been practiced during the search or detention of the said vessel, contrary to the provisions and meaning of this convention, to award reasonable costs and damages to the sufferers, to be paid by the commanding or boarding officer convicted of such misconduct.

The Government of the party thus cast in damages and costs shall cause the amount of the same to be paid, in each instance, agreeably to the judgment of the court, within twelve months from and after the date thereof.

In case of any such vexation and abuse occurring in the detention or search of a vessel detained under this convention, and not afterwards delivered over for trial, the persons aggrieved, being such as are specified above, or any of them, shall be heard by any court of admiralty of the country of the captors before which they make complaint thereof, and the commander and boarding officer of the detaining vessel shall, in each instance, be liable, as above, in costs and damages to the complainants,

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according to the judgment of the court, and their Government shall equally cause payment of the same to be made within twelve months from the time when such judgment shall have been pronounced.

IX. Copies of this convention and of the laws of both countries, actually in force, for the prohibition and suppression of the African slave trade, shall be furnished to every commander of the national vessels of either party charged with the execution of those laws; and in case any such commanding officer shall be accused by either of the two Governments of having deviated in any respect from the provisions of this convention, and the instructions of his own Government in conformity thereto, the Government to which such complaint shall be addressed agrees hereby to make inquiry into the circumstances of the case, and to inflict on the officer complained of, in the event of his appearing to deserve it, a punishment adequate to his transgression.

X The high contracting parties declare that the right which, in the foregoing articles, they have each reciprocally conceded, of detaining, visiting, capturing, and delivering over for trial the merchant vessels of the other engaged in the African slave trade, is wholly and exclusively grounded on the consideration of their having made that traffic piracy by their respective laws; and, further, that the concession of the said right, as guarded, limited, and regulated by this convention, is meant and understood by them neither to extend to nor in any way to affect any other existing or eventual right of search or of capture at sea, in like manner as the mode of delivery and adjudication stipulated in this convention is not intended by them to affect in any way the ordinary modes of proceeding against vessels captured on the high seas under the law of nations; and they do also hereby agree and engage to use their influence, respectively, with other maritime and civilized powers to the end that the African slave trade may be generally declared to be piracy under the law of nations.

[With Mr. Rush's No. 2, of March 15, 1824.]

Protocol of the first conference of the American and British Plenipotentiaries, held at the Board of Trade on the 23d of January, 1824.

Present: Mr. Rush, Mr. Huskisson, Mr. Stratford Canning.

It was agreed, after the communication and exchange of the respective full powers, that the negotiation should be carried on by conference and protocol, with the right on both sides of annexing to the protocol any written statement which either party might consider necessary, as matter either of record or of explanation.

It was further agreed that the slave trade should be made the first subject of discussion, and that any articles on that head which the parties might agree in drawing up should be formed into a separate convention, to be submitted for ratification to the respective Governments immediately on its conclusion, and without reference to the state of the negotiation on other matters.

The British plenipotentiaries intimated their expectation to receive from Mr. Rush, in the first instance, a full communication of the proposals intended to be brought forward successively by his Government, under the heads of the several questions for the adjustment of which the negotiation had been opened, in conformity with the annexed memorandum previously communicated by him, (marked A.)

In pursuance of this intimation, Mr. Rush, after some introductory remarks explanatory of the views of his Government upon this subject, communicated in extenso the projet of a convention (marked B) for effecting a system of co-operation between the United States and Great Britain, with a view to the complete suppression of the slave trade.

The British plenipotentiaries, in receiving this projet, observed that they could not be expected to express any opinion as to its admissibility, either in whole or in part, on a first perusal; to which observation the American plenipotentiary assented; and it was agreed that the next conference should take place on Monday, the 2d of February.

RICHARD RUSH.

W. HUSKISSON.

STRATFORD CANNING.

A.

Memorandum referred to in the first conference.

1. Commercial intercourse between the United States and the colonial possessions of Great Britain in America and the West Indies, and the claim of the United States to the navigation of the river St. Lawrence.

2. Suppression of the slave trade.

3. Boundary line under the fifth article of the treaty of Ghent.

4. Admission of consuls of the United States in the colonial ports of Great Britain.

5. Newfoundland fishery.

6. Ukase of his Imperial Majesty the Emperor of Russia, of September, 1821, with a view to an adjustment of the boundaries between the United States and Great Britain on the Northwest Coast of America.

7. Questions of maritime law heretofore in discussion between the two nations, and also that of abolishing privateering as between them.

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Protocol of the second conference of the American and British Plenipotentiaries, assembled at the Board of Trade, on the 2d of February, 1824.

Present: Mr. Rush, Mr. Huskisson, Mr. Stratford Canning.

The protocol of the preceding conference was read over and signed.

The British plenipotentiaries stated that, after mature consideration of the projet given in by Mr. Rush at the former conference, they were disposed to consent to the general principle on which it rested, but that there were serious difficulties in the mode of carrying that principle into effect, which they wished to point out and discuss with Mr. Rush, in the hope of arriving, with his assistance, at some solution satisfactory to both parties.

The discussion which ensued, with a view to the removal or modification of such provisions in the projet as were thought likely to render the proposed convention more or less ineffectual, terminated in an agreement on the part of the American plenipotentiary, after he had stated his first impressions on the subject, to reconsider, more at leisure, the points of his projet which appeared objectionable to the British plenipotentiaries, and on their part to ascertain, by reference to the proper law officers, how far it might be practicable to obviate the legal difficulties on their side.

It was agreed to meet again on the 5th instant, and, in case of any further causes of delay arising in the consideration of the slave trade projet, to proceed at once with the next subject of negotiation until these causes should be removed.

RICHARD RUSH.

W. HUSKISSON.

STRATFORD CANNING.

Protocol of the fourth conference of the American and British Plenipotentiaries, held at the Board of Trade, February 16, 1824.

Present: Mr. Rush, Mr. Huskisson, Mr. Stratford Canning.

The protocol of the preceding conference was read over and signed.

Several points connected with the propositions brought forward by the American plenipotentiary in the previous conferences were informally discussed with a view to explanation and, if possible, to the removal of difficulties on both sides.

The British plenipotentiaries communicated a counter-projet, (marked C,) comprising the principal alterations which they proposed to introduce into the articles on the slave trade, presented by Mr. Rush and annexed to the protocol of the first conference.

After discussing these alterations in a general way, it was agreed that a formal consideration of the articles on this subject, as produced on both sides, should take place at the next conference, to be fixed at as early a period as possible, with a view to the conclusion of a convention satisfactory to each of the contracting parties.

Adjourned.

RICHARD RUSH.

W. HUSKISSON.

STRATFORD CANNING.

Protocol of the fifth conference of the American and British Plenipotentiaries, held at the Board of Trade, March 9, 1824.

Present: Mr. Rush, Mr. Huskisson, Mr. Stratford Canning.

The protocol of the preceding conference was read over and signed.

The discussion which had taken place at the last conference upon the subject of the slave trade was renewed, principally with reference to the first and tenth articles of the counter-projet of the British plenipotentiaries.

No satisfactory adjustment of the points at issue being arrived at, it was agreed to meet again on the 11th instant for their further consideration.

RICHARD RUSH.

W. HUSKISSON.

STRATFORD CANNING.

Protocol of the sixth conference of the American and British Plenipotentiaries, held at the Board of Trade, March 11, 1824.

Present: Mr. Rush, Mr. Huskisson, Mr. Stratford Canning.

The protocol of the preceding conference was read over and signed.

The points on the subject of the slave trade which had been left undetermined at the last conference were again brought under discussion, and being at length satisfactorily adjusted, it was determined that at the next meeting, to be held on the 13th instant, the business should be completed by the signature of the convention as agreed on.

RICHARD RUSH.

W. HUSKISSON.

STRATFORD CANNING.

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Protocol of the seventh conference of the American and British Plenipotentiaries, held at the Board of Trade, March 13, 1824.

Present: Mr. Rush, Mr. Huskisson, Mr. Stratford Canning.

The protocol of the preceding conference was read over and signed.

In pursuance of the agreement entered into at the last conference, the convention on the subject of the slave trade was produced, and, being found on perusal to be in all respects satisfactory to the plenipotentiaries on both sides, received their respective signatures.

The protocol of the present conference was also read over and signed.

RICHARD RUSH,

W. HUSKISSON.

STRATFORD CANNING.

[The following are the message and documents to the House of Representatives that were communicated to the Senate in executive session, with the preceding message of the President of April 30, 1842.]

Message from the President of the United States, transmitting the information required by a resolution of the House of Representatives of 21th February last, in relation to the suppression of the African slave trade.

To the House of Representatives:

I transmit herewith to the House of Representatives a report from the Secretary of State, with the papers therein referred to, in compliance with a resolution of that House of the 21th of January last.

JAMES MONROE.

Washington, March 19, 1824.

Department of State, Washington, March 18, 1824.

The Secretary of State, to whom has been referred a resolution of the House of Representatives of the 21th of January last, requesting the President to communicate to that House such part as he may not deem inexpedient to divulge of any correspondence or negotiation which he may have instituted with any foreign Government since the 28th of February, 1823, in compliance with a request contained in a resolution of the same House of that date relative to the denunciation of the African slave trade as piracy, has the honor to submit to the President copies of the correspondence requested.

JOHN QUINCY ADAMS.

List of papers sent.

1. Mr. Canning to Mr. Adams, January 29, 1823.

2. Mr. Adams to Mr. Canning, March 31, 1823.

3. Mr. Canning to Mr. Adams, April 8, 1823.

4. Mr. Adams to Mr. Canning, June 24, 1823.

5. Same to Mr. Nelson, April 28, 1823. Extract.

6. Same to Mr. Rodney, May 11, 1823. Extract.

7. Same to Mr. Anderson, May 21, 1823. Extract.

8. Same to Mr. Rush, with one inclosure; convention slave trade, June 24, 1823. Extract.

9. Same to Mr. Middleton, July 28, 1823. Copy.

10. Same to Mr. Everett, August 8, 1823. Copy.

11. Same to General Dearborn, August 14, 1823. Extract.

12. Mr. Rush to Mr. Adams, October 9, 1823. Extracts.

13. Mr. Sheldon to Mr. Adams, October 16, 1823. Extracts.

14. Same to Same, with two inclosures; correspondence with Viscount Chateaubriand, November 5, 1823. Extracts.

15. Mr. Everett to Mr. Adams, with two inclosures; correspondence with Baron Nagell, November 20, 1823. Extracts.

Mr. Canning to Mr. Adams.

