CHAPTER X.

Effect of the protest upon the action of the French government, respecting the Quintuple Treaty--The Ashburton Treaty--Proceedings of Gov. Cass, on receiving copy of treaty-His correspondence with Mr. Webster, Secretary of State.

The frankness and boldness of Gov. Cass, in laying this protest before the French government and people, while it aroused the anger of the British government, deterred her from pursuing her object in the manner she commenced. The French chamber of deputies having their attention awakened to an examination of the schemes of England's ministers, refused to become a party thereto. Anxious to retreat with some appearance of honor, and unwilling to appear to the world, altogether unsuccessful in her project, and wishing to impress nations with her sincerity and laudable motives, which suggested the Quintuple Treaty, England opened a negotiation with the United States, on the subject, A special minister was sent to this country with authority to adjust and definitely settle all matters of difference between the two countries. A treaty was made and concluded, and signed by Lord Ashburton, the British ambassador, and Daniel Webster, American Secretary of State. The President directed Mr. Webster, in communicating this treaty to Gen. Cass, in France, to call his attention particularly to the clauses relating to the suppression of the African slave trade. The provisions in regard to that subject, in its connection with the right of search, as claimed by Great Britain, did not meet the views of Gen. Cass; nor could he consistently approve of them, even so indirectly, as to retain his position at the court of St. Cloud. He considered that the omission to procure a renunciation of the offensive claim of the English government, while negotiations were pending upon the very subject, which formed the pretended basis of the claim, placed him in a false position, and rendered his situation unpleasant to him. Truly his conduct in denouncing the pretension; in arraying against it a powerful people

and government, and so preparing an easy and open path, for whoever might be charged with the management of subsequent negotiation, was approved by the Executive of his government; yet when the subject came to be an object of treaty arrangement, when it was clothed with the solemnity of law, to be known and obeyed by the nations of the world, it was of greater moment to him, who had stood forth alone, and with his single arm, kept back the stride of a powerful ministry, to supremacy on the great highway of the world, that his course should be approved by the entire treaty making power of his country, than that his action should rest upon the individual and ephemeral sanction of the President

Desiring no longer, under such circumstances, a further residence in France, as the representative of his country, he requested permission to return home. The President, acknowledging the loss to this country, by the withdrawal of Gen. Cass, from so important a mission at that crisis, reluctantly gave his official consent.

Gen. Cass, on receipt of a copy of the treaty, presented it to the governmeut of France, with an accompanying letter from Mr. Webster. Although disappointed at the omis sion of those stipulations, which he regarded as of paramount importance, his patriotism and pride for his country, would not allow the utterance of a word of dissent or regret to escape him, at a foreign court. But with his own government he felt his position to be different, and himself at liberty to express to his countrymen, his feelings and sentiments without reserve. Hence, arose the celebrated controversy between Gen. Cass and Mr. Webster, immediately preceding, and after the termination of the official relation of the former.

The letters of Gen Cass, which follow, contain a complete history and examination of the subject of controversy, and cannot fail to impress the reader with the conviction, that his position is truly American, in principle, and is sustained by a cogency of argument which cannot be controverted.

LEGATION OF THE UNITED STATES, Paris, October 3, 1842. SIR: The last packet brought me your letter of August 29th, announcing the conclusion of a treaty with Great Britain, and accompanied by a copy of it, and the correspondence between the ministers charged with the negotiations, and directing me to make known to M. Guizot the sentiments of the American Government

upon that part of the treaty which provides for the co-operation of the United States in the efforts making to suppress the African slave trade. I thought I should best fulfil your intentions by communicating a copy, in extenso, of your letter. This I accordingly did yesterday. I trust I shall be able, before my departure, to transmit to you the acknowledgment of its receipt by M, Guizot.

In executing this duty, I felt too well what was due to my government and country to intimate any regret to a foreign power that some declaration had not preceded the treaty, or some stipulation accompanied it, by which the extraordinary pretension of Great Britain to search our ships, at all times and in all places, first put forth to the world by Lord Palmerston on the 27th August, 1841, and on the 13th October following, again peremptorily claimed as a right by Lord Aberdeen, would have been abrogated as equally incompatible with the laws of nations and with the independence of the United States. I confined myself, therefore to a simple communication of your letter.

But this reserve ceases when I address my own government, and, connected as I feel my official conduct and reputation with this question of the right of search, I am sure I shall find an excuse for what might otherwise be considered presumption, if, as one of the last acts of my official career, I submit to you, and through you to the President, the peculiar circumstances in which I am placed by the conclusion of this treaty, and by the communication of your letter to M. Guizot.

Before proceeding further, however, permit me to remark that no one rejoices more sincerely than I do at the termination of our difficulties with Great Britain, so far as they are terminated. That country and ours have so many moral and material interests involved in their intercourse, that their respective governments and inhabitants may well feel more than ordinary solicitude for the preservation of peace between these two great nations. Our past history, however, will be unprofitable if it do not teach us that unjust pretensions, affecting our rights and honor, are best met by being promptly repelled when first urged, and by being received in a spirit of resistance worthy the character of our people and of the great trust confided to us as the depositaries of the freest system of government which the world has yet witnessed.

