or 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]

So notorious did the participation of Americans in the traffic become,
that President Madison informed Congress in his message, December 5,
1810, that "it appears that American citizens are instrumental in
carrying on a traffic in enslaved Africans, equally in violation of the
laws of humanity, and in defiance of those of their own country. The
same just and benevolent motives which produced the interdiction in
force against this criminal conduct, will doubtless be felt by Congress,
in devising further means of suppressing the evil."[71] The Secretary of
the Navy wrote the same year to Charleston, South Carolina: "I hear, not
without great concern, that the law prohibiting the importation of
slaves has been violated in frequent instances, near St. Mary's."[72]
Testimony as to violations of the law and suggestions for improving it
also came in from district attorneys.[