Washington, January 29, 1823.

Sir: To the complete abolition of the African slave trade, Great Britain, as you are well aware, has long devoted her anxious and unremitting exertions; she availed herself, during war, of her belligerent rights, and extended dominion in the colonies to put down the inhuman traffic; in peace, she has spared no labor and shrunk from no sacrifice to supply, by a general co-operation of the maritime powers, whatever has been withdrawn from her peculiar control by the cessation of hostilities and the colonial arrangements consequent on that event. It is matter of deep regret to his Majesty's Government that

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the result of their exertions is far from corresponding either to the cause which demands or to the zeal which sustains them. The pest, which they have pledged themselves to destroy, if it be in human power to destroy it, not only survives, to the disgrace and affliction of the age, but seems to acquire a fresh capacity for existence with every endeavor for its destruction.

To whatever fatality it may be owing, that, while the obligation of adopting and enforcing measures for the extermination of the slave trade is solemnly acknowledged by the civilized world, this great object seems rather to elude the grasp than to approach its consummation. Great Britain perceives, in the postponement of her hopes, however mortifying for the moment, no reason either to relax from her efforts or to abandon the expectation of final success. Impelled by the noblest motives to persevere in the cause of abolition, and mindful by what slow, laborious steps the present point has been attained, she looks forward, through surrounding obstacles, to the triumphant accomplishment of her purpose, the benefit and glory of which will only be rendered more signal by the difficulties attending on its progress.

In calling on Europe and America to join with them in the discharge of this sacred duty, his Majesty and his ministers have appealed, sir, with the more confidence, to your Government, as the United States have long proclaimed their decided hostility to the slave trade, and are surpassed by no country in the vigor of their legislative enactment for its repression. The identity of principle existing on this subject between the two Governments is distinctly recorded in the treaty of peace; and, in answer to every proposal which has since, by his Majesty's command, been addressed to your cabinet for redeeming that pledge by a broad and effectual application of the principle, a fresh assurance has been given of the unceasing interest with which the United States continue to promote the cause of abolition. When to this accord, in principle and sentiment, is added the conviction, avowed by both parties, that, in spite of laws and treaties, the accursed traffic still thrives, under the eyes of an indignant world, it would seem impossible that the two powers should be long prevented from concerting a joint system of measures against the common object of their abhorrence and just proscription. Whatever circumstances, views, or impressions may have hitherto defeated this expectation, his Majesty's ministers are still unwilling to despair of finding the United States at length prepared either to close with the system of concert already offered to their acceptance, or to suggest a plan of equal efficiency in its place. The alternative embraces a duty, for the performance of which both countries are responsible before God and man.

A deep sense of this duty, and a reliance, by no means relinquished, on the general disposition of the United States, have prompted the several communications on this question which have been addressed to you at successive periods, either through me or by means of the American envoy in London. You will readily call to mind, sir, that in the course of last summer I apprised you of the intention of his Majesty's ministers to press for an early reconsideration of the subject, submitting whether it might not prove agreeable to the American cabinet to anticipate that intended recurrence to it on the part of Great Britain, by some efficient proposal, originating with itself. I took occasion, in repeated conversations, to urge anew those various arguments which support and justify the opinion of his Majesty's Government; and I also placed in your hands the official papers, then recently printed by order of Parliament, in further evidence of the extent to which the traffic in human beings was still carried on from Africa, under circumstances of aggravated cruelty. In declaring, as on former occasions, the readiness of his Majesty's ministers to examine, with respect and candor, whatever scheme of concert, if any, the American cabinet might think proper to bring forward, as a substitute for theirs, you will remember how strongly I expressed my belief that the only effectual measure devised or likely to be devised, was a mutual concession of the right of search. In the exercise of that right, under such guards and with such limitations as may serve to tranquillize the most apprehensive and scrupulous minds, it is still conceived that the best and only cure for this intolerable mischief is to be found. You assured me, at a subsequent conference, that my representations had been duly submitted to the President. I wish it were in my power to add that the cause which I pleaded had prevailed.

From the printed documents which I had the honor of communicating to you, it appears that the French flag is more particularly employed to cover the illicit trade on the coast of Africa. It would, perhaps, be unfair to conclude that French property and French subjects are concerned to the full proportion in which the colors of that nation are used; but it is manifest that both are engaged in this commerce of blood, to an extent which reflects discredit, if not on the motives of the French administration, at least on the efficiency of its measures, and makes it imperative on those Governments which are pledged to each other for the suppression of the slave trade to declare their reprobation of what is at best a culpable remissness, and to omit nothing that may rouse the French cabinet to a more active exercise of its authority.

It was a part of my instructions to bring this point under your immediate consideration, and to intimate that the remonstrances of his Majesty's ambassador at Paris might be attended with more effect if the American envoy at that court were directed to concur with his excellency in a joint representation on the subject. It would be idle at present to repeat the arguments adduced in executing this instruction. The answer which you returned in the name of the President was unfavorable to the step I had suggested; and such was the result which it became my duty to announce to his Majesty's Secretary of State. But no doubt was started with respect to the grounds on which my application rested; and of those notorious facts to which I referred, as calling for a joint and impressive appeal to the good faith and good feelings of the French Government, you seemed to be equally convinced with myself.

The reasons, indeed, which you allege for declining at that time to comply with a proposal no less simple in its nature than useful in its object, I understood to be rather of a temporary character; and under this impression I cannot but hope that the period is now arrived when they will no longer be found to stand in opposition to the great considerations involved in this question.

In repeating, therefore, the invitation which I have already had the honor to convey to you on the part of his Majesty's Government, it only remains for me to request an early communication of the intentions at present entertained on this head by the Government of the United States.

I beg, sir, that you will accept the assurance of my distinguished consideration,

STRATFORD CANNING.

Hon. John Quincy Adams, Secretary of State, &c.

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Mr. Adams to Mr. Canning.

Department or State, Washington, March 31, 1823.

Sir: Your letter of the 29th of January was, immediately after being received, submitted to the consideration of the President of the United States. The delay which has hitherto procrastinated a reply to it has been occasioned, not by any abatement of the interest on the part of the Government of the United States with which it regards every effort and proposal for the full and final suppression of the African slave trade, nor by any hesitation with regard to the decision which had already been formed and declared respecting the proposal of submitting the vessels and citizens of the United States to the search of foreign officers upon the high seas, but by an expectation that measures contemplated by the national House of Representatives might, before the close of the session of Congress, indicate to the Executive Government of this country views upon which it would be enabled to substitute a proposal for accomplishing a total abolition of the traffic, more effectual to its purpose, and less liable to objections on other accounts, than that, to which the United States cannot be reconciled, of granting the right of search. These measures were matured in the branch of the Legislature where they originated, only at the very termination of the session, and the Senate had not the opportunity of pronouncing its opinion upon them. There is, however, no doubt on the mind of the President that they would have obtained their sanction; and he has, therefore, no hesitation in acting so far upon the expressed and almost unanimous sense of the House, as to declare the willingness of this Union to join with other nations in the common engagement to pursue and to punish those who shall continue to practice this crime, so reprobated by the just and humane of every country as enemies of the human race, and to fix them irrevocably in the class and under the denomination of pirates.

I have the honor of inclosing herewith a copy of the 4th and 5th sections of a law of the United States, passed on the 15th of May, 1820, by which it will be seen that any citizen of the United States being of the crew or ship's company of any foreign ship or vessel engaged in the slave trade, or any person whatever being of the crew or ship's company of any ship or vessel owned in the whole or part, or navigated for or in behalf of any citizen or citizens of the United States participating in the slave trade, is declared to have incurred the penalties of piracy, and made liable to atone for the crime with his life. The legislation of a single nation can go no further to mark its abhorrence of this traffic, or to deter the people subject to its laws from contamination by the practice of others.

If the inference in your letter of the 29th of January, from the documents to which it refers, be correct, that the French flag is more particularly employed to cover the illicit trade on the coast of Africa; and the conjecture likewise suggested in it, that this flag is used to cover the property and the persons of individuals bound to other allegiances, be well founded, this statute makes every citizen of the United States concerned in such covered traffic liable, if detected in it, to suffer an ignominious death. The code of Great Britain herself has hitherto no provision of equal severity in the pursuit of her subjects, even under the shelter of foreign banners, and to the covert of simulated papers and property.

I am directed by the President of the United States to propose on their part the adoption, by Great Britain, of the principle of this act, and to offer a mutual stipulation to annex the penalties of piracy to the offence of participating in the slave trade by the citizens or subjects of the respective parties. This proposal is made as a substitute for that of conceding a mutual right of search, and of a trial by mixed commissions which would be rendered useless by it. Should it meet the approbation of your Government, it may be separately urged upon the adoption of France, and upon the other maritime powers of Europe in the manner most conducive to its ultimate success.

I have the honor of tendering to you the renewed assurance of my distinguished consideration,

JOHN QUINCY ADAMS.

The Right Hon. Stratford Canning,

Envoy Extraordinary and Minister Plenipotentiary from Great Britain.

Mr. Canning to Mr. Adams.

Washington, April 8, 1823.

Sir: I have received your official letter dated the 31st ultimo, in answer to that which I had the honor of addressing to you on the 29th of January, and, together with it, a transcript of the 4th and 5th sections of an act of Congress approved the 15th of May, 1820.

From this communication I learn that the Government of the United States is willing to join with other powers in declaring slave trade piracy, under the law of nations, and treating the perpetrators of this crime as enemies of the human race; that the American Government is further prepared to enter into a formal engagement with Great Britain, to the effect of carrying the principle just specified into immediate operation, reciprocally, as to their respective subjects or citizens; and, finally, that as soon as this proposal shall be accepted by the British Government, the United States will be ready to concur in pressing its adoption on the court of France and other maritime powers in such manner as may afford the fairest prospect of success.

