“It was utterly against my judgment and wishes; but I was obliged to submit, and I prepared the requisite despatches to Mr. Rush, then our minister at the court of London. When he made his proposal to Mr. Canning, Mr. Canning’s reply was, ‘Draw up your convention, and I will sign it.’ Mr. Rush did so, and Mr. Canning, without the slightest alteration whatever, without varying the dot of an _i_ or the crossing of a _t_, did affix to it his signature,--thus assenting to our own terms in our own language. The convention came back here for ratification; but in the mean while another spirit came over the feelings of this House, as well as of the Senate. A party had been formed against the Administration of Mr. Monroe; the course of the Administration was no longer favored, and the House came out in opposition to a convention drawn in conformity to its own previous views.… The Senate ratified the treaty, giving the right of search in the fullest manner to Great Britain, with the exception, I think, of one article, which extended the right to the coast of the United States: that was rejected.”[301] This statement from an eminent quarter shows how at another time the opposition to a mutual right of search became manifest. It is for the Senate to determine if the time has not come for this opposition to cease. Not disheartened by failure with the United States, Great Britain pursued her honorable policy, enlisting Government after Government, until nearly all the maritime powers of Europe, moved by a common sentiment of humanity, had conceded a mutual and restricted right of search, with the single object of suppressing the slave-trade. The famous Quintuple Treaty of 1841 between the great powers consecrated the same principle on a wider theatre; but, owing to the extraordinary efforts of General Cass, our Minister at Paris, France was induced to withhold her assent, yielding, I fear, to an irritated Anglophobia and to the growing pretensions of Slavery. The treaty was duly ratified by Great Britain, Russia, Prussia, and Austria. As a substitute, stipulations for naval coöperation were adopted between Great Britain and France,--also between Great Britain and the United States. And still Great Britain persevered in this glorious championship, until, in 1850, it was her boast that she stood party to no less than twenty-four treaties denouncing the slave-trade, of which ten conceded a mutual right of search and mixed courts, twelve conceded search with trial only before home tribunals, and two provided for naval coöperation.[302] This summary brings us to the present treaty, where we find a mutual and restricted right of search and mixed courts for certain purposes, but with the trial of criminals only before home tribunals.