[Drop-Head Title:] Paper Relating To The Slave Trade [Parliament]

10pp, [2]. Docket title to verso of terminal leaf. Sewn, as issued. Three old horizontal folds. A clean and crisp copy. A selection of seven papers, printed by order of the House of Commons, regarding the Africa slave trade. The initial four letters contain reports of Royal Navy officer Sir James Lucas Yeo (1782- 1818), then commander-in-chief on the west coast of Africa with special responsibility for the anti-slavery patrol. He commences with the disheartening revelation that 'efforts toward obtaining the real abolition of slavery, have been of little or no avail; for though fewer negroes may have been enslaved since the Abolition Acts took place, with respect to this country, yet the cruelty to those now taken away by Spaniards and Portuguese, has increased quadruple; and those Acts appear to have had no other effect then that of transferring the Slave Trade to Spain and Portugal, whose inhuman traffic has since wonderfully increased'. Yeo proceeds to provide accounts of numerous vessels recently seized, both by himself and Captain Fisher (who authors the final three letters reproduced here), including the capture Portuguese brig San Antonio carrying 600 enslaved Africans, and the American schooner Rosa, sailing under Spanish colours, trafficking 276. Size: Folio