In whatever degree his Majesty's Government may be disposed to receive this offer as an acknowledgment that measures more efficient than any now generally in force are indispensable for the suppression of the slave trade, it is not difficult to foresee that fresh sentiments of regret will be excited by the unfavorable view which the American administration continues to take of the principal measure suggested on the part of his Majesty. That measure, you are well aware, sir, is a mutual limited concession of the right of search; and though, as I have frequently stated, his Majesty's Government, in adopting it by treaty with several of the maritime powers, and in recommending it with earnestness to the acceptance of others, particularly of the United States, have never opposed the consideration of any other plan brought forward as equally effective; yet, having from the first regarded it in conscience as the only true and practical cure for the evil in question, they are naturally anxious, from a deep sense of duty, to place it in its proper light, and to guard it as far as possible from prejudice or misconception. I therefore deem it of importance on this occasion to bring into one point of view the several limitations under which it is

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conceived that the right of search might be so exercised as to clear it of every imaginable difficulty. To give the intended limitations their just value, it is requisite to bear in mind the particular objections which have been urged against the interchange of a right of search; and for these, in their full extent, I can hardly be wrong in referring to your previous correspondence, since the last communication which I have received from you on this subject, though it describes the impressions of the American Government as remaining unaltered, does not exhibit any argument in support of their opinion.

In answer to that class of objections which relate to the mixed commissions established by treaty between his Majesty and the courts of Lisbon, Brussels, and Madrid, it may suffice to remind you of the intimation conveyed through Mr. Rush, in the early part of last year, which I had subsequently the honor of confirming at the Department of State. It might be expected that any arrangement for the adjudication of vessels engaged in the slave trade, independent of those tribunals, would either leave the detained vessels to be disposed of in the ordinary way, by the sentence of a court of admiralty in the country of the captor, or place them under the jurisdiction of a similar court in the country to which they belonged. On the former supposition it is not to be anticipated that the United States could hesitate to admit the jurisdiction of a foreign court of admiralty, when sanctioned by mutual agreement, over the persons and property of citizens abandoned to a pursuit so flagrantly iniquitous as to be classed by the Legislature of their country with crimes of the most heinous description, and which the American Government has declared its willingness to treat as piracy, under the law of nations. Great Britain, for her part, desires no other than that any of her subjects, who so far defy the laws and dishonor the character of their country as to engage in a trade of blood, proscribed not more by the acts of the Legislature than by the national feeling, should be detected and brought to justice even by foreign hands and from under the protection of her flag. In either of the supposed cases it is clear that all impediments connected with the forms of proceeding and peculiar construction of the mixed commissions would be completely avoided; and with respect to any embarrassment attending the disposal of condemned vessels and liberated slaves, it has already been suggested by a committee of the House of Representatives that the provisions of the act of Congress, passed the 3d of March, 1819, might be applied to them without difficulty or inconvenience.

The question being thus relieved from all connexion with the mixed commissions, every constitutional objection arising out of their alleged incompatibility with the institutions of the United States is at once removed from consideration. The remaining obstacles may be reduced under the following heads: the unpopularity of the right of search in this country; its tendency, if mutually employed, to produce an unfriendly collision between the two nations; and a certain supposed inequality which would attend its exercise.

"With respect to any doubt of its utility, created by a persuasion that very few vessels under American colors have been discovered, for some time past, on the coast of Africa, it requires but little reflection to prove that no conclusive inference can be drawn from that circumstance. Not to dwell upon the extent and nature of the slave coast, peculiarly favorable to the concealment of trading vessels, it must be remembered that the United States have maintained at no time a greater number of cruisers than two, rarely more than one, and latterly, during several months together, no ship-of-war whatever on the African station. As late as the 14th of January, 1822, it was stated officially by the Governor of Sierra Leone, "that the fine rivers Nunez and Pongas were entirely under the control of renegade European and American slave traders."

But, if it were even manifest that the active and judicious exertions of your naval officers in that quarter had really effected a total disuse of the American flag in slave trading, the right of search would still be most highly desirable, in order to secure and extend so important an advantage. As an example, indeed, to other powers, particularly to France, whose subjects, encouraged by the loose and equivocal measures of their Government, are convicted, by a mass of evidence too strong to be resisted, of being concerned to a deplorable degree in this atrocious commerce, the concurrence of the United States in a system of which the very first result is to augment considerably the means of bringing offenders to justice, can hardly be rated at too high a value. The example which they are called upon to give is not merely due to the claims of humanity; Great Britain and the United States are not only pledged to put down the slave trade within the limits of their immediate jurisdiction, they are also bound by solemn obligations to employ their utmost endeavors for its complete and universal extermination. They have both succeeded in their benevolent object, so far as the rigor of legislative enactments is capable of counteracting the temptation of enormous profit, which stimulates the unprincipled avarice of the slave merchant. It is the facility of escaping detection, and not any want of severity in the punishment attached to a violation of their laws, which, so far as they are concerned, requires a more decisive remedy; and a remedy adequate to the evil can only be found in such measures as will strip the illicit trader of every disguise, and throw the chances entirely on the side of failure in his inhuman speculations. In the case of search at sea, the means unavoidably employed in the commission of this crime are fortunately, it may be said providentially, of such a nature as in general to furnish a plain substantial body of proof for the conviction of the criminal.

For the satisfaction of those who seriously apprehend that the friendly relations subsisting between the two countries would be endangered by the admission of a practice which, in their opinion, must necessarily produce a vexatious exercise of* authority on the part of the searching officer, and frequent complaints on that of the merchant whose vessel is subjected to search, with the supposed aggravation of an unequal pressure on one of the contracting parties, his Majesty's Government would doubtless agree to confine the right of visit to a fixed number of cruisers on each side, restricted in the performance of this duty to certain specified parts of the ocean, and acting under regulations prepared by mutual consent, for the purpose of preventing abuses. To these important limitations, if not deemed sufficient, others might easily be added; the arrangement, for example, might be temporary; adopted in the first instance for a short period, and only to be continued in the event of its being found on trial to operate in a satisfactory manner. With this understanding a speedy termination would, at least, be insured to any objectionable result attending its operation; and for the sake of interests as dear to humanity, an experiment, of which the advantage as to its main object is certain and complete, the inconvenience, contingent and momentary, might surely be reconciled with a due regard to considerations exclusively national.

Supposing that inconvenience should be found in practice to press unequally on the two parties, Great Britain, and not the United States, is most likely to have cause of complaint, inasmuch as the greater extent of her trade, especially on the coast of Africa, must naturally expose her in a greater degree to any injurious consequences of the agreement. Great Britain, however, is less disposed to shrink from

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any sacrifice by which she can materially advance the sacred cause of abolition, than to lament, and, if possible, to dispel those mistaken notions and unfounded jealousies which deprive her exertions of their full effect, and serve, but too successfully, to protract the existence of a mischief which all unite in deploring. In point of principle, the honor of neither flag would be tarnished by having its protection withdrawn for a season from those who perpetrate the atrocities of the slave trade; and permit me, sir, to add, that what Great Britain is ready to allow in a matter so vital to her pride and to her power may surely be allowed, reciprocally, by any other nation, however scrupulous in the maintenance of its maritime independence.

That an agreement between our respective cabinets, founded on a mutual right of search, thus guarded and explained, would fail to obtain the consent of the American Senate, or that a nation so inquiring and enlightened as the United States would confound the proposed measures with that practice which afforded matter of painful contention during the last wars in Europe, is what I am extremely unwilling to anticipate. The two objects are, in fact, so totally distinct from each other in principle, purpose, and mode of execution, that the proposal of the British Government need only be presented to the examination, I will not say of a select and experienced assembly, but of the people at large, in order to be seen in its true bearings.

So far is the British proposal from tending to commit the American Government on the long disputed question of the belligerent right of search, that if it may be supposed to touch that question at all, it appears rather to operate in the sense of the United States, than unfavorably for their view of the subject.

The officers intrusted on either side with the duty of examining suspected vessels would necessarily act under instructions calculated to insure a perfect harmony between the principle and the application of this conceded right, nor is it to be feared that they would presume, in any case, to extend the visit thus authorized at sea beyond the particular and specified object to which it is meant to be confined.

I have the honor to request, sir, that you will again accept the assurance of my highest consideration.

STRATFORD CANNING.

Hon. John Quincy Adams, Secretary of State, Sc.

Mr. Adams to Mr. Canning.

Department of State, Washington, June 24, 1823.

Sir: In the letter which I had the honor of addressing you on the 31st of March last a proposal was made, to be submitted to the consideration of your Government, that the principle assumed in an act of the Congress of the United States of May 15, 1820, of considering and punishing the African slave trade as piracy, should be adopted as the basis of a stipulation by treaty between the United States and Great Britain, and to be urged separately upon the adoption of France and upon the other maritime nations of Europe, in the manner most conducive to its ultimate success. It was observed that this offer was presented as a substitute for that of conceding a mutual right of search and a trial by mixed commissions, to which the United States could not be reconciled, and which would be rendered useless by it.

Tour letter of the 8th of April, to which I have now the honor to reply, intimates that his Majesty's Government will be disposed to receive this offer only as an acknowledgment that measures more efficient than any now generally in force are indispensable for the suppression of the slave trade; and that, although they have never opposed the consideration of any other plan, brought forward as equally effective, yet, having from the first regarded a mutual limited concession of the right of search as the only true and practical cure for the evil, their prevailing sentiment will be of regret at the unfavorable view still taken of it by the Government of the United States. Tour letter, therefore, urges a reconsideration of the proposal for the mutual concession of the right of search, and by presenting important modifications of the proposal heretofore made removes some of the objections which had been taken to it as insuperable, while it offers argumentative answers to the others which had been disclosed in my previous communications on this subject to you.

