SLAVE TRADE.

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An Act to regulate, for a limited Time, The shipping and carrying Slaves in British Vessels from the Coast of Africa. First edition of the first British law to regulate slave shipping, preserved in its original volume of yearly parliamentary acts. The law, bound 54th in this volume, pioneered techniques of popular abolitionist appeal.The Slave Trade Act 1788 limited the number of enslaved persons that could be transported on British ships. It also required that all ships carried a doctor to monitor the conditions of the enslaved persons. The Act was supported through Parliament by Sir William Dolben (1727-1814) and Charles Stanhope (1753-1816). LoGerfo notes of their campaign that "the machinery used to appeal to the literate public would also be used in the future" (p. 450). This volume collects 57 acts passed by the 16th Parliament of Great Britain, which met from November 1787 to July 1788 and was led by Pitt the Younger.Like all Parliamentary statutes of this period, the Slave Trade Act was separately printed with a general title page for inclusion in the yearly volumes of acts. Most of these statutes were printed with their own title pages, included in the signatures and pagination - here, all such pages have been removed. These laws were printed in limited numbers, usually estimated at around 1100 copies only.The volume includes laws against chimney sweeps and child labour, and measures to compensate dispossessed American loyalists in the years after the Revolution.

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