I've been a bit busy--a bit too busy to monitor Mudcat below the line.


So Greg, you don't like The Slave Trade.   That's peachy.   Anybody who cares to read the criticism of Thomas' book will find that probably the top problem is that he does not consider the problem from the slave's point of view. However this has nothing to do with why British participation in the slave trade ended . So your criticism is a red herring in the issue of exactly why British participation in the slave trade was banned in 1807--and not earlier.

It's also interesting that somehow you have neglected to actually come up with a a logical countertheory to the one I have put forward--with direct quotes of course, as mine had.
One might be possibly tempted to hazard a guess that you have no argument to counter mine--- and that your criticism is so much hot air.   I'm sure you wouldn't want anybody to think that, of course.

I'll break my theory down so you can tell us exactly which part you don't understand.

1) West Indian interests had huge clout in Parliament.   According to Birth of the Modern (p 321), by another British historian, Paul Johnson: "Of incomes derived overseas including Ireland, William Pitt told the House of Commons in 1798, about 80% came from the
West Indies. The richest men in Britain were those with successful West Indian estates."

2) Saint Domingue provided a clear object lesson of a successful slave rebellion.

3) From the French Revolution up to 1802, the anti-slave trade movement had to contend with the suspicion of links to Jacobinism, since during that time France banned French participation in the trade.    In 1802, Napoleon re-instituted it, which removed that argument from the arsenal of the anti-abolitionists.


3) There were however still powerful interests in favor of the slave trade.   The British Navy looked on slave ships to some extent as the "nursery of the Navy".   The validity of this can be seen in the fact that not just Britons learned seacraft on board slavers-- e.g. John Paul Jones, a Briton originally of course, started his career aboard a slave ship.   Certain cities, especially Liverpool, were heavily dependent on the slave trade--not just shipowners, but rope makers, shipbuilders, and even bakers.

Wellington was at one point quoted as saying: Thomas p 546, that he was "bred in the good old school and taught to appreciate the value of our "West Indian possessions and neither in the field not the Senate shall their just rights be infringed, while I have an arm to fight in their defense, or a tongue to launch my voice against the damnable doctrine of Wilberforce and his hypocritical allies".




However, as I noted, in 1806 the West Indies were in debt, there was a large sugar surplus and the "old colonies" did not want any more slaves. Prime Minister Grenville, in January 1807, made exactly this point:   Thomas, p 555:   "Grenville argued that abolition was necessary to ensure the survival of the older Caribbean colonies: 'Are they not now distressed by the accumulation of produce on their hands, for which they cannot find a market?   And will it not be adding to their distress...if you suffer the continuation of further importations?"

This was the sea change. The West Indian interests, powerful as they were, did not themselves want any more slaves.   So they withdrew their opposition to ending the slave trade--and made this plain to their representatives--as reflected in the PM's quote above.
So the moral push to end the slave trade, a movement which had been for decades unsuccessfully trying to get such a bill through Parliament, was able to seize the moment.
It was the economics which changed--and dramatically tipped the balance in favor of abolition.

If you have a countertheory, I'm sure we'd all like to hear it.   Logic and direct quotes, of course, would be considered necessary, as I'm sure you're aware.

Thanks so much.