I had the honor, in my letter of the 17th ultimo, to solicit permission to return to the United States. That letter was written the day a copy of the treaty reached Paris, and the remark which I then made to you, that " I could no longer be useful here," has been confirmed by subsequent reflection and by the receipt of your letter and of the correspondence accompanying it. I feel that I could no longer remain here honorably for myself or advantageously for our country.

In my letter to you of the 15th February last, transmitting a copy of my protest against the ratification of the quintuple treaty for the suppression of the African slave trade, I took the liberty of

suggesting the propriety of demanding from Lord Ashburton, previously to entering into any negotiation, a distinct renunciation of this claim to search our vessels. I thought then, as I do now, that this course was demanded by a just self-respect, and would be supported by that tribunal of public opinion which sustains our government when right and corrects it when wrong. The pretension itself, was one of the most flagrant outrages which could be aimed at an independent nation, and the mode of its enunciation was as coolly contemptuous as diplomatic ingenuity could suggest. We were told that, to the doctrine that American vessels were free from the search of foreign cruizers in time of peace, "the British government never could or would subscribe." And we were told, too, there was reason to expect that the United States would themselves become converts to the same opinion; and this expectation was founded on the hope that "they would cease to confound two things which are in their nature entirely different, and would look to things and not to words." And the very concluding paragraph of the British correspondence tells us, in effect, that we may take whatever course we please, but that England will adhere to this pretension to board our vessels when and where her cruizers may find them. A portion of this paragraph is equally significative and unceremonious. "It is for the American government," says Lord Aberdeen, "alone to determine what may be due to a just regard for their national dignity and national independence." I doubt if, in the wide range of modern diplomacy, a more obnoxious claim has been urged in a more obnoxious manner.

This claim, thus asserted and supported, was promptly met and firmly repelled by the President in his message at the commencement of the last session of Congress; and in your letter to me, approving the course I had adopted in relation to the question of the ratification by France of the quintuple treaty, you consider the principles of that message as the established policy of the government. Under these circumstances of the assertion and denial of this new claim of maritime police, the eyes of Europe were upon these two great naval powers, one of which had advanced a pretension, and avowed her determination to enforce it, which might at any moment bring them into collision. So far our national dignity was uncompromited.

But England then urged the United States to enter into a conventional arrangement, by which we might be pledged to concur with her in measures for the suppression of the slave trade. Till then, we had executed our own laws in our own way. But yielding to this application, and departing from our former principle of avoiding European combinations upon subjects not American, we stipulated, in a solemn treaty, that we would carry into effect our own laws, and fixed the minimum force we would employ for that purpose. Certainly, a laudable desire to terminate this horrible man-stealing and man-selling, may well justify us in going further, in changing one of the fundamental principles of our policy, in

order to effect this object, than we would go to effect any other. It is so much more a question of feeling than of reasoning, that we can hardly be wrong in yielding to that impulse, which leads us to desire to unite our efforts with those of other nations for the protection of the most sacred human rights. But while making so important a concession to the renewed application of England, it seems to me we might well have said to her, "before we treat upon this matter, there is a preliminary question connected with it, which must be settled. We will do no act which may, by any possibility, appear to be a recognition of your claim to search our vessels. That claim has arisen out of this very subject, or at any rate, this subject has been the pretext for its assertion, and if we now negotiate upon it, and our concurrence is yielded, you must relinquish, as solemnly as you have announced, this most offensive pretension. If this is not done, by now making a conventional arrangement with you, and leaving you free to take your own course, we shall, in effect, abandon the ground we have assumed, and with it our rights and honor."

In carefully looking at the seventh and eighth articles of the treaty, providing for our co-operation in the measures for the suppression of this traffic, I do not see that they change, in the slightest degree, the pre-existing right claimed by Great Britain to arrest and search our vessels. That claim, as advanced both by Lord Palmerston and Lord Aberdeen, rested on the assumption that the treaties between England and other European powers upon this subject, could not be executed without its exercise, and that the happy concurrence of these powers not only justified this exercise, but rendered it indispensable. By the recent treaty, we are to keep a squadron upon the coast of Africa. We have kept one there for years, during the whole term, indeed, of these efforts to put a stop to this most iniquitous commerce. The effect of the treaty is, therefore, to render it obligatory upon us by a convention to do what we have long done voluntarily; to place our municipal laws, in some measure, beyond the reach of Congress; and to increase the strength of the squadron employed on this duty. But if a British cruiser meet a vessel bearing the American flag, where there is no American ship of war to examine her, it is obvious, that it is quite as indispensable and justifiable, that the cruiser should search this vessel to ascertain her nationality, since the conclusion of the treaty as it was before. The mutual rights of the parties are in this respect wholly untouched; their pretensions exist in full force; and what they could do prior to this arrangement they may now do; for though they have respectively sanctioned the employment of a force to give effect "to the laws, rights, and obligations of the two countries," yet they have not prohibited the use of any other measure which either party may be disposed to It is unnecessary to push these considerations further; and in carrying them thus far, I have found the task an unpleasant one. Nothing but justice to myself could have induced me to do it. I