was silenced, Commodore Rodgers exerted himself to save her from further injury. The findings of the court were in accordance with the evidence. As to seizure on suspicion if concerned in slave-trade, "He (Lord Castlereagh) added, that no peculiar structure or previous appearances in the vessel searched, no presence of irons, or other presumptions of criminal intention-nothing but the actual finding of slaves on board was ever to authorize a seizure or detention." Mr. Rush, minister at London, to Mr. Adams, Sec. of State, Apr. 15, 1818. MSS. It is maintained "that the admission of a right in the officers of foreign ships-of-war to enter and search the vessels of the United States, in time of peace, under any circumstances whatever, would meet with universal repugnance in the public opinion of this country; that there would be no prospect of a ratification by advice and consent of the Senate to any stipulation of that nature; that the search by foreign officers, even in time of war, is so obnoxious to the feelings and recollections of this country that nothing could reconcile them to the extension of it, however qualified or restricted, to a time of peace; and that it would be viewed in a still more aggravated light, if, as in the treaty with the Netherlands, connected with a formal admission that even vessels under convoy of ships-of-war of their own nation should be liable to search by the ships-of-war of another." Mr. Adams, Sec. of State, to Messrs. Gallatin and Rush, Nov. 2, 1818. MSS. "The Government of the United States has never asserted, but has invariably disclaimed the pretension of a right to authorize the search, by the officers of the United States, in time of peace, of foreign vessels upon the high seas, without their jurisdiction." Mr. Adams, Sec. of State, to Mr. de Neuville, Feb. 22, 1822. MSS. Notes, For. "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 commissious 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 usual 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 pro-· portion 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 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 recent decision of a British court of admiralty. "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 palliations 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.” Mr. Adams, Sec. of State, to Mr. Canning, June 24, 1823. MSS. Notes, For. Leg. The correspondence in 1819-23, in reference to the slave trade and the right of As to right of search, see slave trade convention of 1824. 5 Am, St. Pap. (For, The action of the Senate in 1824 on the proposed convention with Great Britain for the suppression of the slave trade was substantially as follows: On May 21 it was resolved by a vote of 36 to 2 "that an article be added whereby it shall be free to either of the parties, at any time, to renounce the said convention, on giving six months' notice beforehand. On May 22, after several preliminary votes, it was, by a vote of yeas 29, uays 13, resolved: "That the Senate do advise and consent to the ratification of the convention made and concluded at London the 13th day of March, 1824, between the United States of America and the King of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, with the exception of the words 'of America,' in line four of the first article; with the exception of the second article, and the following words in the seventh article: '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:' Provided, That an article be added, whereby it shall be free to either of the par. ties at any time to renounce the said convention, giving six months' notice beforehand." 5 Am. St. Pap. (For. Rel.), 362. "The convention between the United States and Great Britain for the suppression of the African slave trade, is herewith transmitted to you, with the ratification on the part of the United States, under certain modifications and exceptions, annexed as conditions to the advice and consent of the Senate to its ratification. "The participation of the Senate of the United States in the final conclusion of all treaties to which they are parties is already well known to the British Government, and the novelty of the principles established by the convention, as well as their importance, and the requisite assent of two-thirds of the Senators present to the final conclusion of every part of the ratified treaty, will explain the causes of its ratification under this form. It will be seen that the great and essential principles which form the basis of the compact are admitted to their full extent in the ratified part of the convention. The second article, and the portion of the seventh which it is proposed to expunge, are unes sential to the plan, and were not included in the project of convention transmitted to you from hence. They appear, indeed, to be, so far as concerned the United States, altogether inoperative, since they could not confer the power of capturing slave traders under the flag of a third party, a power not claimed either by the United States or Great Britain, unless by treaty; and the United States, having no such treaty with any other power, it is presumed that the bearing of those articles was exclusively upon the flags of those other nations with which Great