James Hamilton to Abner Lipscomb, January 4, 1841

Summary: Hamilton described to Lipscomb the treaties he had signed with Great Britain, specifically the African Slave Trade Treaty. Although this treaty allowed the British navy to search Texas ships even remotely suspected of carrying slaves from Africa, Hamilton felt he needed to accept it in order to get recognition. He pointed out that the United States had to accept similar terms in their own treaties with Great Britain. He then tried to soften the blow by listing six conditions in the treaty that put such searches under Texas control and made them as limited as possible. Deferred to Lipscomb whether the treaty was acceptable for Texas as an independent power but urged him to forward it to the Texas President for approval.

LONDON, Jan'y 4th. 1841.

SIR,

I did not send out by Mr. Iken the bearer of the dispatches I had the honor of transmitting you on the 3rd. of Decemr. a special con-

vention which I concluded with her Majesty's Government for the suppression of the African Slave Trade, because anticipating the necessity of Mr. Burnley's return to Texas at the present moment, on business of importance to the Republic, I was desirous of confiding the Treaty in question to this Gentleman, who familiar with all the details of its negotiation might be able to afford such explanations as may be necessary to insure its ratification by the President and Senate of Texas.

You will perceive that whilst Lord Palmerston has waived all right to enquire into the internal institutions of Texas, yet he has made her concurrence in the great law which seems now to regulate the intercourse of civilized nations, to wit: a union in those measures which are deemed essential to the suppression of the African Slave Trade, as a preliminary and indispensable condition of her recognition by Great Britain. Under my general powers to obtain an acknowledgment of the Independence of Texas from Great Britain on the best terms possible, I have concluded with his Lordship the Treaty which I have now the honor to transmit with the sincere and anxious hope, that it will be promptly ratified by those authorities to whom this trust is confided under the constitution and laws of Texas.

I beg leave to refer you to my letter applying to his Lordship, for the recognition of Her Majesty's Government marked A., to his reply marked B., and to my answer marked C.

The Treaty will speak for itself, which I hope in any event may be promptly published, as carrying the best justification I can offer to the people of Texas for having signed such a convention.

But I desire to place my reasons in a form free from the formal stipulations of the document itself that it may be clearly seen that I did not sign this contract without weighing well what I believed belonged to the interest and honor of Texas.

In the first place the abhorance of the whole civilized world of the African Slave Trade, is becoming so universal that no new Government at least, can stand out in any, even a silent toleration of the abuses of this traffic, by declining to concur in those measures for its suppression which seems to be adopted by very general accord by almost all nations.

Even where the mutual right of search is not conceded, that Flags belonging to such powers will be violated and ship[s] overhauled and be subjected to vexatious detentions and hardships is proved incontestably by the frequent violation on the coast of Africa of ships of the United States of America for which the Minister of the United States can obtain no redress and one of two things the Government of the U. States will have to do either to sign a Treaty with England

conceding the right of search on board of slavers, or to go to war, for the repeated violations of her Flag. Seeing how little redress Mr. Stevenson has been able to obtain for his own country, notwithstanding his able, prompt and vigorous appeals to the Government of Her Britanic Majesty, I determined when Lord Palmerston made the signature of a convention for the suppression of the African Slave Trade a sine qua non and I saw what the convention was,--how guarded in its provisions, by which England great and powerful as she is, subject[s] her Commercial Marine to search by the Naval Force of Texas, as well as not to hesitate in regard to the execution of a Treaty, and to prefer a regulation of this right, under the authority of Texas herself rather than to be compelled to acquiesce in a violation of our Flag without the shadow of authority, which I am sorry to say, and say it with deep humiliation, is now the case with the vessels of the United States.