In the treaties of Great Britain with Spain, Portugal, and the Netherlands, for the suppression of the slave trade, heretofore communicated, with the invitation to the United States to enter into similar engagements, three principles were involved, to neither of which the Government of the United States felt itself at liberty to accede. The first was the mutual concession of the right of search and capture, in time of peace, over merchant vessels on the coast of Africa. The second was the exercise of that right even over vessels under convoy of the public officers of their own nation; and the third was the trial of the captured vessels by mixed commissions in colonial settlements under no subordination to the ordinary judicial tribunals of the country to which the party brought before them for trial should belong. In the course of the correspondence relating to these proposals it has been suggested that a substitute for the trial by mixed commissions might be agreed to, and in your letter of the 8th of April an expectation is authorized that an arrangement for the adjudication of the vessels detained might leave them to be disposed of in the ordinary way, by the sentence of a court of admiralty in the country of the captor, or place them under the jurisdiction of a similar court in the country to which they belonged; to the former alternative of which you anticipate the unhesitating admission of the United States, in consideration of the aggravated nature of the crime, as acknowledged by their laws, which would be thus submitted to a foreign jurisdiction. But it was precisely because the jurisdiction was foreign that the objection was taken to the trial by mixed commissions; and if it transcended the constitutional authority of the Government of the United States to subject the persons, property, and reputation of their citizens to the decisions of a court partly composed of their own countrymen, it might seem needless to remark that the constitutional objection could not diminish in proportion as its cause should increase, or that the power incompetent to make American citizens amenable to a court consisting one-half of foreigners should be adequate to place their liberty, their fortune, and their fame at the disposal of tribunals entirely foreign. I would further remark that the sentence of a court of admiralty in the country of the captor is not the ordinary way by which the merchant vessels of one nation, taken on the high seas by the officers of another, are tried in time of peace. There is, in the ordinary way, no right whatever existing to take, to

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search, or even to board them; and I take this occasion to express the great satisfaction with which we have seen this principle solemnly recognized by the decision of a British court of admiralty. Nor is the aggravation of the crime for the trial of which a tribunal may be instituted a cogent motive for assenting to the principle of subjecting American citizens, their rights, and interests, to the decision of foreign courts; for, although Great Britain, as you remark, may be willing to abandon those of her subjects who defy the laws and tarnish the character of their country by participating in this trade to the dispensation of justice even by foreign hands, the United States are bound to remember that the power which enables a court to try the guilty authorizes them also to pronounce upon the fate of the innocent, and that the very question of guilt or innocence is that which the protecting care of their Constitution has reserved for the citizens of this Union to the exclusive decision of their own countrymen. This principle has not been departed from by the statute which has branded the slave trader with the name, and doomed him to the punishment, of a pirate. The distinction between piracy by the law of nations and piracy by statute is well known and understood in Great Britain; and while the former subjects the transgressor guilty of it to the jurisdiction of any and every country into which he may be brought, or wherein he may be taken, the latter forms a part of the municipal criminal code of the country where it is enacted, and can be tried only by its own courts.

There remains the suggestion, that the slave trader, captured under the mutual concession of the power to make the capture, might be delivered over to the jurisdiction of his own country. This arrangement would not be liable to the constitutional objection, which must ever apply to the jurisdiction of the mixed commission, or of the admiralty courts of the captor; and if your note is to be understood as presenting it in the character of an alternative, to which your Government is disposed to accede, I am authorized to say that the President considers it as sufficient to remove the insuperable obstacle which had precluded the assent of the United States to the former proposals of your Government, resulting from the character and composition of the tribunals to whom the question of guilt or innocence was to be committed.

The objections to the right of search, as incident to the right of detention and capture, are also, in a very considerable degree, removed by the introduction of the principle that neither of them should be exercised but under the responsibility of the captor to the tribunals of the captured party in damages and costs. This guard against the abuses of a power so liable to abuse would be indispensable; but if the provisions necessary for securing effectually its practical operation would reduce the right itself to power merely nominal, the stipulation of it in a treaty would serve rather to mark the sacrifice of a great and precious principle than to attain the end for which it would be given up.

In the objections heretofore disclosed to the concession desired of the mutual and qualified right of search, the principal stress was laid upon the repugnance which such a concession would meet in the public feeling of this country, and of those to whom its interests are intrusted in the department of its Government, the sanction of which is required for the ratification of treaties. The irritating tendency of the practice of search, and the inequalities of its probable operation, were slightly noticed, and have been contested in argument, or met by propositions of possible palliatives, or remedies for anticipated abuses, in your letter. But the source and foundation of all these objections was, in our former correspondence, scarcely mentioned, and never discussed. They consist in the nature of the right of search at sea, which, as recognized or tolerated by the usage of nations, is a right exclusively of war, never exercised but by an outrage upon the rights of peace. It is an act analogous to that of searching the dwelling-houses of individuals on the land. The vessel of the navigator is his dwelling-house, and like that, in the sentiment of every people that cherishes the blessings of personal liberty and security, ought to be a sanctuary inviolable to the hand of power, unless upon the most unequivocal public necessity, and under the most rigorous personal responsibility of the intruder. Search at sea, as recognized by all maritime nations, is confined to the single object of finding and taking contraband of war. By the law of nature, when two nations conflict together in war, a third, remaining neutral, retains all its rights of peace and friendly intercourse with both. Each belligerent, indeed, acquires by war the right of preventing a third party from administering to his enemy the direct and immediate materials of war; and, as incidental to this right, that of searching the merchant vessels of the neutral on the high seas to find them. Even thus limited, it is an act of power which nothing but necessity can justify, inasmuch as it cannot be exercised but by carrying the evils of war into the abodes of peace, and by visiting the innocent with some of the penalties of guilt. Among the modern maritime nations, an usage has crept in, not founded upon the law of nature, never universally admitted, often successfully resisted, and against which all have occasionally borne testimony by renouncing it in treaties, of extending this practice of search and seizure to all the property of the enemy in the vessel of the friend. This practice was, in its origin, evidently an abusive and wrongful extension of the search for contraband: effected by the belligerent, because he was armed; submitted to by the neutral, because he was defenceless; and acquiesced in by his sovereign for the sake of preserving a remnant of peace, rather than become himself a party to the war. Having thus, occasionally, been practiced by all as belligerents, and submitted to by all as neutrals, it has acquired the force of an usage which, at the occurrence of every war, the belligerent may enforce or relinquish, and which the neutral may suffer or resist, at their respective options.

This search for and seizure of the property of an enemy in the vessel of a friend is a relic of the barbarous warfare of barbarous ages—the cruel and, for the most part, now exploded system of private war. As it concerns the enemy himself, it is inconsistent with that mitigated usage of modem wars which respects the private property of individuals on the land. As relates to the neutral, it is a violation of his natural right to pursue, unmolested, his peaceful commercial intercourse with his friend. Invidious as is its character in both these aspects, it has other essential characteristics equally obnoxious. It is an uncontrolled exercise of authority by a man in arms over a man without defence—by an officer of one nation over the citizen of another—by a man intent upon the annoyance of his enemy, responsible for the act of search to no tribunal, and always prompted to balance the disappointment of a fruitless search by the abusive exercise of his power, and to punish the neutral for the very clearness of his neutrality. It has, in short, all the features of unbridled power, stimulated by hostile and unsocial passions.

I forbear to enlarge upon the further extension of this practice by referring to injuries which the United States experienced when neutral in a case of vital importance; because, in digesting a plan for the attainment of an object which both nations have equally at heart, it is desirable to avoid every topic which may excite painful sensations on either side. I have adverted to the interest in question from necessity, it being one which could not be lost sight of in the present discussion.

Such being the view taken of the right of search, as recognized by the law of nations and exercised

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by belligerent powers, it is due to candor to state that my Government has an insuperable objection to its extension by treaty, in any manner whatever, lest it might lead to consequences still more injurious to the United States, and especially in the circumstance alluded to. That the proposed extension will operate in time of peace and derive its sanction from compact present no inducements to its adoption. On the contrary, they form strong objections to it. Every extension of the right of search on the principles of that right is disapproved. If the freedom of the sea is abridged by compact for any new purpose, the example may lead to other changes. And if its operation is extended to a time of peace, as well as of war, a new system will be commenced for the dominion of the sea, which may eventually, especially by the abuses into which it may lead, confound all distinction of time and circumstances, of peace and of war, and of rights applicable to each state.

The United States have, on great consideration, thought it most advisable to consider this trade as piracy, and to treat it as such. They have thought that the trade itself might, with great propriety, be placed in that class of offences; and that by placing it there we should more effectually accomplish the great object of suppressing the trade than by any other measure which we could adopt.

To this measure none of the objections which have been urged against the extension of the right of search appear to be applicable. Piracy being an offence against the human race, has its well known incidents of capture and punishment by death by the people and tribunals of every country. By making this trade piratical, it is the nature of the crime which draws after it the necessary consequences of capture and punishment. The United States have done this, by an act of Congress, in relation to themselves. They have also evinced their willingness and expressed their desire that the change should become general by the consent of every other power, whereby it would be made the law of nations. Till then, they are bound by the injunctions of their Constitution to execute it, so far as respects the punishment of their own citizens by their own tribunals. They consider themselves, however, at liberty until that consent is obtained to co-operate to a certain extent with other powers to insure a more complete effect to their respective acts; they placing themselves severally on the same ground by legislative provisions. It is in this spirit, and for this purpose, that I have made to you the proposition under consideration.

By making the slave trade piratical, and attaching to it the punishment as well as the odium incident to that crime, it is believed that much has been done by the United States to suppress it in their vessels and by their citizens. If your Government would unite in this policy, it is not doubted that the happiest consequences would result from it. The example of Great Britain in a manner so decisive could not fail to attract the attention and command the respect of all her European neighbors. It is the opinion of the United States that no measure short of that proposed will accomplish the object so much desired, and it is the earnest desire of my Government that the Government of his Britannic Majesty may co-operate in carrying it into effect.

I pray you, sir, to accept the renewed assurances of my distinguished consideration.

JOHN QUINCY ADAMS.

The Right Hon. Stratford Canning,

Envoy Extraordinary and Minister Plenipotentiary from Great Britain.

Extract of a letter from Mr. Adams to Mr. Nelson, dated

Department of State, Washington, April 28, 1823.

"A resolution of the House of Representatives, at the last session of Congress, requests the President to enter upon and to prosecute, from time to time, such negotiations with the several maritime powers of Europe and America as he may deem expedient for the effectual abolition of the African slave trade, and its ultimate denunciation as piracy under the law of nations, by the consent of the civilized world. You will take an early opportunity to make known this disposition to the Spanish Government; communicating to them copies of the fourth and fifth sections of the act of 3d March, 1819, which declares this traffic piratical when pursued by citizens of the United States; and you will express the willingness of the American Government to enter into negotiations for the purpose of declaring it so by the common consent of nations."

Extract of a letter from Mr. Adams to Mr. Rodney, dated

Department of State, Washington, May 11, 1823.

"A resolution of the House of Representatives, at the late session of Congress, requests the President of the United States to enter upon and prosecute, from time to time, such negotiations with the several maritime powers of Europe and America as he may deem expedient for the effectual abolition of the African slave trade, and its ultimate denunciation as piracy under the law of nations, by the consent of the civilized world.

