The increase of the slave-traffic was so great in the decade 1850-1860 that Lord John Russell proposed to the governments of the United States, France, Spain, Portugal, and Brazil, that they instruct their ministers to meet at London in May or June, 1860, to consider measures for the final abolition of the trade.  He stated:  “It is ascertained, by repeated instances, that the practice is for vessels to sail under the American flag.  If the flag is rightly assumed, and the papers correct, no British cruizer can touch them.  If no slaves are on board, even though the equipment, the fittings, the water-casks, and other circumstances prove that the ship is on a Slave Trade venture, no American cruizer can touch them."[76] Continued representations of this kind were made to the paralyzed United States government; indeed, the slave-trade of the world seemed now to float securely under her flag.  Nevertheless, Cass refused even to participate in the proposed conference, and later refused to accede to a proposal for joint cruising off the coast of Cuba.[77] Great Britain offered to relieve the United States of any embarrassment by receiving all captured Africans into the West Indies; but President Buchanan “could not contemplate any such arrangement,” and obstinately refused to increase the suppressing squadron.[78]

On the outbreak of the Civil War, the Lincoln administration, through Secretary Seward, immediately expressed a willingness to do all in its power to suppress the slave-trade.[79] Accordingly, June 7, 1862, a treaty was signed with Great Britain granting a mutual limited Right of Search, and establishing mixed courts for the trial of offenders at the Cape of Good Hope, Sierra Leone, and New York.[80] The efforts of a half-century of diplomacy were finally crowned; Seward wrote to Adams, “Had such a treaty been made in 1808, there would now have been no sedition here."[81]

FOOTNOTES: 

  [1] Cf.  Augustine Cochin, in Lalor, Cyclopedia, III. 723.

  [2] By a law of Aug. 11, 1792, the encouragement formerly
      given to the trade was stopped.  Cf. Choix de rapports,
      opinions et discours prononces a la tribune nationale depuis
      1789 (Paris, 1821), XIV. 425; quoted in Cochin, The Results
      of Emancipation (Booth’s translation, 1863), pp. 33, 35-8.

  [3] Cochin, The Results of Emancipation (Booth’s
      translation, 1863), pp. 42-7.

  [4] British and Foreign State Papers, 1815-6, p. 196.

  [5] Ibid., pp. 195-9, 292-3; 1816-7, p. 755.  It was
      eventually confirmed by royal ordinance, and the law of April
      15, 1818.

  [6] Statute 28 George III., ch. 54.  Cf. Statute 29 George
      III., ch. 66.

  [7] Various petitions had come in praying for an abolition of
      the slave-trade; and by an order in Council, Feb. 11, 1788, a
      committee of the Privy Council was ordered to take evidence on
      the subject.  This committee presented an elaborate report in
      1739.  See published Report, London, 1789.