several passages and channels shall be free and open to the use of the
citizens and subjects of both parties.

The treaty obligations subsisting between the two countries for the
suppression of the African slave trade and the complaints made to this
Government within the last three or four years, many of them but too
well founded, of the visitation, seizure, and detention of American
vessels on that coast by British cruisers could not but form a delicate
and highly important part of the negotiations which have now been held.

The early and prominent part which the Government of the United States
has taken for the abolition of this unlawful and inhuman traffic is well
known. By the tenth article of the treaty of Ghent it is declared that
the traffic in slaves is irreconcilable with the principles of humanity
and justice, and that both His Majesty and the United States are
desirous of continuing their efforts to promote its entire abolition;
and it is thereby agreed that both the contracting parties shall use
their best endeavors to accomplish so desirable an object. The
Government of the United States has by law declared the African slave
trade piracy, and at its suggestion other nations have made similar
enactments. It has not been wanting in honest and zealous efforts, made
in conformity with the wishes of the whole country, to accomplish the
entire abolition of the traffic in slaves upon the African coast, but
these efforts and those of other countries directed to the same end have
proved to a considerable degree unsuccessful. Treaties are known to have
been entered into some years ago between England and France by which the
former power, which usually maintains a large naval force on the African
station, was authorized to seize and bring in for adjudication vessels
found engaged in the slave trade under the French flag.