Most of the Southern States rather tardily passed the necessary supplementary acts disposing of illegally imported Africans. A few appear not to have passed any. Some of these laws, like the Alabama-Mississippi Territory Act of 1815,[66] directed such Negroes to be "sold by the proper officer of the court, to the highest bidder, at public auction, for ready money." One-half the proceeds went to the informer or to the collector of customs, the other half to the public treasury. Other acts, like that of North Carolina in 1816,[67] directed the Negroes to "be sold and disposed of for the use of the state." One-fifth of the proceeds went to the informer. The Georgia Act of 1817[68] directed that the slaves be either sold or given to the Colonization Society for transportation, providing the society reimburse the State for all expense incurred, and pay for the transportation. In this manner, machinery of somewhat clumsy build and varying pattern was provided for the carrying out of the national act. 61. ~Evidence of the Continuance of the Trade.~ Undoubtedly, the Act of 1807 came very near being a dead letter. The testimony supporting this view is voluminous. It consists of presidential messages, reports of cabinet officers, letters of collectors of revenue, letters of district attorneys, reports of committees of Congress, reports of naval commanders, statements made on the floor of Congress, the testimony of eye-witnesses, and the complaints of home and foreign anti-slavery societies. "When I was young," writes Mr. Fowler of Connecticut, "the slave-trade was still carried on, by Connecticut shipmasters and Merchant adventurers, for the supply of southern ports. This trade was carried on by the consent of the Southern States, under the provisions of the Federal Constitution, until 1808, and, after that time, clandestinely. There was a good deal of conversation on the subject, in private circles." Other States were said to be even more involved than Connecticut.[69] The African Society of London estimated that, down to 1816, fifteen of the sixty thousand slaves annually taken from Africa were shipped by Americans. "Notwithstanding the prohibitory act of America, which was passed in 1807, ships bearing the American flag continued to trade for slaves until 1809, when, in consequence of a decision in the English prize appeal courts, which rendered American slave ships liable to capture and condemnation, that flag suddenly disappeared from the coast. Its place was almost instantaneously supplied by the Spanish flag, which, with one or two exceptions, was now seen for the first time on the African coast, engaged in covering the slave trade. This sudden substitution of the Spanish for the American flag seemed to confirm what was established in a variety of instances by more direct testimony, that the slave trade, which now, for the first time, assumed a Spanish dress, was in reality only the trade of other nations in disguise."[70]