are due to the American flag, that no vessel bearing it ought to be visited by a British cruiser, except under the most grave suspicions and well-founded doubts of the genuineness of its character.

“The undersigned, although with pain, must add, that if such visit should lead to the proof of the American origin of the vessel, and that she was avowedly engaged in the slave-trade, exhibiting to view the manacles, fetters, and other usual implements of torture, or had even a number of these unfortunate beings on board, no British officer could interfere further.  He might give information to the cruisers of the United States, but it could not be in his own power to arrest or impede the prosecution of the voyage and the success of the undertaking.

“It is obvious, therefore, that the utmost caution is necessary in the exercise of this right claimed by Great Britain.  While we have recourse to the necessary, and, indeed, the only means for detecting imposture, the practice will be carefully guarded and limited to cases of strong suspicion.  The undersigned begs to assure Mr. Stevenson that the most precise and positive instructions have been issued to her Majesty’s officers on this subject.”

Such are the words of the British claim or pretension; and it stood in this form at the delivery of the President’s message to Congress in December last; a message in which you are pleased to say that the British pretension was promptly met and firmly resisted.

I may now proceed to a more particular examination of the objections which you make to the treaty.

You observe that you think a just self-respect required of the government of the United States to demand of Lord Ashburton a distinct renunciation of the British claim to search our vessels previous to entering into any negotiation.  The government has thought otherwise; and this appears to be your main objection to the treaty, if, indeed, it be not the only one which is clearly and distinctly stated.  The government of the United States supposed that, in this respect, it stood in a position in which it had no occasion to demand any thing, or ask for any thing, of England.  The British pretension, whatever it was, or however extensive, was well known to the President at the date of his message to Congress at the opening of the last session.  And I must be allowed to remind you how the President treated this subject in that communication.

“However desirous the United States may be,” said he, “for the suppression of the slave-trade, they cannot consent to interpolations into the maritime code at the mere will and pleasure of other governments.  We deny the right of any such interpolation to any one, or all the nations of the earth, without our consent.  We claim to have a voice in all amendments or alterations of that code; and when we are given to understand, as in this instance, by a foreign government,