On the 26th of December, 1839, Lord John Russell, after referring to the failure of treaties that had been concluded, stated, “That her Majesty’s confidential advisers are therefore compelled to admit the conviction that it is indispensable to enter upon some new preventive system.”—(Parl. Papers, No. 57, 8th Feb. 1840.) In the same year Sir Fowell Buxton made a confession of a similar character. “It is then,” he writes, “but too manifest, that the efforts already made for the suppression of the slave trade have not accomplished their benevolent object. Millions of money and multitudes of lives have been sacrificed; and, in return for all, we have only the afflicting conviction that the slave trade is as far as ever from being suppressed.”—(Buxton, p. 203.) “Once more, then, I must declare my conviction, that the slave trade will never be suppressed by the system hitherto pursued.” In 1821, her Majesty’s commissioners at Sierra Leone report only one case brought before them, and that the trade was decreasing. Ten years afterwards they report its increase. “There would then appear at present, we regret to say, but little likelihood of the slave trade ever being suppressed by the present restrictive measures employed to prevent that traffic.”—(Parl. Paper, A., 1831.) On the 31st of December, twenty years after the establishment of the mixed commission courts, Messrs. Macaulay and Doherty made the following statement to Lord Palmerston, in which they confessed the utter failure of the means that had been pursued. After referring to the powers possessed by England for the purpose of putting down the inhuman trade in slaves, they observe:— “But whatever other means may be necessary in a time of profound peace to give effect to England’s interpretation of the law of nations, those means she will not surely hesitate to adopt, when her _only other alternative is_, _retiring at once from a contest which she has long waged_, _baffled_, _beaten_, _and insulted by a set of lawless and outcast smugglers_, _or wilfully continuing to sacrifice thousands of valuable lives_, _and millions of money_, _with the full knowledge that the only result of her further efforts will be fresh triumphs to the slave traders_, _and the increased misery of their victims_. “Desirable as would be the concession by America of the right of mutual search, experience has shown we can expect _no permanent advantage from it_. “Disappointment has followed every effort hitherto made, and stronger measures are now imperatively called for—measures which, without violating the laws of nations, or the faith of treaties, will at length accomplish the earnest desire of the British nation by the total abolition of the African slave trade.”—(Parl. Papers, A., Further Series, 1838 & 9.)