And they had reason to be satisfied.  For the good work thus done was not limited by the extent of the British dominions, vast as they are.  The example of the homage thus paid by the Parliament and the nation to justice and humanity was contagious; the principle on which the bill was founded and was carried being such that, for mere shame, foreign countries could hardly persist in maintaining a traffic which those who had derived the greatest profit from it had on such grounds renounced; though our ministers did not trust to their spontaneous sympathies, but made the abolition of the traffic by our various allies, or those who wished to become so, a constant object of diplomatic negotiations, even purchasing the co-operation of some by important concessions, in one instance by the payment of a large sum of money.  The conferences and congresses which took place on the re-establishment of peace gave them great facilities for pressing their views on the different governments.  And Lord Liverpool’s instructions to Lord Castlereagh and the Duke of Wellington, as plenipotentiaries of our government,[163] show the keen interest which he took in the matter, and the skilful manner in which he sought to avail himself of the predominant influence which the exertions and triumphs of this country had given her with every foreign cabinet.  Though Portugal was an ally to whom we regarded ourselves as bound by special ties, as well as by the great benefits we had conferred on her, yet, as she clung with the greatest pertinacity to the trade, he did not scruple to endeavor to put a constraint upon her which should compel her submission, and instructed Lord Castlereagh “to induce the Congress to take the best means in their power to enforce it by the adoption of a law, on the part of the several states, to exclude the colonial produce of those countries who should refuse to comply with this system of abolition.”

And exertions so resolutely put forward were so successful, that the trade was avowedly proscribed by every European nation, though unquestionably it was still carried on by stealth by merchants and ship-owners of more than one country—­not, if the suspicions of our statesmen were well founded, without some connivance on the part of their governments.  Nor were our efforts in the cause the fitful display of impulsive excitement.  We have continued them and widened their sphere as occasions have presented themselves, exerting a successful influence even over unchristian and semi-civilized governments, of which an instance has very recently been furnished, in the assurances given by the Khedive of Egypt to our minister residing at his court, that he is taking vigorous measures to suppress the slave-trade, which is still carried on in the interior of Africa; and that we may believe his promise that he will not relax his exertions till it is extinguished, at least in the region on the north of the equator.