"In pursuance of the object proposed by this resolution, you will communicate to the Government of Buenos Ayres copies of the several acts of Congress for the suppression of the slave trade, of April 20, 1818, (U. S. Laws, vol. 6, page 325;) March 3, 1819, (page 435;) and of May 15, 1820, (page 529;) pointing their attention particularly to the fourth and fifth sections of the last, which subject to the penalties of piracy every citizen of the United States guilty of active participation in the African slave trade. The adoption of this principle in the legislative code of all the maritime nations would, of itself, probably, suffice for the suppression of the trade. But as it would yet not authorize the armed vessels of any one nation to capture those of another engaged in the trade, a stipulation to that effect might be agreed to by treaty, conditioned that the captor shall deliver over the captured party to the tribunals of his own country for trial; to which should be added some guard of responsibility upon the capturing officer, to prevent the abusive exercise of his power."

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Extract from the General Instructions to Richard G. Anderson, appointed Minister Plenipotentiary to the Republic of Colombia, dated

Department of State, Washington, May 27, 1824.

"A resolution of the House of Representatives, at the late session of Congress, requests the President of the United States to enter upon and to prosecute, from time to time, such negotiations with the several maritime powers of Europe and America as he may deem expedient for the effectual abolition of the African slave trade, and its ultimate denunciation as piracy under the law of nations, by the consent of the civilized world.

"In pursuance of this object, you will communicate to the Colombian Government copies of the several acts of our Congress for the suppression of the slave trade, of April 20, 1818, (U. S. Laws, vol. vi, p. 325;) of March 3, 1819, (p. 435;) and of May 15, 1820, (p. 529;) pointing their attention particularly to the fourth and fifth sections of the last, which subject to the penalties of piracy every citizen of the United States guilty of active participation in the African slave trade. The adoption of this principle in the legislative code of all the maritime nations would, of itself, probably, suffice for the suppression of the trade; but as it would yet not authorize the armed vessels of any one nation to capture those of another engaged in the trade, a stipulation to that effect may be agreed to by the treaty, conditioned that the captor shall deliver over the captured party to the tribunals of his own country for trial; to which should be added some guard of responsibility upon the capturing officer, to prevent the abusive exercise of his powers."

Extract of a letter from Mr. Adams to Mr. Rush, dated

Department of State, Washington, June 24, 1823.

"A resolution of the, House of Representatives, almost unanimously adopted at the close of the last session of Congress, requested 'the President of the United States to enter upon and to prosecute, from time to time, such negotiations with the several maritime powers of Europe and America as he may deem expedient for the effectual abolition of the African slave trade, and its ultimate denunciation as piracy under the law of nations, by the consent of the civilized world.'

"At the two preceding sessions of Congress, committees of the House had proposed a resolution, expressed in more general terms, that 'the President of the United States be requested to enter into such arrangements as he may deem suitable and proper, with one or more of the maritime powers of Europe, for the effectual abolition of the African slave trade;' and this resolution had, in each case, been the conclusion of a report, recommending that the United States should accede to the proposal of a mutual and qualified concession of the right of search. The sentiments of the committee were, in this respect, different from those which had been expressed by the Executive Department of the Government in its previous correspondence with that of Great Britain. No decision by the House of Representatives was made upon these resolutions, proposed at the preceding sessions; but, upon the adoption of that which did pass at the last session, it was well ascertained that the sentiments of the House in regard to the right of search coincided with those of the Executive, for they explicitly rejected an amendment which was moved to the resolution, and which would have expressed an opinion of the House favorable to the mutual concession of that right.

"You have been fully informed of the correspondence between the Governments of the United States and of Great Britain concerning the suppression of the slave trade heretofore, and have been, from time to time, effectually instrumental to it yourself. You are aware of the grounds upon which the proposals on the part of Great Britain, that the United States should accede to the stipulations similar to those which she had succeeded in obtaining from Spain, Portugal, and the Netherlands, were on our part declined.

"The subject was resumed by the British minister residing here, Mr. S. Canning, a short time before the decease of the Marquis of Londonderry. It was suggested that, since the total disappearance of the British and American flags, as well as of those of the nations which had consented to put the execution of their laws against the trade under the superintendence of British naval officers, it continued to flourish under that of France; that her laws, though in word and appearance equally severe in proscribing the traffic, were so remiss in the essential point of execution that their effect was rather to encourage than to suppress it; and the American Government was urged to join in friendly representations to that of France by instructing the minister of the United States at Paris to concur in those which the British ambassador at that court had been charged with making to insure a more vigilant fulfilment of the prohibitory laws. This invitation, at that time given only in oral conference, was also declined, from an impression that such a concurrence might give umbrage to the French Government and tend rather to irritation than to the accomplishment of the object for which it was desired. Mr. Gallatin was, nevertheless, instructed separately to bring the subject to the notice of the French Government, and did so by a note communicating to them copies of the recent laws of the United States for the suppression of the slave trade, and particularly of that by which it has subjected every citizen of the United States who, after the passage of the law, should be polluted with it to the penalties of piracy.

"On the 29th of January last, Mr. Canning, in a letter to this Department, repeated the invitation of a joint and concurrent remonstrance to be made by the British ambassador and our minister in France; and, at the same time, called with great earnestness upon the Government of the United States either to accede to the principle of the mutual and qualified right of search, emphatically pronounced, in his belief, to be the only effectual measure devised or likely to be devised 'for the accomplishment of the end, or to bring forward some other scheme of concert,' which it again declared the readiness of his Majesty's minister to examine with respect and candor, as a substitute for that of the British cabinet.

"However discouraging this call for an alternative might be, thus coupled, as it was, with so decisive a declaration of belief that no effectual alternative had been or was likely to be devised, an opportunity was offered, in pursuance of the resolution of the House of Representatives, adopted at the close of the late session of Congress, for proposing a substitute, in our belief, more effectual than the

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right of search could be for the total and final suppression of this nefarious trade, and less liable either to objections of principle or to abuses of practice.

"This proposition was accordingly made in my letter to Mr. Canning of 31st of March last, to which his letter of the 8th of April was the answer. In this answer, Mr. Canning barely notices our proposition to express an opinion that his Government will see in it nothing but an acknowledgment of the necessity of further and more effectual measures, and then proceeds with an elaborate review of all the objections which, in the previous correspondence between the two Governments, had been taken on our part to the British connected proposal of a mutual right of search and a trial by mixed commissions. Our objection had been of two kinds: first, to the mixed commissions, as inconsistent with our Constitution; and secondly, to the right of search, as a dangerous precedent, liable to abuse and odious to the feelings and recollections of our country.

"In this letter of Mr. Canning the proposal of trial by mixed commissions is formally withdrawn, and an alternative presented as practicable, one side of which only, and that the inadmissible side, is distinctly offered, namely, of trial by the courts of the captor. The other side of the alternative would, indeed, remove our constitutional objection, and with it might furnish the means of removing the principal inherent objection to the concession of the right of search, that by which the searching officer is under no responsible control for that act.

"But in our previous correspondence our strong repugnance to the right of search had been adverted to merely as matter of fact, without tracing it to its source or referring to its causes. The object of this forbearance had been to avoid all unnecessary collision with feelings and opinions which were not the same on the part of Great Britain and upon ours. They had been willingly left undiscussed. This letter of Mr. Canning, however, professedly reviewing all the previous correspondence for the removal or avoidance of our objections, and contesting the analogy between the right of search, as it had been found obnoxious to us, and as now proposed for our adoption by formal compact, I have been under the absolute necessity of pointing out the analogies really existing between them, and of showing that, as right of search, independent of the right of capture, and irresponsible or responsible only to the tribunals of the captor, it is, as proposed, essentially liable to the same objections as it had been when exercised as a belligerent right. Its encroaching character, founded in its nature as an irresponsible exercise of force, and exemplified in its extension from search for contraband of war to search for enemies' property, and thence to search for men of the searcher's own nation, was thus necessarily brought into view, and connected the exhibition of the evils inherent in the practice with that of the abuses which have been found inseparable from it.

"We have declared the slave trade, so far as it may be pursued by citizens of the United States, piracy; and, as such, made it punishable with death. The resolution of the House of Representatives recommends negotiation to obtain the consent of the civilized world to recognize it as piracy under the law of nations. One of the properties of that description of piracies is, that those who are guilty of it may be taken upon the high seas and tried by the courts of every nation. But by the prevailing customary law they are tried only by the tribunals of the nation to which the vessel belongs in which the piracy was committed. The crime itself has been, however, in modern times, of so rare occurrence that there is no uniformity in the laws of the European nations with regard to this point, of which we have had remarkable and decisive proof within these five years in the case of piracy and murder committed on board the schooner Plattsburg, a merchant vessel of the United States. Nearly the whole of her crew were implicated in the crime, which was committed on the high seas. They carried the vessel into Christiansand, Norway, there abandoned her and dispersed. Three of them were taken up in Denmark; one in Sweden; one at Danzig, in Prussia; and one in France. Those taken up in Denmark and in Sweden were delivered up to officers of the United States, brought to this country, tried, convicted, and executed. The man taken at Danzig was, by the consent of the Prussian Government, sent to Elsineur, and there confronted with those taken in Denmark. The evidence against him on the examination was decisive; but as he persisted in the refusal to confess his guilt, the Prussian Government, bound by an established maxim of their municipal law, declined either to deliver him up or to try him themselves, but sent him back to Danzig, there to remain imprisoned for life. The French Government, upon advisement of the highest judicial authority of the kingdom, declined also either to try the man taken up there or to deliver him up, unless upon proof of his guilt being produced against him at the place where he was confined; with which condition it not having been in our power to comply, the man remained there also in prison presumably for life. From these incidents it is apparent that there is no uniformity in the modes of trial to which piracy, by the law of nations, is subjected in different European countries; but that the trial itself is considered as the right and the duty only of the nation to which the vessel belongs on board of which the piracy was committed. This was, however, a piracy committed on board of a vessel by its own crew. External piracies, or piracies committed by and from one vessel against another, may be tried by the courts of any country, but are more usually tried by those of the country whose vessels have been the sufferers of the piracy, as many of the Cuba pirates have been tried in the British West India islands, and some of them in our courts.

"This principle we should wish to introduce into the system, by which the slave trade should be recognized as piracy under the law of nations, namely: that, although seizable by the officers and authorities of every nation, they should be triable only by the tribunals of the country of the slave trading vessel. This provision is indispensable to guard the innocent navigator against vexatious detentions and all the evils of arbitrary search. In committing to foreign officers the power, even in a case of conventional piracy, of arresting, confining, and delivering over for trial a citizen of the United States, we feel the necessity of guarding his rights from all abuses, and from the application of any laws of a country other than his own.

