“Slaving not being reckoned as piracy by the law of nations at the time to which I allude, no ship was permitted to search another, even though the latter were positively known to be loaded with negroes, unless the two vessels carried the same flag.
“Consequently, any slaver when pursued, if aware of her pursuer’s nationality, might run up a foreign flag, and sail coolly away under its protection, her enemy being entirely powerless in the matter.
“This was the state of affairs from the treaty for the mutual suppression of the African slave trade between Great Britain and the United States, in 1842, down to the treaty of 1862, which to some slight extent mended the matter.
“The ‘Excellent’ had been cruising off the Guinean coast, particularly about the region between Cape Three Points and the Bight of Benin, for upwards of four months now, and nothing to speak of had come of it.
“To be sure, we had all been ashore once or twice to call on the King of Dahomey, the best misrepresentative of royalty to be found on the western coast at that time, and he had dined us deliciously on shelled peanuts, and pledged our professional health in deep draughts of his villainous sego.
“But of our legitimate business in that part of the world we had done little or nothing.
“Nor was this exactly for lack of opportunity. We knew very well that the rascally old potentate was trading off his subjects at the rate of a thousand or so every two or three weeks.
“We would even lie there sometimes and see a slaver go to sea, knowing that her decks below were crowded with miserable negroes. But if we made a movement to pursue, up would go a Spanish or French flag, and all we could do was to let her severely alone.
“Once, indeed, we did circumvent one of them most beautifully.
“We had followed her up when she put out of the river until she showed the stars and stripes, and then, as the breeze was light and the night a promising one, the old man ordered out the barge and sent an officer up to Elmina, ten miles above us, to inform a Yankee sloop of war which we knew to be there. We hung to the slaver all night with the ship, and just at day break, sure enough, there was the American making for her with all sail spread.