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 Work of British Diplomacy among the Continental Powers — When Spain agreed to Abolish the Slave-trade for a Money Consideration and Failed to Fulfil Her Contract — A Free Offer of “Sailors' Rights" which We Refused to Accept — A Shameful Record in American Slaver Legislation — The Ashburton Treaty.

in Europe, in 1804, an act in Denmark, abolishing the slave-trade, which had been passed in 1792, came into operation. In 1806 Great Britain proposed to the United States a treaty ‘of amity, commerce, and navigation'? under which the two nations were to "agree to use their best endeavors to procure the co-operation of other Powers for the final and complete abolition of a trade so repugnant to the principles of justice and humanity," but the United States refused to join.

Finding that the act of 1807 was ineffective, the British legislators in 1811 declared participation in the trade by any British subject a felony punishable with fourteen years' transportation.

On March 29, 1815, Napoleon, on assuming control of France after his return from Elba, decreed the abolition of the slave-trade. This decree was re-enacted in 1818 by the Bourbon dynasty.