Britain has already treaties for the suppression of the slave trade, and that, while they give an effective power to the officers of Great Britain, they conferred none upon those of the United States. "The exception of the coast of America from the seas upon which the mutual power of capturing the vessels under the flag of either party may be exercised, had reference, in the views of the Senate, doubtless, to the coast of the United States. On no part of that coast, unless within the Gulf of Mexico, is there any probability that slavetrading vessels will ever be found. The necessity for the exercise of the authority to capture is, therefore, no greater than it would be upon the coast of Europe. In South America the only coast to which slave traders may be hereafter expected to resort, is that of Brazil, from which it is to be hoped they will shortly be expelled by the laws of the country. "The limitation by which each party is left at liberty to renounce the convention by six months' notice to the other, may, perhaps, be useful in reconciling other nations to the adoption of its provisions. If the principles of the convention are to be permanently maintained this limitation must undoubtedly be abandoned; and when the public mind shall have been familiarized to the practical operation of the system, it is not doubted that this reservation will, on all sides, be readily given up. "In giving these explanations to the British Government you will state that the President was fully prepared to have ratified the convention, without alteration, as it had been signed by you. He is aware that the conditional ratification leaves the British Government at liberty to concur therein, or to decline the ratification altogether, but he will not disguise the wish that, such as it is, it may receive the sanction of Great Britain, and be carried into effect. When the concurrence of both Governments has been at length obtained, by exertions so long and so anxiously continued, to principles so important, and for purposes of so high and honorable a character, it would prove a severe disappointment to the friends of freedom and of humanity if all prospect of effective concert between the two nations for the extirpation of this disgrace to civilized man should be lost by differences of sentiment, in all probability transient, upon unessential details." Mr. Adams, Sec. of State, to Mr. Rush, May 29, 1824. MSS. Inst., Ministers. 5 "I have the honor to inform you that Mr. Secretary Canning has given me to understand, in an interview which I have this day had with him, that his Government finds itself unable to accede to the convention for the suppression of the slave trade, with the alterations and modifications which have been annexed to its ratification on the part of the United States. He said that none of these alterations or modifications would have formed insuperable bars to the consent of Great Britain, except that which had expunged the word America from the first article, but that this was considered insuperable. * * "The reasons which Mr. Canning assigned for this determination on the part of Great Britain I forbear to state, as he has promised to address a communication in writing to me upon this subject, where they will be seen more accurately and at large; but to guard against any delay in my receiving that communication, I have thought it right not to lose any time in thus apprising you, for the President's information, of the result." Mr. Rush to Mr. Adams, Sec. of State, Aug. 9, 1824. 5 Am. St. Pap. (For. Rel.), 364. The opponents of the slave trade "were introducing, and had already obtained the consent of Spain, Portugal, and the Netherlands, to a new principle of the law of nations more formidable to human liberty than the slave trade itself—a right of the commanders of armed vessels of one nation to visit and search the merchant vessels of another in time of peace." Mr. J. Q. Adams, April 29, 1819, as reported in 4 J. Q. Adams's Mem., 354. The United States cannot accede to a treaty stipulation extending the right to search supposed slavers to the coasts of the United States. Mr. McLane, Sec. of State, to Mr. Serurier, Mar. 24, 1834 MSS. Notes, For. "The circumstances under which the right of boarding and visiting vessels at sea is usually enforced are defined with sufficient clearness; and even where the right is admitted, usage among civilized nations has prescribed with equal precision the manner in which it is to be exercised. The motive of this communication is, that the British Government should be clearly made sensible that the United States cannot, in justice to their own citizens, permit the recurrence of such causes of complaint. If, in the treaties concluded between Great Britain and other powers, the latter have thonght fit, for the attainment of a particular object, to surrender to British cruisers certain rights and authority not recognized by maritime law, the officers charged with the execution of those treaties must bear in mind that their operation cannot give a right to interfere in any manner with the flag of nations not party to them. The United States not being such a party, vessels legally sailing under their flag can in no case be called upon to submit to the operation of |