with those from Tunis and Tripoli, three thousand and three in all; $400,000 were paid back to Naples and Sardinia for the ransom money received that year, and an agreement was made to treat prisoners of war according to the usage of European nations.*

The punishment was sufficient for the time; but the next Dey, Ali Khoja, kidnapped the daughters of European residents for his harem, sent plague ships about the Mediterranean to spread the pest, and behaved in such a way that the Congress of Aix-laChapelle in 1818 resolved to repress his practices, and commissioned England and France to act for Europe. A combined English and French squadron arrived off Algiers in September 1819, but the new Dey refused to submit, and after a blockade the fleet retired. It was not until the insult offered to the French consul in 1827 that decisive action was taken, terminating in the French conquest in 1829, when the Dey was allowed to retire to Italy.

To return to our own affairs. The day after Lord Exmouth made his first treaties with Algiers, the Dey, under pretext of the difficulties with his two ships, which had been delivered by Decatur at Cartagena, and had been detained by the Spanish authori

For the history of these events, during which the American consul-general, William Shaler, appears to have acted very well, see The Scourge of Christendom, by LieutenantColonel R. L. Playfair.

ties, declared his treaty of 1815 with us to be no longer binding. He sent away our consul, and wrote a letter concerning his action to

"His Majesty the Emperor of America, its adjacent and dependent provinces, coasts, and wherever his government may extend; our noble friend, the support of the kings of the nation of Jesus, the pillar of all Christian sovereigns, the most glorious amongst the princes, elected amongst many lords and nobles; the happy, the great, the amiable James Madison, Emperor of America-may his reign be happy and glorious, and his life long and prosperous."

President Madison, in his reply of August, 1816,

said:

"The United States, whilst they wish for war with no nation, will buy peace of none. It is a principle incorporated into the settled policy of America, that as peace is better than war, war is better than tribute."

After the bombardment of Algiers by the British, and the opportune arrival of another American squadron under Commodore Chauncey, no further difficulty was made about carrying out the treaty, and it was renewed in December, 1816. By some accident this treaty was overlooked in the State Department, and it was not ratified until France, Sardinia, and Holland. made similar treaties with Algiers; but Naples, Sweden, Denmark, and Portugal continued for some years to pay a tribute of $24,000 annually.

In spite of the many hesitations of our policy it

will be seen that the United States was first to obtain from the Barbary powers the abolition of presents and the proper treatment of its prisoners of war. Incidentally these difficulties with Barbary gave us a navy. But the cost of the diplomatic negotiations must have equalled that of the naval operations. The expenditures for intercourse with the Barbary powers paid out by the State Department, apart from salaries, amounted in 1821 to $2,650,709.* Even after the tribute had ceased, the regular annual appropriations under this head, down to 1841, were $42,000, then $30,000, and finally $17,400; but for some part of this time this was only another name for the secret service fund.

* Senate Ex. Doc., No. 38, 44th Congress, 2d Session, pp. 44, 54, 55.

V.

THE RIGHT OF SEARCH AND THE SLAVE-TRADE.

Negro Slavery.-Prohibition of the Slave-trade.-English Feeling and English Interests.-The Right of Search.English Treaties.-The Police of the Seas.-Treaty of Ghent.-Lord Castlereagh's Propositions.-Mr. Adams' Reply. The Slave-trade Piracy.-Rush's Treaty.—Canning's Objections to the Amendments.—Mr. Adams' Explanation. Attempt to Execute Treaties by a British Statute.-The British Claim to Search American Vessels. -Lord Aberdeen.-Tyler's Message.-The Quintuple Treaty.-General Cass.-Lord Brougham.-The Ashburton Treaty.-Cass and Webster.-Opinions of Publicists. —Brazil.—Renewed Vigor.-General Cass and Lord Napier. British Outrages in 1858.-Debate in Parliament.— The English Claim Withdrawn.—Mr. Seward's Treaty of 1862. Additional Treaty of 1870.

IT would be unfair to charge England exclusively with the introduction of slavery into America. Negro slaves were imported into the Dutch colony of New Amsterdam even before it had been occupied by the English. Nevertheless, this traffic was fostered by England; and even where the colonies had passed acts tending to diminish the slave-trade, the as

sent to them had been refused by the King.* Further back, in the time of Charles II., owing to domestic troubles, the emigration from England had taken such proportions that the introduction of slaves into the colonies was looked upon as a means of preventing it; and the King by a proclamation called upon his subjects to subscribe in order to form a new company for the continuation of the trade. At the peace of Utrecht, in 1713, the English considered themselves repaid for many of the sacrifices to which they had submitted during the war of the Spanish Succession, by obtaining an article known as the Pacto del Assiento de Negros, by which Great Britain and the South Sea Company obtained the exclusive right to introduce slaves into the Spanish-provinces of America, to the number of 4,800 yearly, for thirty successive years.

In spite of the fact that negro slavery existed in nearly all the colonies, the Declaration of Independence had no sooner been signed than measures were taken to prohibit the slave-trade; and at the formation of the Constitution, in 1787, an article was inserted prohibiting entirely the importation of slaves

The chief authorities for this chapter are Enquiry into the Validity of the British Claim to a Right of Visitation and Search of American Vessels suspected to be engaged in the African Slave-trade, by Henry Wheaton, originally published in 1841; Wheaton's History of International Law; and Visitation and Search by William Beach Lawrence, 1858. All quotations from speeches and documents have been verified.