Page:The American Slave Trade (Spears).djvu/262

 Seward to Lord Lyons, on March 22, 1862, it is said that the last slave-smuggler was the Wanderer, already described. Possibly — in fact, very likely — small parties were brought over from Cuba after she landed her cargo, but she was the last regular slaveship to come to our coasts.

The blockade of the Confederate ports by the Federal ships, however, in 1861 ended all slave-smuggling here. Nevertheless the smuggling of slaves into the Spanish colonies in America was carried on for a long time after our civil war ended. The trade is called smuggling because during all the weary years after 1820 — the weary years during which so many negroes were thrown overboard that every wave of the sea in the Middle Passage became a mound over a body that had been tortured to death — during all those years the laws of Spain prohibited the traffic. Mr. Seward, in view of the fact "that this infamous traffic has been carried on by persons resident in other countries, including the United States," was prepared to open negotiations for a convention with Her Majesty's Government that should be worthy of the civilizations of the age. The shams of previous administrations, and the clap-trap about the right of search and the sacredness of our flag, were to come to an end, and they did end in a treaty that was concluded at Washington on April 7, 1862. To give it effect, Congress made two appropriations of $900,000 each. The days when an American cruiser, out of fifteen months' service in the African squadron, would spend no more than fifteen days on the slave-coast, as really happened under the sham, were now at an end. The days when American naval officers were to go