"The draught of a convention is herewith inclosed, which, if the British Government should agree to treat upon this subject on the basis of a legislative prohibition of the slave trade by both parties under the penalties of piracy, you are authorized to propose and to conclude. These articles, however, are not offered to the exclusion of others which may be proposed on the part of the British Government, nor is any one of them, excepting the first, to be insisted on as indispensable, if others equally adapted to answer their purposes should he proposed. It is only from the consideration of the crime in the character of piracy that we can admit the visitation of our merchant vessels by foreign officers for any purpose whatever, and in that case only under the most effective responsibility of the officer for the act of visitation itself, and for everything done under it.

"If the sentiments of the British Government should be averse to the principle of declaring the trade

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itself, by a legislative act, piratical, you will not propose or communicate to them the inclosed project of convention. Its objects, you will distinctly understand, are two-fold—to carry into effect the resolution of the House of Representatives, and to meet, explicitly and fully, the call so earnestly urged by the British Government, that in declining the proposals pressed by them upon us of conceding a mutual and qualified right of search we should offer a substitute for their consideration. The substitute, by declaring the crime piracy, carries with it the right of search for the pirates existing in the very nature of the crime. But to the concession of the right of search, distinct from the denomination of the crime, our objections remain in all their original force.

"It has been intimated by Mr. S. Canning that the suggestion itself to the British Government of the propriety of their passing a legislative act might excite in them some repugnancy to it. We should regret the excitement of this feeling, which the very nature of the negotiation seems to foreclose. Besides the legislative enactments which have virtually been pressed upon us by all the invitations to concede the right of search and to subject our citizens to trial for violations of our own laws by foreign tribunals, Great Britain, in almost all her slave trade treaties, has required and obtained express stipulations for the enactment of prohibitory laws by France, Spain, Portugal, and the Netherlands. It was not expected that she would receive with reluctance herself a mere invitation to that which she had freely and expressly required from others. Still, if the sentiment should exist, we would forbear pressing it to the point of irritation by importunity. You will, in the first instance, simply state that, if the British Government is prepared to proclaim the slave trade piracy by statute, you are authorized to propose and to conclude a convention by which the mutual co-operation of the naval force of Great Britain and of the United States may be secured for carrying into effect the law which, on that contingency, will be common to both. Should the obstacle to the preliminary prove insuperable, you will refer the objections on the part of the British cabinet to this Government for consideration.

"By the loose information hitherto communicated in the public journals it would seem that the proposition for recognizing the slave trade as piracy, by the law of nations, was discussed at the Congress of Verona. We are expecting the communication of the papers relating to this subject, promised by Lord Liverpool to be laid before Parliament. Heretofore, although the United States have been much solicited and urged to concur in the measures of Great Britain and her allies for the suppression of the trade, they have been always communicated to us as purposes consummated to which the accession of the United States was desired. From the general policy of avoiding to intermeddle in European affairs, we have acquiesced in this course of proceeding; but, to carry fully into effect the late resolution of the House of Representatives, and to pursue the discussions hereafter with Great Britain herself, whether upon her proposals or upon ours, it is obviously proper that communication should be made to us of the progress of European negotiation for accomplishing the common purpose while it is in deliberation. If we are to co-operate in the result, it is just that we should be consulted, at least with regard to the means which we are invited to adopt."

DRAFT OF A CONVENTION FOR THE SUPPRESSION OF THE SLAVE TRADE, REFERRED TO IN MR. ADAMS' NOTE OF JUNE 24, 1823.

A convention for the suppression of piracy committed by the African slave trade.

Article 1. The two high contracting powers, having each separately, by its own laws, subjected their subjects and citizens who may be convicted of carrying on illicit traffic in slaves on the coast of Africa to the penalties of piracy, do hereby agree to use their influence, respectively, with the other maritime and civilized nations of the world, to the end that the said African slave trade may be recognized and declared to be piracy under the law of nations.

Article 2. It is agreed by the two high contracting parties that the commanders and commissioned officers of either nation, duly authorized, under the regulations and instructions of their respective Governments, to cruise on the coasts of Africa, of America, or of the West Indies, for the suppression of the slave trade, shall be authorized, under the conditions, limitations, and restrictions hereinafter mentioned, to capture, and deliver over to the duly authorized and commissioned officers of the other, any ship or vessel carrying on such illicit traffic in slaves under the flag of the said other nation, or for the account of their subjects or citizens, to be sent in for trial and adjudication by the tribunals of the country to which such slave ship or vessel shall belong. And the said commanders and commissioned officers shall be further authorized to carry or send in any such slave-trading ship, so by them captured, into the ports of the country to which such slave-trading ship shall belong, for trial by the tribunals and conformably to the laws of the said country. But the slave ship so captured shall not be sent into the ports or tried by the tribunals of the captor.

Article 3. If any naval commander or commissioned officer of the United States of America shall, on the high seas, or anywhere without the territorial jurisdiction of the said States, board, or cause to be boarded, any merchant vessel of Great Britain, and visit the same as a slave trader, or on suspicion of her being engaged in carrying on the illicit traffic in slaves, in every case, whether the said visited vessel shall be captured and delivered over or sent into the ports of her own country for trial and adjudication or not, the boarding officer shall deliver to the master or commander of the visited vessel a certificate in writing, signed by the said boarding officer with his name and the addition of his rank in the service of the United States, and the name of the public vessel of the United States and of her commander by whose order the said visit shall have been ordered; and the said certificate shall declare that the only object of the said visit is to ascertain whether the said British merchant vessel is engaged in the slave trade or not; and if found to be so engaged, to take and deliver her over to the officers or the tribunals of her own nation for trial and adjudication. And the commander of the said public vessel of the United States shall, when he delivers her over to the officers or tribunals of Great Britain, deliver all the papers found on board of the captured vessel, indicating her national character and the objects of her voyage, and with them a like certificate of visitation in writing, signed by his name, with the addition of his rank in the Navy of the United States and the name of the public vessel commanded by him, together with the name and rank of the boarding officer by whom the said visit was made. This

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certificate shall also specify all the papers received from the master of the vessel detained or visited, or found on board the vessel, and shall contain an authentic declaration exhibiting the state in which he found the vessel detained and the changes, if any, which have taken place in it, and the number of slaves, if any, found on board at the moment of detention. And the same duties, herein described, shall devolve upon every commander or commissioned officer of the Royal Navy of Great Britain by whom, or by whose order, any merchant vessel of the United States, or navigating under their flag, shall be visited for the said purposes, and upon the boarding officer by whom the visit shall be effected, on the high seas, or anywhere without the territorial jurisdiction of Great Britain.

Article 4. No merchant vessel of either of the contracting parties under the convoy of a public vessel of her own nation shall, under any circumstances whatever, be captured or visited by or from any public vessel of the other nation as being engaged, or on suspicion of being engaged, in the slave trade.

Article 5. No search shall be made by or under the orders of the commander or boarding officer of any public vessel of either party visiting any merchant vessel of the other as being engaged, or under suspicion of being engaged, in the slave trade, excepting such as may be necessary to ascertain if there be slaves on board for the purposes of the said traffic, or other proof that the said vessel is so engaged. No person shall be taken out of the said visited or captured merchant vessel of either nation by the commanding officer of the visiting vessel, or under his order. Nor shall any part of the cargo of the said visited vessel be removed out of her until delivered over to the officers or tribunals of her own nation.

Article 6. When a merchant vessel of either nation shall be captured as being engaged in the slave trade by any commander or commissioned officer of the Navy of the other nation, it shall be the duty of the commander of any public ship of the Navy of the nation to which the captured vessel shall belong, upon the offer thereof being made to him by the commander of the capturing vessel, to receive into his custody the vessel so captured, and to carry or send the same into the ports of his own country for trial and adjudication; and at the time of the delivery of the said vessel an authentic declaration shall be drawn up in triplicates, signed by both the commanders of the delivering and of the receiving vessels, one copy of which shall be kept by each of them, stating the circumstances of the delivery, the condition of the vessel captured at the time of the delivery, the number of slaves, if any, on board of her, a list of all the papers received or found on board of her at the time of capture and delivered over with her, and the names of the master or commander of the captured vessel, and of every person on board of her other than the slaves at the said time of delivery; and the third copy of the said declaration shall be transmitted, with the said captured vessel and the papers found on board of her, to one of the ports of the country to which the said captured vessel shall belong, to be produced before the tribunal appointed or authorized to decide upon the said capture; and the commander of the said capturing vessel shall be authorized to send the boarding officer and one or two of his crew with the said captured vessel to appear as witnesses of the facts in relation to her capture and detention before the said tribunal; the reasonable expenses of which witnesses, in proceeding to the place of trial, during their necessary detention there, and for their return to their own country, or to rejoin their station in its service, shall be allowed by the tribunal of trial, and in case of the condemnation of the captured vessel, be defrayed from the proceeds of the sale thereof; and in case of the acquittal of the said vessel, they shall be paid by the Government of the capturing officer.

Article 7. The commander or commissioned officer of the Navy of either of the contracting parties, having captured a merchant vessel of the other as being engaged in the slave trade, if there be no public vessel of the nation to which the said captured vessel belongs cruising upon the same station, to the commander of whom the said captured vessel may be delivered over as stipulated in the preceding article, shall carry or send the said captured vessel to some convenient port of her own country, there to be delivered up to the competent tribunal for trial and adjudication. And the said captured vessel shall there be libelled in the name and behalf of the captors; and in case of the condemnation of the said vessel, the proceeds of the sale thereof and of her cargo, if also condemned, shall be paid to the commander of the said capturing vessel for the benefit of the captors, to be distributed according to the established rules of the service of the nation to which such capturing vessel shall belong for the distribution of prize money.

Article 8. The captain or commander and crew of the said vessel so captured and sent in for trial and adjudication shall be proceeded against conformably to the laws of the country whereinto they shall be so brought upon the charge of piracy, by being engaged in the African slave trade; and the captain or commander, the boarding officer, and other persons belonging to the capturing vessel, shall be competent witnesses to the facts relating to the said charge and to the capture of the said vessel, to which they shall be personally knowing. But every such witness upon the criminal trial for piracy shall be liable to be challenged by the person accused, and set aside as incompetent, unless he shall release and renounce all his individual claim to any part of the prize money upon the condemnation of the vessel and cargo.

