33 to one for joint cruising,[69] while the Germanic
Federation,[70] Portugal,[71] and Chili[72]enounced the trade as piracy.
In 1844 Texas granted the Right of Search to England,[73] and in 1845
Belgium signed the Quintuple Treaty.[74]

Discussion between England and the United States was revived when Cass
held the State portfolio, and, strange to say, the author of "Cass's
Protest" went farther than any of his predecessors in acknowledging the
justice of England's demands. Said he, in 1859: "If The United States
maintained that, by carrying their flag at her masthead, any vessel
became thereby entitled to the immunity which belongs to American
vessels, they might well be reproached with assuming a position which
would go far towards shielding crimes upon the ocean from punishment;
but they advance no such pretension, while they concede that, if in the
honest examination of a vessel sailing under American colours, but
accompanied by strongly-marked suspicious circumstances, a mistake is
made, and she is found to be entitled to the flag she bears, but no
injury is committed, and the conduct of the boarding party is
irreproachable, no Government would be likely to make a case thus
exceptional in its character a subject of serious reclamation."[75]
While admitting this and expressing a desire to co-operate in the
suppression of the slave-trade, Cass nevertheless steadily refused all
further overtures toward a mutual Right of Search.

The increase of the slave-traffic was so great in the decade 1850-1860
that Lord John Russell proposed to the governments of the United States,
France, Spain, Portugal, and Brazil, that they instruct their ministers
to meet at London in May or June, 1860, to consider measures for the
final abolition of the trade. He stated: "It is ascertained, by
repeated instances, that the practice is for vessels to sail under the
American flag. If the flag is rightly assumed, and the papers correct,
no British cruizer can touch them. If no slaves are on board, even
though the equipment, the fittings, the water-casks, and other
circumstances prove that the ship is on a Slave Trade venture, no
American cruizer can touch them."[76] Continued representations of this
kind were made to the paralyzed United States government; indeed, the
slave-trade of the world seemed now to float securely under her flag.
Nevertheless, Cass refused even to participate in the proposed
conference, and later refused to accede to a