Letters on the West Indies.

£6,000 · Offered by Maggs Bros Ltd

An evocative presentation copy inscribed by the author to fellow Berbice Committee member William Wilberforce “for the advantage of his observations on the manuscript” of the present work. Walker and Wilberforce worked closely together on the Berbice Committee which governed the Crown estates in the Caribbean colony of Berbice. He inscribed this copy on the half-title: “To Wm. Wilberforce Esq. M.P. with the author’s grateful acknowledgement for the advantage of his observations on the manuscript”. Walker’s inscription shows the close involvement of the two men in producing Letters on the West Indies. This copy also has underlinings, marginal reading marks and the occasional annotation in pencil in the text and on the rear endpapers which may be Wilberforce’s, as he often read pencil in hand, although none of his actual ownership markings appear. One of the passages marked in the margin would no doubt have been of interest to Wilberforce: “I have heard of a planter who named one of his drivers Wilberforce. It might no doubt be a vast gratification to the elegant mind of this gentleman to unite the sound of this name with the sound of the lash” (Hayward, 220). Initially a separate Dutch colony, Berbice fell to Britain in 1803. “Sugar estates in Berbice which were the the property of the Dutch government became the property of the British crown - along with the slaves attached to them. Managed at first by the new colonial administration, the estates and the condition of the slav

• Year: 1818

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