Notwithstanding the earnest desire of both Lord Aberdeen and of M. Guizot to bring matters to a successful conclusion, the first important transaction between the new British government and the French Foreign Office led to no satisfactory result. In 1831, and again in 1833, France and England had contracted certain engagements towards each other for the purpose of suppressing the slave trade. They had agreed that their cruisers should stop and overhaul any suspected vessel, whether flying the French or the British flag. Palmerston, however, had not been content with an arrangement, which limited the right of search to ships purporting to be of French or English nationality. He, accordingly, in combination with France, made representations on the subject to the other Powers and succeeded in inducing them to agree to the principle which the French and English governments had adopted. The new convention, to which all the chief European Powers were to be parties, was ready for signature at the time when it became evident that a change of government in England was about to take place. Palmerston, who had always been keenly interested in suppressing the slave trade, was particularly anxious that his name should be affixed to an international agreement which, he hoped, would prove the means of abolishing a traffic which he abhorred. M. Guizot, however, saw fit purposely to delay matters in order to deprive him of this satisfaction. Nor did he make any secret of his reasons for acting in this manner. Palmerston's attitude towards him, he complained to Henry Bulwer, had been unfriendly. In his dispatch of November 2, 1840,[714] he had shown a total lack of consideration for the difficulties of his position, and in a recent speech to his constituents at Tiverton he had made some highly offensive remarks about the manner in which the French military authorities in Algeria were carrying on their war with the Arab tribes.[715]