Some Account of the Trade in Slaves from Africa As Connected with Europe by Bandinel James;

Author:Bandinel, James;
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 1619201
Publisher: Taylor & Francis Group

Between the years 1815 and 1830 several Addresses had been carried up by the Parliament to the Throne, beseeching His Majesty to continue to instruct His Majesty’s ministers abroad to endeavour to obtain the concurrence of Foreign Powers for the universal abolition of the Slave Trade.

In 1815 Great Britain obtained from the Congress of assembled Powers at Vienna, a general declaration, wherein they condemned, in the strongest terms, the principle of the Slave Trade; and engaged to concur together, and to assist each other, in producing the universal and definitive abolition of the Trade by all the Powers of Christendom.

In 1818 Great Britain obtained from Austria, France, Prussia, and Russia, a joint request to the Sovereign of Portugal, to fix a period for the abolition of the Trade.

And in 1822 Great Britain obtained from those four Powers a Declaration, confirmatory of the principles manifested in the Declaration of 1815.

During the early part of the period treated of in this section, Great Britain obtained also from Portugal, Treaties which restricted Portuguese Slave Trade thenceforward within narrow limits; and which stipulated for the entire abolition of the Trade under eventual circumstances. Those circumstances having occurred in 1826, England further obtained a pledge in writing, that in a Treaty then about to be concluded, Portugal should insert an article, binding herself to abandon at once the Slave Trade, and to co-operate with Great Britain in obtaining its suppression on the part of other nations.

From Spain, the Netherlands, Brazil and Sweden, Great Britain obtained Treaties; declaring, that all Slave Trade carried on by subjects of those countries, or under their National Flag, should be illegal; and with all these four Powers, Great Britain concluded compacts, which gave means for carrying into effect the suppression of illegal trade under the flags of those powers.

Those means were,—first, an admission, that the cruisers of each party might search and detain vessels of the other party suspected of slave trading: and, secondly, provision for the establishment of Mixed Commissions, armed with power to try the detained vessels, and to condemn them if found to be concerned in Slave Trade.

With the Netherlands, and with Sweden, a further stipulation was contracted, by which ships were to be condemned, when found equipped for Slave Trade, although no slaves might be found on board of them, and that they did not appear otherwise actually engaged in Slave Trade.

A Treaty for a mutual limited right of search was signed with the Minister of the United States, but not ratified by the Senate of that Power.

Great Britain also obtained the insertion of an article in her Treaties with Mexico, Columbia, and Buenos Ayres; stipulating, that the Slave Trade of those States should be abolished, and that they should co-operate with Great Britain, for the total suppression of the trade by other Powers.

And Great Britain herself affixed the crime and punishment of piracy to British Slave Trade; and declared her determination to extinguish the state of slavery throughout the British West Indian colonies, and took

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.