Article 9. It is agreed between the high contracting parties that the right of visiting, capturing, and delivering over for trial, the vessels engaged in the African slave trade, and assuming their respective flags, is mutually conceded to the officers of their respective navies, on the consideration that they have, by their respective laws, declared their citizens and subjects actively participating in the said traffic guilty of the crime of piracy.

That no part of this convention shall be so construed as to authorize the detention, search, or visitation of the merchant vessels of either nation, by the public officers of the Navy of the other, except vessels engaged in the African slave trade, or for any other purpose whatever than that of seizing and delivering up the persons and vessels concerned in that traffic for trial and adjudication by the tribunals and laws of their own country.

Article 10. It is further agreed that this right of visiting, detaining, and delivering over for trial, vessels engaged in the slave trade, shall be exercised only by the commissioned officers of the Navy of the parties, respectively, furnished with instructions from their respective Governments for the execution of their respective laws for the suppression of the slave trade. That the boarding officer, and the captain or commander, of the vessel exercising these rights, or either of them, shall be personally responsible in damages and costs to the master and owners of every merchant vessel so by them delivered over, detained, or visited, for every vexatious or abusive exercise of the right. In the case of every vessel delivered over, as herein stipulated, for trial, the tribunal shall be competent to receive the complaint of the master, owner, or owners, or of any person on board of such captured vessel, or interested in the property of her cargo at the time of her detention, and, on suitable proof of such vexatious or abusive detention or visitation, to award reasonable damages and costs to the sufferers, to be paid by the said

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commanding or boarding officer, or either of them, so charged with vexatious or abusive detention or visit. And the high contracting parties agree that their respective Governments shall, in every such case, cause payment to be made of all such damages and costs so awarded to the persons so entitled to receive them within twelve months from the date of such award. And if any case of such vexatious or abusive detention or visit should occur, in which the vessel detained or visited shall not be delivered over for trial and adjudication, as herein provided, the commander and boarding officer by whom such vexatious and abusive detention or visit shall have been made, shall also be responsible in costs and damages to the sufferers, upon complaint before the competent admiralty court of the country of the said commander and boarding officer. And the respective Governments shall, in like manner, cause payment to be made of any damages and costs awarded by said court within twelve months from the date of the award.

Article 11. A copy of this convention, and of the laws of the two countries actually in force for the prohibition and suppression of the African slave trade, shall be furnished to every commander of the public vessels instructed to carry into effect such prohibition. And in case any such commanding officer of the Navy of the United States or of Great Britain shall deviate in any respect from the dispositions of this treaty, and from the instructions of his Government conformable to it, the Government which shall conceive itself to be wronged by such conduct shall be entitled to demand reparation; and in such case the Government of the nation, to the service of which he may belong, binds itself to cause inquiry to be made into the subject of the complaint, and to inflict upon him, if he be found to have deserved it, a punishment proportioned to the transgression which may have been committed.

Article 12. The present treaty, consisting of ----- articles, shall be ratified, and the ratifications exchanged within one year from this date, or sooner if possible.

In witness whereof, the respective plenipotentiaries have signed the same, and thereunto affixed their seals.

Done a ----- , the ----- day of ----- , in the year of our Lord ----- .

Mr. Adams to Mr. Middleton, No. 11.

Department of State, Washington, July 28, 1823.

Sir: At the close of the last session of Congress a resolution was adopted by the House of Representatives, almost unanimously, requesting "the President of the United States to enter upon, and to prosecute from time to time, such negotiations with the several maritime powers of Europe and America as he may deem expedient for the effectual abolition of the African slave trade, and its ultimate denunciation as piracy, under the law of nations, by the consent of the civilized world."

In pursuance of this resolution, instructions for carrying it into effect have been given to the ministers of the United States destined to the Republics of Colombia and of Buenos Ayres, and to the minister who has recently departed for Spain. But, as a negotiation for co-operation to effect the suppression of the African slave trade had already been commenced with Great Britain, a special instruction upon the subject was forwarded to Mr. Rush, together with a full power, and a draft of a convention, to be proposed, in substance, to that Government, and which he has been authorized to conclude.

A copy of that instruction and draft are herewith inclosed; the general terms of which you will communicate, at such time and in such manner, to the Imperial Russian Government, as you shall think proper.

You will also communicate to them the purport of the resolution of the House of Representatives, above cited, and copies of the laws of the United States prohibiting the slave trade. You will particularly invite their attention to the two sections of the act of the 15th May, 1820, by which this offence, when committed by citizens of the United States, is subjected to the penalties of piracy.

The proposal that this principle should be recognized by the general consent of civilized nations, recommended by the resolution of the House of Representatives, appears to be substantially the same with that made by Great Britain at the Congress of Verona. It was not acceded to by any one of the other powers there assembled, and the conferences on this subject terminated there by a mere renewal of the joint declaration against the traffic, of the Congress at Vienna. So long as the trade shall not be recognized as piracy by the law of nations, we cannot, according to our Constitution, subject our citizens to trial for being engaged in it by any tribunal other than those of the United States.

The admission of the crime as piracy by the law of nations would seem necessarily to subject the perpetrators of it to capture by the armed force of every nation. And this might endanger the lawful commerce of the maritime nations, by subjecting them to the abuses of vexatious searches, without some special provision to guard against them.

This is the object of the stipulations proposed in the draft herewith transmitted; requiring that all vessels of one nation which may be captured, as slave traders, by the cruisers of another, should be delivered over for trial to the tribunals of their own country.

You will see that Mr. Rush is instructed to correspond with you upon this subject. If the draft of the articles inclosed should lead to the conclusion of a convention between the United States and Great Britain, a communication of it to the Russian Government will be made as soon as possible, and we shall propose that his Imperial Majesty's accession to it, if agreeable to him, shall be invited.

In the meantime you will informally suggest to his ministry that it will be the desire of the Government of the United States to proceed in this matter in perfect good understanding and harmony with them; and you will further intimate that, as this has now become a general concern of the whole civilized world, and as Great Britain is negotiating jointly and severally with each and every of her allies in Europe, apart, and again with them all together, while she is also separately treating with us, we wish it to be considered whether it would not be expedient on all sides that communication should be made to us of all the jointly concerted measures while they are mere proposals, and not that the knowledge of them should be withheld from us until they are matured into positive treaties.

I am, with great respect, sir, your very humble and obedient servant,

JOHN QUINCY ADAMS.

Hon. Henry Middleton, Envoy Extraordinary and Minister Plenipotentiary of the United, States, at St. Petersburg.

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Mr. Adams to Mr. Everett, No. 10.

Department of State, Washington, August 8, 1823.

Sir: At the close of the last session of Congress a resolution was adopted, almost unanimously, by the House of Representatives, "that the President of the United States be requested to enter upon, and to prosecute from time to time, such negotiations with the several maritime powers of Europe and America as he may been expedient for the effectual abolition of the African slave trade, and its ultimate denunciation as piracy, under the law of nations, by the consent of the civilized world."

In pursuance of this resolution, instructions for carrying it into effect have been given to the ministers of the United States destined to the Republics of Colombia and of Buenos Ayres, and to the several ministers of the United States in Europe.

As a negotiation for co-operation to effect the suppression of the African slave trade had already been commenced with Great Britain, a special instruction upon the subject has been forwarded to Mr. Rush, together with a full power, and a draft of a convention, to be proposed, in substance, to the British Government, and which he is authorized to conclude.

A necessary preliminary to the conclusion of this proposed convention, should it meet the assent of the British Government, will be the enactment of a statute declaring the crime of African slave trading piracy by the British law. In that event, it is proposed, by proper co-operation, that the influence of the two powers should be exerted to obtain the consent of other nations to the general outlawry of this traffic as piracy. In the meantime, to give at once effect to the concert of both nations, it is proposed that the armed vessels of both, duly authorized and instructed, shall have power to capture the slave-trading vessels which may assume the flag of either, and, if not of their own nation, to deliver over the captured slave trader to the officers or tribunals of his own country for trial and adjudication.

This principle is essential, as connected with that of constituting the traffic piracy by the law of nations. So long as the offence was considered as of inferior magnitude, the Constitution of the United States forbade the submission of it, when charged upon their citizens, to any foreign tribunal; and when the crime and the punishment are aggravated to involve the life of the accused, it affords but a more imperative inducement for securing to him the benefit of a trial by his countrymen and his peers.

It appears that, at the conferences of Verona, the proposition was made by the British Government that the slave trade should be recognized and proclaimed as piracy by the law of nations. We have, therefore, reason to hope that the proposal now made to them on the part of the United States will be favorably considered by them. In that case, further communications on the subject with other Governments will ensue.

In the meantime, to fulfil the intentions of the House of Representatives in relation to the Netherlands, you will communicate to their Government a copy of the resolution, together with copies of the laws of the United States prohibiting the slave trade, with particular notice of the two sections of the act of 15th May, 1820, by which the crime of being concerned in the African slave trade, when committed by citizens of the United States, is declared to be and is made punishable as for piracy. And you will announce the readiness of the American Government, should it suit the views of his Majesty the King of the Netherlands, to enter upon a negotiation for the purpose of carrying into effect the object of the resolution of the House of Representatives, namely, the denunciation of the African slave trade as piracy by the law of nations.

I am, with great respect, sir, your very humble and obedient servant,

JOHN QUINCY ADAMS.

Hon. Alexander H. Everett, Chargé d'Affaires United States to the Netherlands.

Extracts of a letter, No. 6, from Mr. Adams to General Dearborn, Envoy Extraordinary and Minister Plenipotentiary of the United States at Lisbon, dated

Department of State, Washington, August 14, 1823.

"At the close of the last session of Congress a resolution was adopted, almost unanimously, by the House of Representatives—

"That the President of the United States be requested to enter upon, and to prosecute from time to time, such negotiations with the several maritime powers of Europe and America as he may deem expedient for the effectual abolition of the African slave trade, and its ultimate denunciation as piracy, under the law of nations, by the consent of the civilized world.'

"A negotiation for concerting measures of co-operation to effect the suppression of the African slave trade had already for several years been pending with Great Britain, for which reason a special instruction has been transmitted to Mr. Rush, together with a full power, and a draft of a convention, to be proposed, in substance, to the British Government, which he is authorized to conclude.