Such is the force of public opinion in Europe, in regard to the African Slave Trade, that I have no example in affirming that the right of search in all cases of well, or even ill founded suspicion, will be exercised, and from the peculiar locality of Texas, her vicinity to Cuba, that Great Mart of the Slave Trade, her Flag would be insecure, and thus results the obvious inquiry, whether she had not better take this subject under her own control to a certain extent, by exercising the authority to commission alone such vessels as she thinks proper to clothe with the requisite power to search, to have her coasts exempt from visitation, and to insure that all vessels prostituting her Flag, to the purposes of this traffic shall be brought into her own ports for adjudication. You will perceive that I have stipulated 1st That the right of search shall be reciprocal, and only applicable to the African Slave Trade. 2ndly. That this right shall only be exercised by vessels under a special warrant from the President of Texas, recoverable of course in the case of any violation of the Treaty on the part of any Officer of Her Britanic Majesty to whom the President may confide such a commission. 3d. That every precaution has been adopted to prevent the abuse of vexatious delays, and groundless seizures, and to redress and punish all such abuses. 4thly. In all cases the vessels which may be detained under the suspicion of their being slavers, are to be taken into some one of the ports of the country under whose Flag they are navigating for adjudication. 5thly. To avoid the possibility of abuse by the manumission in Texas of the Africans seized under the Treaty, and who may be incapable of providing for their own subsistence and protection, the British authorities, at the expense of the British Government are to convey them to one of the British West India Islands.

6thly. The Coast of Texas is by the lines of latitude and longitude, designated in the Treaty declared exempt from the exercise of the right of search. I endeavored to have this exemption extended to the whole Gulf of Mexico, but in consequence of the enormous traffic in Africans from the coast carried on in and from the Island of Cuba, I could not secure this object and finally agreed on the compromise contained in the Treaty.

As Spain, Portugal, the Netherlands, Belgium and even France, the most jealous nations on earth of the Naval Powers of Great Britain, have all conceded this right of search, concluded conventions by no means as guarded as the one to which I have affixed my signature, I trust it will be deemed no violation of the just pride of the new Republic that I should have signed for her a similar compact on the basis of an entire reciprocity.

The truth is that the right of search in the Treaty I have the honor to transmit you is no more like the right of search which Great Britain exercised for more than fifteen years on board of American vessels than a naked act of violence is analagous to the execution of the Judgment of a Court of Justice. I have not been alarmed by the potency of mere names against the evidence of what things really are. If the Texan vessels are searched, I wished them searched under the authority of your own magistrates, and if your Flag is fraudulently prostituted to the purpose of a traffic, you have declared piracy, that the parties offending shall be tried by your own courts, that by the admiralty courts of the West Indies, or mixed commissioners on the coast of Africa.

If there is a concession in this matter I have thought it was not beyond the value of the recognition of such a power, as the great and renowned parent from which we have all sprung, and that Texas owed this unequivocal proof of her good faith in her Constitutional inhibition of the traffic, and to the refutation of the slander industriously propagated in Europe, more especially in England, that the cause of her separation from Mexico, was that she might enjoy its fruits, under the security of a public opinion which could annul her own laws. When I say to you (a fact of which I believe you are fully aware) that I am a slave holder and that in 1813 I joined that portion of the army of the United States which invaded Canada because our marine was searched by British cruisers without the authority of our Government as the United States made peace without a single stipulation in regard to the right, or its abuses, I leave you therefore to infer whether I would willingly sign a Treaty endangering the security of the property, or injurious to the honor of the Flag of Texas.

I can not but reiterate the anxious desire that the President and Senate of Texas would concur in the expediency of ratifying the Treaty, as I feel satisfied without an unworthy concession, this measure will go far towards conciliating the regard and securing the friendly sympathy of the most enlightened nations of Europe, by whom her Independence has been acknowledged, and with whom she has found valuable and interesting commercial and international intercourse.

I have the honor to remain, Sir,

Very Respectfully

Your Obt. Servt. J. HAMILTON.

The Hon.

A.S. LIPSCOMB

Secy of State

P.S. I transmit copies of the Slave Trade Treaties, England has concluded, with France, The Netherlands and Spain.

Source Copy Consulted: James Hamilton to Abner Lipscomb, January 4, 1841, George Garrison, ed., Diplomatic Correspondence of the Republic of Texas, Annual Report of the American Historical Association for the Year 1908, (Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1911), 3 vols., 3: 921-925