ss respected then the stars and stripes. The right
honourable gentleman says that, if we assent to my noble friend's
amendment, we shall no longer be able to maintain the Right of Search.
Sir, he need not trouble himself about that right. It is already gone.
We have agreed to negotiate on the subject with France. Everybody knows
how that negotiation will end. The French flag will be exempted from
search: Spain will instantly demand, if she has not already demanded,
similar exemption; and you may as well let her have it with a good
grace, and without wrangling. For a Right of Search, from which the
flags of France and America are exempted, is not worth a dispute.
The only system, therefore, which, in the opinion of Her Majesty's
Ministers, has yet been found efficacious for the prevention of the
maritime slave trade, is in fact abandoned. And who is answerable for
this? The United States of America. The chief guilt even of the slave
trade between Africa and Brazil lies, not with the Government of Brazil,
but with that of the United States. And yet the right honourable Baronet
proposes to punish Brazil for the slave trade, and in the same breath
proposes to show favour to the United States, because the United States
are pure from the crime of slave trading. I thank the right honourable
gentleman, the late President of the Board of Trade, for reminding me of
Mr Calhoun's letter. I could not have wished for a better illustration
of my argument. Let anybody who has read that letter say what is the
country which, if we take on ourselves to avenge the wrongs of Africa,
ought to be the first object of our indignation. The Government of the
United States has placed itself on a bad eminence to which Brazil never
aspired, and which Brazil, even if aspiring to it, never could attain.
The Government of the United States has formally declared itself the
patron, the champion of negro slavery all over the world, the evil
genius, the Arimanes of the African race, and seems to take pride in
this shameful and odious distinction. I well understand that an American
statesman may say, "Slavery is a horrible evil; but we were born to it,
we see no way at present to rid ourselves of it: and we must endure it
as we best may." Good and enlightened men may hold such language;
but such is not the language of the American Cabinet. That Cabinet is
actuated by a propagandist spirit, and labours to spread servitude and
barbarism with an ardour such as n