"Should this proposal meet the assent of the British Government, a necessary preliminary to the conclusion of the convention will be the passage of an act of Parliament declaring the crime of African slave trading, when committed by British subjects, piracy. An act of Congress to that effect, as relates to citizens of the United States, has been in force, as you are aware, these three years. When the crime shall have been constituted piracy by the statute law of both countries, each with reference to its own citizens or subjects, the principle offered by the projected convention is, that the armed vessels of each, specially empowered and instructed to that end, shall be authorized to capture slave-trading vessels assuming the flag of the other, and to deliver over the captured vessels to the public cruisers, or to the tribunals of their own country, for trial. This plan is offered as a substitute for that which was offered to us by Great Britain, which was predicated on the treaties already concluded between that power and Spain, Portugal, and the Netherlands. The leading principle of these treaties was the mutual concession of the right of maritime search, in time of peace, to the armed vessels of both cruising for slave traders, and a

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mixed court of commissioners and arbitrators, sitting in colonial possessions of the parties, for the trial of the delinquents. To this system the United States have steadily declined to accede, for two reasons: one, because they had an invincible repugnance to subject their merchant vessels to the maritime search of foreign officers in time of peace; and the other, because they could not subject their citizens to the jurisdiction of foreign tribunals, upon trials for offences against their laws.

"At the conferences of Verona, the British Government appears to have proposed that the African slave trade should be declared piracy by the law of nations. This is the same proposition recommended by the resolution of the House of Representatives of the United States. The ultimate object of the United States and of Great Britain, therefore, is the same."

"The negotiations suggested by the resolution of the House must depend materially for their character and progress, with reference to other powers, upon the event of that which is thus pending with Great Britain. The instructions to the ministers of the United States in other countries have therefore been only of a general character."

"Portugal is the only maritime power of Europe which has not yet declared the African slave trade, without exception, unlawful. Her own internal situation has, perhaps, recently tended to dimmish the influence of those interests which have heretofore prevailed to delay and postpone her acquiescence in the principle of total proscription upon that trade. It is hoped that she will not much longer resist the predominating spirit of the age, calling so loudly upon the rulers of mankind effectually to put down the crying sin of that abominable traffic.

"In communicating to the Portuguese Government copies of the resolution of the House of Representatives, and of the laws of the United States prohibiting the slave trade, you will state that the Government of the United States will be ready to enter at any time, when it may suit the views of that of Portugal, upon the negotiation contemplated by the resolution."

Mr. Bush to Mr. Adams, giving him the substance of a conversation with Mr. Canning.

[Extracts.]

London, October 9, 1823.

"This latter subject" (the slave trade) "he said it was his wish to take in hand with me himself, and thus keep it detached from the general negotiation."

"Whilst we were speaking of the mode of taking up the question of the slave trade, I did not scruple to intimate, even at this early stage, that unless this Government was prepared to say that it would cause a statute to be passed declaring the trade by its own subjects to be piracy, and rendering it punishable as such, in manner as had been done by the United States, that I was not authorized to make any proposals upon the subject; that this, in fact, was the only basis upon which it fell within the intentions of my Government to attempt any arrangement of the subject whatever. I was happy to hear Mr. Canning say, in reply, that he did not, speaking from his first impressions, see any insurmountable obstacle upon this score to our proceeding with the subject."

Extract from No. 11 of Mr. Sheldon, Chargé d'Affaires of the United States at Paris, to the Secretary of State.

Paris, October 16, 1823.

"In the same conference I also informed Mr. de Chateaubriand of the resolution of the House of Representatives respecting the slave trade, which made the subject of your despatch, No. 2, of the 14th of August. He repeated, in substance, what he had before stated to Mr. Gallatin in conversation, viz: that the French Government were sincerely desirous of putting an end to that trade, and were taking all the measures in their power to effect it by pursuing offenders and executing rigidly the laws now in existence; but that the public opinion generally in France, and more especially in the Chambers, was against it, owing not only to the prevalence of the colonial interest in the question, but particularly to the circumstances under which their stipulations with England upon this subject had been made; so tender were they upon this point that the proposition of adding new rigors to their laws would be taken as a new concession to that power, and, instead of being adopted in the Chambers, would be more likely to provoke an attempt to repeal the prohibitory measures already established, in order to rid themselves in that way of one of the charges imposed upon them by the foreign occupation; that time was necessary to wear away these impressions; and until that should have arrived, no minister in France could be strong enough upon this point to do more than to watch over the execution of the laws already in force, which they were now disposed to do fully and faithfully, and which, if not entirely efficient, at least made the prosecution of the trade under the French flag hazardous and difficult.

"At present, therefore, it is not probable that France will consent to the proposal of the President to enter upon the negotiation contemplated by the resolution of the House of Representatives. I have, however, made the proposal in obedience to your directions, and have the honor to inclose a copy of the letter to Viscount de Chateaubriand, in which I have communicated to him that resolution."

Extracts from No. 14 of Mr. Sheldon, Chargé d'Affaires, to the Secretary of State, dated

Paris, November 5, 1823.

"I have received answers from Viscount de Chateaubriand on the subject of the new and more effective measures proposed against the slave trade."

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"On the subject of the slave trade, the answer manifests a disposition to adopt such new provisions as may be found necessary for its more effectual suppression, and this disposition really exists; but after what Mr. de Chateaubriand had stated in conversation, and which I have already communicated, these new and more rigorous legislative provisions can only be introduced gradually, and some time will be required for effecting that purpose."

Mr. Sheldon to the Viscount de Chateaubriand.

Paris, October 15, 1823.

Sir: The minister of the United States to this court had, some time before he left Paris, transmitted to your excellency copies of the laws successively adopted by the United States for the suppression of the slave trade. This communication was intended for the special purpose of making the French Government acquainted with the fact that, so far as the United States were concerned, their legislation upon this subject had been ineffectual; that their laws had been violated and the trade had continued until they had denounced against it the highest punishment that a human tribunal can inflict. Since it has been declared to be piracy, and punishable with death, the American flag has no longer been soiled with it.

At the last session of Congress that body, desirous that the co-operation of the maritime powers might be obtained in measures which we had found to be so effectual, formally requested the President to enter upon and prosecute negotiations with those powers to that end. I have the honor to inclose a copy of the resolution adopted with great unanimity by the House of Representatives upon that subject, and I am directed to declare that the President is ready to enter upon the negotiation contemplated by it with France whenever it may be agreeable to her. Instructions to the same effect have been given to all the ministers of the United States accredited to foreign powers, and the favorable results which are hoped from them will be made known at the earliest opportunities to the French Government. It may be expected that a co-operation in measures equally effectual with those heretofore brought forward for the suppression of this trade, and not open to similar objections, will be generally and readily afforded. I beg to offer to your excellency the renewed assurances, &c.

D. SHELDON.

Viscount de Chateaubriand to Mr. Sheldon.

[Translation.]

Paris, October 29, 1823.

Sir: You did me the honor of writing me on the 15th of this month that the Government of the United States had only attained the effectual suppression of the slave trade by making it piracy, and by rendering those guilty of it liable to the same punishment. You have at the same time informed me that that Government was disposed to co-operate with the other powers, by negotiations, to attain by the same means the complete and general abolition of this traffic.

The communication which you did me the honor to address to me cannot but deserve great consideration. I have requested the Keeper of the Seals to review with great care the laws and ordinances which have been made in France for obtaining the abolition of the trade; to certify, after this examination, in what points they may be insufficient, and to propose for completing them, in case of need, all the new dispositions which might accord with the independence and rights of the flag, and which might appear most proper to assure, in France, in an efficacious manner, the absolute cessation of a traffic so contrary to the rights of humanity.

Accept, sir, the assurances, &c.

CHATEAUBRIAND.

Extract of a letter from Mr. Everett, Chargé d'Affaires, to the Secretary of State, dated

Brussels, November 20, 1823.

"I have received from the Baron de Nagell a preliminary answer to my note of the 7th upon the slave trade, of which I have the honor to inclose a copy."

Mr. Everett to Baron de Nagell.

[Translation.]

Brussels, November 7, 1823.

Sir: I have the honor to subjoin to your excellency, by order of my Government, a printed copy of the laws of the United States which forbid their citizens to pursue the slave trade; also a copy of the resolution of the House of Representatives of the 8th of February, 1823, by which the President is requested to concert with the maritime powers of Europe and of America the measures which may be most proper to effect the abolition of that trade, and to make it, by the universal consent of the civilized world, equivalent to the crime of piracy.

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Your excellency will remark that it is already viewed in this light by the laws of the United States. The act of March 15, 1820, declares (sections 4 and 5) that the persons subject to the jurisdiction of the Republic who shall be engaged in the slave trade, either by seizing these unfortunates by force or fraud and carrying them on board their vessels, or by keeping them there, and making them an object of traffic, shall be deemed pirates, and punished with death.

In fact, this pretended commerce bears all the characteristics of piracy—that is, of felony committed on the sea; and as it has been denounced as a crime by the greater part of civilized nations, it ought to fall into the particular class of crimes to which it naturally belongs, and undergo the penalties which the usage and the law of nations impose upon them. An unanimous declaration of the Christian powers to this effect would inevitably produce the entire cessation of the trade. The public ships of each power would then be authorized by the law of nations to cruise against the persons who might be engaged in it, without regard to the color of the flag with which they might pretend to be sheltered; whilst, if the trade is only regarded in each country as an offence against the municipal laws, it would be lawful for any one nation alone, by permitting it, to afford an asylum under its flag to the pirates of all the others.

The known character of the King, and the zeal which his Majesty has already displayed in his efforts to bring about the abolition of this infamous commerce, furnish a presumption to the Government of the United States that that of the Low Countries will voluntarily co-operate with it to that effect. In communicating to your excellency the subjoined papers, and in praying that you will be pleased to lay them before the King, I am charged to announce to him the desire of the President of the United States to obtain the co-operation of his Majesty in this work of justice and to establish a concert between the two powers in the measures which they may pursue, in common, to render the slave trade equivalent to the crime of piracy by the universal consent of the Christian world.

I eagerly embrace this occasion to renew to your excellency the homage of my most distinguished consideration.

A. H. EVERETT.

Baron de Nagell to Mr. Everett.

[Translation.]

Brussels, November 13, 1823.

Sir: I have the honor to acknowledge the receipt of your note of the 1th of this month, containing some propositions in regard to the slave trade, and to inform you that without delay I laid this paper and its inclosures before the King.

I shall hasten to impart to you the determination of his Majesty as soon as I shall have been informed of it; and, in the meantime, I seize this opportunity to renew the assurance of my distinguished consideration.

A. W. C. DE NAGELL.