The markets of Cuba were frequently flooded with merchandise taken by the pirates, and a number of schooners plied between Cape San Antonio and Regla to carry supplies to the pirate flotilla at work there and bring back captured goods. The efforts of the Washington authorities to deal with the situation created by the American-owned pirate ships were, as noted, hampered at first by public sympathy for the Spanish-American insurgents. Even after the Spaniards began making reprisals, nothing effective was done until May 15, 1820, when Congress provided for the building of five swift war schooners, a force that was by no means sufficient to cope with the evil. Other ships of the navy were ordered to the region, and these were still further reënforced with a flotilla of small schooners bought in Chesapeake Bay. A number of huge rowboats were built to destroy the pirates operating in small boats near Havana, but the depredations continued; the aid of the Cuban authorities was sufficient to keep the pirates at work. It was not until the independence of the Spanish-American republics was acknowledged, and the Spanish-American privateers thereby lost their commissions, that piracy came to an end in the West Indies. The last American vessel to suffer at their hands was the _Mexico_, Captain John G. Butman, of Salem. She sailed from home with $20,000 in coin, for Rio Janeiro, on August 29, 1832. On September 20 she was captured by the schooner _Panda_, Captain Pedro Gibert, of Havana. After taking out the coin, Gibert fastened the crew in the forecastle and set the _Mexico_ on fire; but the crew released themselves in time to put out the fire. The _Panda_ was captured later on the coast of Africa, a number of the pirates were sent to Salem for trial, and Pedro Gibert and four others were hanged. It is an interesting fact that two members of the _Mexico's_ crew lived until 1905 and one until 1908. Life at sea agreed well with the New Englanders. As the facts thus far given show plainly, the slave-trade had intimate relations with the pirates who operated under the Spanish-American flags, and later with those fitted out from Cuba; for the _Panda_ cleared out from Havana for a cargo of slaves. But she carried no trade goods; her clearance for the African coast was merely a cover for the real purpose in view. Still, she might have brought a cargo of slaves to Cuba but for the interference of a British war-ship. But the American slave-trade lasted for thirty years after the captain of the _Panda_ was hanged, and such acts of piracy as his had long been out of fashion in American waters. By the act of Congress dated March 2, 1807 (it passed the House by a vote of sixty-three to forty-nine), the importations of slaves into the United States after January 1, 1808, was forbidden. The penalties provided included forfeiture of the vessel, and fines, together with imprisonment, for those involved.