The government of the United States, both in its executive and legislative branches, has at almost all times manifested an extreme repugnance to enter into conventions for a mutual right of search. It has not yielded to any other power in its aversion to the slave-trade, which it was the first government to denounce as piracy. The reluctance in question grew principally out of the injuries inflicted upon the American commerce, and still more out of the personal outrages in the impressment of American seamen, which took place during the wars of Napoleon, and incidentally to the belligerent right of search and the enforcement of the Orders in Council and the Berlin and Milan Decrees. Besides a wholesale confiscation of American property, hundreds of American seamen were impressed into the ships of war of Great Britain. So deeply had the public sensibility been wounded on both points, that any extension of the right of search by the consent of the United States was for a long time nearly hopeless. But this feeling, strong and general as it was, yielded at last to the detestation of the slave-trade. Toward the close of the second administration of Mr. Monroe the executive had been induced, acting under the sanction of resolutions of the two houses of Congress, to agree to a convention with Great Britain for a mutual right of search of vessels suspected of being engaged in the traffic. This convention was negotiated in London by Mr. Rush on the part of the United States, Mr. Canning being the British Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs. In defining the limits within which this right should be exercised, the coasts of America were included. The Senate were of opinion that such a provision might be regarded as an admission that the slave-trade was carried on between the coasts of Africa and the United States, contrary to the known fact, and to the reproach either of the will or power of the United States to enforce their laws, by which it was declared to be piracy. It also placed the whole coast of the Union under the _surveillance_ of the cruisers of a foreign power. The Senate, accordingly, ratified the treaty, with an amendment exempting the coasts of the United States from the operation of the article. They also introduced other amendments of less importance. On the return of the treaty to London thus amended, Mr. Canning gave way to a feeling of dissatisfaction at the course pursued by the Senate, not so much on account of any decided objection to the amendment in itself considered, as to the claim of the Senate to introduce any change into a treaty negotiated according to instructions. Under the influence of this feeling, Mr. Canning refused to ratify the treaty as amended, and no further attempt was at that time made to renew the negotiation.