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Slave Trade, or, Address to the inhabitants of the British empire on the subject of the slave trade

British Library Newspapers. Bibliothèque Nationale de France.

Address British Empire Slave Trade Treaty Peace Paris France 1814

Opening with two parallel quotations from Pitt and Fox condemning the slave trade, this short address which appeared in the British press in June and July 1814 advertised abolitionism as a movement which transcended political divisions. The address focuses on the re-establishment of the French slave trade for five years, which had been agreed at the 1814 Treaty of Paris. Condeming slave trading as a "complicated mass of wickedness" which was severely punished in Britain, the author calls for public opinion to unite in unanimous opposition to the continuing French slave trade, and call for its end at any cost: "Let the voice of the British nation once more declare itself, and the African Slave Trade must universally cease".

Reputedly written by Thomas Clarkson, under the pseudonym "Alfred". Printed in the Morning Chronicle with the title 'Slave Trade. To the Editor of the Morning Chronicle' (June 27, 1814, issue 14085). Also published as a letter to the editor in regional newspapers around Britain, such as the Derby Mercury (June 30, 1814, issue 4286), Jackson's Oxford Journal (July 2, 1814, issue 3193), Royal Cornwall Gazette (July 2, 1814, issue 575) and Aberdeen Journal (July 6, 1814, issue 3469), and in the Scots Magazine as 'Address to the inhabitants of the British Empire on the subject of the slave trade' (vol. 76, July 1814, 510-12).