Thus the right of search in time of peace controversy was not ended with
the war of 1812 but remained a constant sore in national relations, for
Britain alone used her navy with energy to suppress the slave trade, and
the slave traders of all nations sought refuge, when approached by a
British naval vessel, under the protection of the American flag. If
Britain respected the flag, and sheered off from search, how could she
stop the trade? If she ignored the flag and on boarding found an
innocent American vessel engaged in legal trade, there resulted claims
for damages by detention of voyage, and demands by the American
Government for apology and reparation. The real slave trader, seized
under the American flag, never protested to the United States, nor
claimed American citizenship, for his punishment in American law for
engaging in the slave trade was death, while under the law of any other
nation it did not exceed imprisonment, fine and loss of his vessel.

Summed up in terms of governmental attitude the British contention was
that here was a great international humanitarian object frustrated by an
absurd American sensitiveness on a point of honour about the flag. After
fifteen years of dispute Great Britain offered to abandon any claim to a
right of _search_, contenting herself with a right of _visit_, merely to
verify a vessel's right to fly the American flag. America asserted this
to be mere pretence, involving no renunciation of a practice whose
legality she denied. In 1842, in the treaty settling the Maine boundary
controversy, the eighth article sought a method of escape. Joint
cruising squadrons were provided for the coast of Africa, the British
to search all suspected vessels except those flying the American flag,
and these to be searched by the American squadron. At once President
Tyler notified Congress that Great Britain had renounced the right of
search. Immediately in Parliament a clamour was raised against the
Government for the "sacrifice" of a British right at sea, and Lord