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172 on May 21, 1824, by a vote of 36 to 2, struck out the word "America," and, the British government declining to accept the amendment, the treaty failed. On December 10, 1824, the Senate rejected a similar convention with Colombia, although it did not apply to the American coasts. Negotiations on the subject were therefore discontinued, and the decision not to concede even a qualified right of search was adhered to.

The government of the United States was not insensible to the crying evils of the traffic in slaves. In the treaty of Ghent it had concurred in reprobating the traffic as "irreconcilable with the principles of humanity and justice," and had pledged its best endeavors to accomplish its entire abolition. But while always acknowledging, as it did in the Webster-Ashburton treaty, the duty to employ its naval forces for the redemption of that pledge, it insisted that American vessels on the high seas should be liable to search only by American cruisers; and it conceded a reciprocal exemption to the vessels of other nations. In 1858 this principle was at length formally accepted by the British government; and in the same year the Senate of the United States unanimously reaffirmed it. Since that time the United States has in three instances consented to a qualified departure from its observance: in the treaties with Great Britain, concluded April 7, 1862, and February 17, 1863, during the civil war, admitting a reciprocal search for slavers within two hundred miles from the African coast southward of the thirty-second parallel of north latitude, and within thirty leagues of the islands of Cuba, Porto Rico, Santo Domingo, and Madagascar; in the general act of Brussels of July 2, 1890, permitting, for the purpose of repressing the slave-trade, a mutual search within a defined zone on the eastern coast of Africa of vessels of less than five hundred tons burden; and in the agreements for the protection of the fur-seals in Bering Sea. By the abolition of slavery in the Spanish Antilles the most doubtful concession made in the treaties with Great Britain soon ceased practically to cause anxiety; nor was the integrity of the general principle impaired by the exceptional and temporary relaxation of its observance by mutual agreement. It may indeed be said that the making of such agreements by the United States was rendered possible by the previous unqualified acceptance of the principle of the freedom of the seas by Great Britain and other maritime powers.

The disposition of the United States to maintain its general and time-honored rule was signally exemplified in the case of the steamer Virginius. On October 31, 1873, the Virginius, while sailing under an American register and flying the American flag, was chased and seized on the high seas off the coast of Cuba by the Spanish man-of-war Tornado. The captive vessel was taken to Santiago de Cuba, where, after a summary trial by court martial, ostensibly on a charge of piracy, fifty-three of her officers, crew, and passengers, embracing Americans, British subjects, and Cubans, were condemned and shot. The rest were held as prisoners. No foundation was shown for the charge of piracy beyond the fact that the vessel was employed by Cuban insurgents in conveying arms, ammunition, and men to Cuba—an employment which obviously did not constitute piracy by law of nations. The government of the United States therefore demanded the restoration of the vessel, the surrender of the captives, a salute to the American flag, and the condign punishment of the Spanish officials. On proof that the register of the Virginius was fraudulent and that she had no right to American colors, the salute to the flag was afterwards dispensed with; but the vessel and the survivors of her passengers and crew were duly delivered up; and an indemnity was eventually obtained by the United States for the relief of the sufferers and of the families of those who were put to death, with the exception of the British subjects, for whom compensation was obtained from Spain by their own government. It is often stated that the United States in this case maintained that the Virginius was exempt from search merely because she bore the American flag, even though her papers were false and she had no right to fly it. This supposition is contradicted by the fact that the salute to the flag was dispensed with. The demands of the United States in their last analysis rested chief-