"But what is the right of search in time of peace? And how has Congress felt, and how has the American government acted, on this point? I have some knowledge on this subject. In the year 1817, when I was about to return from England to the United States, Mr. Wilberforce, then a member of the British Parliament, very celebrated for his long and persevering exertions to suppress the African slave-trade, wrote me a note requesting an interview. I acceded promptly to his request; and in conversation he stated to me that the British government had found that without a mutual right of search between this country and that, upon the coast of Africa, it would be impossible to carry through the system she had formed in connection with the United States for the suppression of that infamous traffic. I had then just signed with my own hand a treaty declaring 'the traffic in slaves (not the African slave-trade, but THE TRAFFIC IN SLAVES) unjust and inhuman,' and in which both nations engaged to do all in their power to suppress it. Mr. Wilberforce inquired of me whether I thought that a proposal for a mutual, restricted, qualified right of search would be acceptable to the American government. I had at that time a feeling to the full as strong against the right of search, as it had then been exercised by British cruisers, as ever the gentleman from Pennsylvania (Mr. Ingersoll) had, in all his life. I had been myself somewhat involved in the question as a public man. It constituted one of the grounds of my unfortunate difference from those with whom I had long been politically associated; and it was for the exertions I had made against the admission of that right that I forfeited my place in the other end of the capitol, and, which was infinitely more painful to me, for this I had differed with men long dear to me, and to whom I had also been dear, insomuch that for a time it interrupted all friendly relations between us. "The first thing I said, in reply to Mr. Wilberforce, was: 'No; you may as well save yourselves the trouble of making any proposals on that subject; my countrymen, I am very sure, will never assent to any such arrangement.' He then entered into an argument, the full force of which I felt, when I said to him, 'You may, if you think proper, make the proposal; but I think some other mode of getting over the difficulty must be resorted to; for the prejudices of my country are so immovably strong on that point, that I do not believe they will ever assent.'