ABSTRACT
Canning had now to frame his Spanish-American policy. His aims were: to secure British property; to protect the religious freedom of British subjects; to abolish the Slave Trade; and to obtain equal commercial privileges, though not denying the right of the Mother Country to preferential treatment. 2 The security of British property and of religious freedom. were easily secured in principle, and one or two instances, in which Canning interfered with effect, taught the new States to respect it in practice. He had little difficulty in securing the abolition of the Slave Trade with Mexico, Colombia, or Buenos Aires, but had a long struggle with Brazil. Ratifications of a treaty to abolish the trade in three years were exchanged 13th March 1827, but it was not until half a generation after Canning's death that his pupil Palmerston finally secured it, a transaction always regarded by that boisterous minister as one of the most satisfactory of his life.
