[Drop-Head Title:] Report From The Committee On African Forts [Parliament]

63pp, [1]. Disbound. Later resewn. Terminal leaf creased. The report of a parliamentary committee appointed to evaluate the condition of the state of trade and establishments of the African Company, issued four years prior its ultimate dissolution by the British Government in 1821. With the exception of the major forts such as Cape Coast Castle, many British forts were not particularly well defended nor maintained and as such their efficacy as a deterrent to slave traders greatly diminished. Parliament, frustrated by this reduced effectiveness, pursued a policy of reducing the number of African Company settlements through the abandonment of any, upon strict inquiry, not found to be of service in a sufficient degree to warrant their expenditure. From the recently dispersed library (without any indication of such) of British scholar and senior civil servant William St Clair (1937-2021), and presumably used by him in his research for his acclaimed book The Grand Slave Emporium: Cape Coast Castle and the British Slave Trade (2006). OCLC and COPAC together record copies at just six locations (California, NLW, NYPL, Senate House, Southampton, and UoL). Size: Folio