Abolition, Slave Trade 285other health-related essentials should be adopted immedi-
ately to prevent further loss of life. Th ose in favor and those
opposed worked on gathering evidence for their side. Th e
Committee of the Liverpool African Merchants compiled
statistics on the fi nancial loss that would be caused to the
trade if the number of captives were limited by the size of
the ship. Aft er enough evidence was put before the House
of Commons and the Privy Council, even some members
of Parliament who were invested in the trade began to un-
derstand that if there was any hope in saving it, they must
assuage the moral outrage caused by the number of slaves
dying in tightly packed holds, without suffi cient air, water,
and food, and they must decrease the number of English
sailors dying because of the spread of disease and insuffi -
cient provisions.
Dolben was ultimately successful in persuading the
House of Commons and the House of Lords to enact his law
to ameliorate conditions during the Middle Passage: “An Act
to Regulate, for a limited Time, the shipping and carrying
Slaves in British Vessels from the Coast of Africa.” Passed in
1788, it came to be known as the Dolben Act and was to be
in eff ect temporarily while Parliament and the Privy Coun-
cil continued to gather evidence about the trade. Prime
Minister Pitt ordered Captain Parrey, a naval surveyor, to
take measurements of slaving vessels docked at Liverpool.
Parrey came back with surveys of several ships measure-
ments, including those of the slaver called the Brookes (or
Brooks). SEAST used the measurements of the Brookes and
created the now-famous Brookes diagram, visually demon-
strating the manner in which slaves were packed on board
a slaver. Th is ship was in compliance with Dolben’s Act, and
it was hard to comprehend what conditions must have been
like before the act. Th e Brookes diagram became one of the
most powerful tools in the struggle for abolition.
In May 1789, M. P. William Wilberforce, who had
been recruited to the cause by Th omas Clarkson of SEAST,
delivered a delivered a powerful speech in the House of
Commons against the slave trade, drawing on the mass
of evidence collected by Clarkson and SEAST. Th en in
1791, Wilberforce introduced the fi rst bill to abolish the
slave trade.
Aft er more than 70 years of abolitionist activism, al-
most two decades of study and debate in Parliament, and
a war with France, England fi nally abolished the trade. Th e
Slave Trade Act, which banned the slave trade through-
out the British Empire, was passed by both houses andSEAST decided that they could save the most lives if they
focused on the abolition of the trade. Th ey hoped that if the
trade were discontinued, planters in the American colonies
would be forced to take better care of their slaves, instead of
relying on the practice of working their slaves to death and
then simply buying more. SEAST’s strategy was to educate
the public about the horrors of the trade and the immoral
acts committed by traders and slavers and to petition the
government and demand new legislation that would abol-
ish the trade. Th e indefatigable Th omas Clarkson, a central
player in SEAST, traveled the country interviewing sailors
engaged in the trade, who conveyed to him horror stories
about conditions on slave ships for slaves and sailors both,
and this evidence was used in both legislative and educa-
tional campaigns. Th ey organized demonstrations, dis-
tributed informational pamphlets, and designed crockery
and medallions with antislavery fi gurines, such as Josiah
Wedgewood’s pottery medallion depicting an African man
in chains in a posture of supplication, asking, “Am I not a
Man and Brother?” Public sentiment against the trade was
also mobilized by the publication of Olaudah Equiano’s
autobiographical slave narrative in 1789. English women
played a central role in bringing about the abolition of slav-
ery, and although unrepresented in Parliament, women
formed their own antislavery societies and organized ex-
traordinarily eff ective boycotts of slave-produced products
such as sugar.
In response to public outcry, the king ordered the
formation of a committee of his Privy Council to collect
evidence on the slave trade. SEAST began focusing its ef-
forts in the short run on getting the government involved
in ameliorating the horrid conditions of the Middle Passage
that led to so many fatalities. Th e fi rst of these regulations
was introduced in May 1788 by the elderly Sir William Dol-
ben, MP, from Oxford. A devoted Anglican and member
of SEAST, Dolben was morally opposed to the trade, par-
ticularly aft er he visited a slave ship docked in the Th ames
and witnessed the conditions there. Shortly thereaft er, he
introduced his bill to the House of Commons. Dolben’s goal
was to save lives in the short term with some kind of regu-
lation on which everyone could agree. He argued that the
act need not diminish the profi t of slave traders and also
maintained that improving conditions on board would
save lives of ship crew members. Dolben argued forcefully
that an act that limited the number of slaves according to
the size of the ship and that required basic ventilation and