, supported by the corporations
of London and Liverpool, through mercantile jealousy, and pretending
to believe that the very existence of commerce on the seas and
their own existence depended on the continuance of the slave trade,
not only opposed the abolition of the black slave traffic, but they
opposed the abolition of _white slavery_ in Algiers.(33)

This nefarious traffic did not cease in the United States, although
at the Treaty of Ghent (1815) it was declared that: "Whereas the
traffic in slaves is irreconcilable with the principles of humanity
and justice," and the two countries (Great Britain and the United
States) therein stipulated to use their best endeavors to abolish it.

The revival of the slave trade was openly advocated by leading
Southern politicians, and the illicit traffic greatly increased
immediately after the admission into the Union of Texas as a State
and the aggressions on Mexico for more slave territory, and especially
just after the discussions over the Compromise measures of 1850
and the Nebraska Act of 1854, followed by the Dred Scott decision
in 1857. It was principally carried on under the United States
flag, the ships carrying it denying the right of search to foreign
vessels engaged in suppressing the trade. British officials claimed
in June, 1850, "that at least one half of the successful part of
the slave trade was carried on under the American flag." The
fitting out of slavers centred at New York city; Boston and New
Orleans being good seconds. Twenty-one of twenty-two slavers taken
by British cruisers in 1857-58 were from New York, Boston, and New
Orleans.

"During eighteen months of the years 1859-60 eighty-five slavers
are reported to have fitted out in New York harbor, and these alone
transported from 30,000 to 60,000 slaves annually to America."(34)

The greed of man for gain has smothered and will ever smother the
human conscience. The slave trade, under the denunciation of
piracy, still exists, and will exist until African slavery ceases
throughout the world. So long as there is a demand, at good prices,
this wicked traffic will go on, and in the jungles of Africa there
will be found stealers of human beings.

(30) Rhode's _Hist. United States_, vol. ii., p. 372.

(31) Official Records, etc., _Navies of the War of the Rebellion_,
vol. i., p. 11.

(32) It stands to the eternal credit of Napoleon that on his return
from Elba to Paris (1815) he decreed for Fra