nd lay in the fact that the unjustifiable
detentions had unfortunately revealed so much American guilt that it was
deemed wiser to let the matter end in talk. For instance, in 1850
Congress demanded information as to illegal searches, and President
Fillmore's report showed the uncomfortable fact that, of the ten
American ships wrongly detained by English men-of-war, nine were proven
red-handed slavers.[60]

The consul at Havana reported, in 1836, that whole cargoes of slaves
fresh from Africa were being daily shipped to Texas in American vessels,
that 1,000 had been sent within a few months, that the rate was
increasing, and that many of these slaves "can scarcely fail to find
their way into the United States." Moreover, the consul acknowledged
that ships frequently cleared for the United States in ballast, taking
on a cargo at some secret point.[61] When with these facts we consider
the law facilitating "recovery" of slaves from Texas,[62] the repeated
refusals to regulate the Texan trade, and the shelving of a proposed
congressional investigation into these matters,[63] conjecture becomes a
practical certainty. It was estimated in 1838 that 15,000 Africans were
annually taken to Texas, and "there are even grounds for suspicion that
there are other places ... where slaves are introduced."[64] Between
1847 and 1853 the slave smuggler Drake had a slave depot in the Gulf,
where sometimes as many as 1,600 Negroes were on hand, and the owners
were continually importing and shipping. "The joint-stock company,"
writes this smuggler, "was a very extensive one, and connected with
leading American and Spanish mercantile houses. Our island[65] was
visited almost weekly, by agents from Cuba, New York, Baltimore,
Philadelphia, Boston, and New Orleans.... The seasoned and instructed
slaves were taken to Texas, or Florida, overland, and to Cuba, in
sailing-boats. As no squad contained more than half a dozen, no
difficulty was found in posting them to the United States, without
discovery, and generally without suspicion.... The Bay Island plantation
sent ventures weekly to the Florida Keys. Slaves were taken into the
great American swamps, and there kept till wanted for the market.
Hundreds were sold as captured runaways from the Florida wilderness. We
had agents in every slave State; and our coasters were built in Maine,
and came out with lumber. I could tell curious stories ... of this
business of smuggling Bozal negroes into the Un