ncorporated in the Law of Nations.

2. A withdrawing of the flags of the Powers from persons not natives of
these States, who engage in the traffic under the flags of these States.

3. A refusal to admit to their domains the produce of the colonies of
States allowing the trade, a measure which would apply to Portugal and
Brazil alone.

These proposals were not accepted. Austria would agree to the first two
only; France refused to denounce the trade as piracy; and Prussia was
non-committal. The utmost that could be gained was another denunciation
of the trade couched in general terms.[33]

70. ~Negotiations of 1823-1825.~ England did not, however, lose hope of
gaining some concession from the United States. Another House committee
had, in 1822, reported that the only method of suppressing the trade was
by granting a Right of Search.[34] The House agreed, February 28, 1823,
to request the President to enter into negotiations with the maritime
powers of Europe to denounce the slave-trade as piracy; an amendment
"that we agree to a qualified right of search" was, however, lost.[35]
Meantime, the English minister was continually pressing the matter upon
Adams, who proposed in turn to denounce the trade as piracy. Canning
agreed to this, but only on condition that it be piracy under the Law of
Nations and not merely by statute law. Such an agreement, he said, would
involve a Right of Search for its enforcement; he proposed strictly to
limit and define this right, to allow captured ships to be tried in
their own courts, and not to commit the United States in any way to the
question of the belligerent Right of Search. Adams finally sent a draft
of a proposed treaty to England, and agreed to recognize the
slave-traffic "as piracy under the law of nations, namely: that,
although seizable by the officers and authorities of every nation, they
should be triable only by the tribunals of the country of the slave
trading vessel."[36]

Rush presented this _project_ to the government in January, 1824.
England agreed to all the points insisted on by the United States; viz.,
that she herself should denounce the trade as piracy; that slavers
should be tried in their own country; that the captor should be laid
under the most effective responsibility for his conduct; and that
vessels under convoy of a ship of war of their own country should be
exempt from search. In addition, England demanded that citizens of
either country captured un