By the Treaty of Ghent (1815), the United States and Great Britain agreed separately and individually to use their influence to suppress the trade. Yet later the United States threw sheltering arms around those of her citizens whom Britain had reason to suspect--maritime rights, the statement that Southern slave owners might make voyages accompanied by their slaves, or the plea of slave hands on merchant ships--often protected malefactors. After Parliament abolished slavery from the British colonies, the American brig _Comet_ was stranded off the Bahamas (1830), as was the _Encomium_ in 1834 and the _Enterprise_ in 1835; slaves were found aboard in each case and liberated by the English. Americans raised a loud cry. After a correspondence covering nearly ten years Great Britain agreed to pay for the Africans, and admonished her colonies on the southern borders of the United States to “maintain good neighborhood.” As the years went by and all so-called efforts proved ineffectual, England, with a sincere desire to end the traffic, developed an assumption that it was her especial privilege, and inaugurated a right of search, or visit, against the very nature of which it was imperative that the United States should protest. In many cases this necessity became unavoidably another protection for malefactors. As the flags of various countries were constantly used to cover the traffic, England in 1803 united with Russia, France, Austria, and Prussia for the suppression, and acquired supervision along the African coast, maintaining a right of search. America was not approached on this subject, though Lord Palmerston boldly declared to the world England’s right to “visit” American merchantmen (Aug. 13, 1841). This was later sustained by Lord Aberdeen (Oct. 13, 1841). America’s attitude toward the situation was awaited with great interest by European Powers. Such an assumption could not be tolerated--America had already suffered too much from British assumption--and President Tyler in his message to Congress protested that “however desirous the United States may be for the suppression of the slave trade, they cannot consent to any interpolations of the maritime code at the mere will and pleasure of other governments. We deny the right of any such interpolation to any one, or all the nations of earth without our consent.... American citizens prosecuting a lawful commerce on the African seas, under the flag of their country, are not responsible for the abuse or unlawful use of that flag by others; nor can they rightfully, on account of any such alleged abuses, be interrupted, molested, or detained while in the ocean; and if thus molested and detained while pursuing honest voyages in the usual way and violating no laws themselves, they are unquestionably entitled to indemnity.”[16]