how the accuracy of this general statement can be doubted by those who are acquainted with the debates of public bodies in Europe, the productions of the press, and the other modes by which public opinion is manifested in an enlightened age.  It is not to be supposed that excited attention to public and national transactions or general political discussions in Europe on subjects open to all the world are known only in consequence of private information communicated to the Government, and feeling a strong persuasion that it would be improper in the Executive to go into any discussion or argument upon such a subject with the Senate, I have no further remarks to make upon this part of the inquiry.

The third inquiry is: 

What danger there was that “the laws and the obligations” of the United States in relation to the suppression of the slave trade would be “executed by others” if we do not “remove the pretext and motive for violating our flag and executing our laws.”

I have already quoted from the message the entire paragraph to a part of which this portion of the inquiry is supposed to refer.

As to the danger there was that the laws and the obligations of the United States in relation to the suppression of the slave trade would be executed by others if we did not remove the pretext and motive for violating our flag and provide for executing our laws, I might say that this depends upon notorious facts and occurrences, of which the evidence has been in various forms before the country and all the branches of the Government.

When I came to occupy the Executive chair I could not be ignorant of the numerous complaints which had been made on account of alleged interruptions of American vessels engaged in lawful commerce on the coast of Africa by British cruisers on the ground of their being engaged in the slave trade.  I could not be ignorant, at the same time, of the well-grounded suspicions which pervaded the country that some American vessels were engaged in that odious and unlawful traffic.  There were two dangers, then, to be guarded against—­the one, that this traffic would continue to be carried on in American ships, and perhaps much increased, unless some new and vigorous effort should be made for its suppression; the other, that acquiescence in the capture of American vessels, notorious slave dealers, by British cruisers might give countenance to seizures and detentions of vessels lawfully employed on light or groundless suspicions.  And cases had arisen under the administration of those who preceded me well calculated to show the extent and magnitude of this latter danger; and believing that very serious consequences might in time grow out of the obvious tendency and progress of things, I felt it to be my duty to arrest that progress, to rescue the immunity of the American flag from the danger which hung over it, and to do this by recommending such a provision for the execution of our own laws as should remove all pretense for the interference of others.