der the flag of a third power should be sent
home for trial, and that citizens of either country chartering vessels
of a third country should come under these stipulations.[37]

This convention was laid before the Senate April 30, 1824, but was not
acted upon until May 21, when it was so amended as to make it terminable
at six months' notice. The same day, President Monroe, "apprehending,
from the delay in the decision, that some difficulty exists," sent a
special message to the Senate, giving at length the reasons for signing
the treaty, and saying that "should this Convention be adopted, there is
every reason to believe, that it will be the commencement of a system
destined to accomplish the entire Abolition of the Slave Trade." It was,
however, a time of great political pot-boiling, and consequently an
unfortunate occasion to ask senators to settle any great question. A
systematic attack, led by Johnson of Louisiana, was made on all the
vital provisions of the treaty: the waters of America were excepted from
its application, and those of the West Indies barely escaped exception;
the provision which, perhaps, aimed the deadliest blow at American
slave-trade interests was likewise struck out; namely, the application
of the Right of Search to citizens chartering the vessels of a third
nation.[38]

The convention thus mutilated was not signed by England, who demanded as
the least concession the application of the Right of Search to American
waters. Meantime the United States had invited nearly all nations to
denounce the trade as piracy; and the President, the Secretary of the
Navy, and a House committee had urgently favored the granting of the
Right of Search. The bad faith of Congress, however, in the matter of
the Colombian treaty broke off for a time further negotiations with
England.[39]

71. ~The Attitude of the United States and the State of the
Slave-Trade.~ In 1824 the Right of Search was established between
England and Sweden, and in 1826 Brazil promised to abolish the trade in
three years.[40] In 1831 the cause was greatly advanced by the signing
of a treaty between Great Britain and France, granting mutually a
geographically limited Right of Search.[41] This led, in the next few
years, to similar treaties with Denmark, Sardinia,[42] the Hanse
towns,[43] and Naples.[44] Such measures put the trade more and more in
the hands of Americans, and it began greatly to increase. Mercer sought
repeatedly in the Ho