[66] The United States
answered by alleging that even the Treaty of 1842 had been misconstrued
by England,[67] whereupon there was much warm debate in Congress, and
several attempts were made to abrogate the slave-trade article of the
treaty.[68] The pro-slavery party had become more and more suspicious of
England's motives, since they had seen her abolition of the slave-trade
blossom into abolition of the system itself, and they seized every
opportunity to prevent co-operation with her. At the same time, European
interest in the question showed some signs of weakening, and no decided
action was taken. In 1845 France changed her Right of Search
stipulations of 1833 to one for joint cruising,[69] while the Germanic
Federation,[70] Portugal,[71] and Chili[72]enounced the trade as piracy.
In 1844 Texas granted the Right of Search to England,[73] and in 1845
Belgium signed the Quintuple Treaty.[74]
Discussion between England and the United States was revived when Cass
held the State portfolio, and, strange to say, the author of "Cass's
Protest" went farther than any of his predecessors in acknowledging the
justice of England's demands. Said he, in 1859: "If The United States
maintained that, by carrying their flag at her masthead, any vessel
became thereby entitled to the immunity which belongs to American
vessels, they might well be reproached with assuming a position which
would go far towards shielding crimes upon the ocean from punishment;
but they advance no such pretension, while they concede that, if in the
honest examination of a vessel sailing under American colours, but
accompanied by strongly-marked suspicious circumstances, a mistake is
made, and she is found to be entitled to the flag she bears, but no
injury is committed, and the conduct of the boarding party is
irreproachable, no Government would be likely to make a case thus
exceptional in its character a subject of serious reclamation.
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