Anno Tricesimo Nono GEORGII III. REGIS. Cap. LXXX. An Act for Better Regulating the Manner of Carrying Slaves, in British Vessels, from the Coast of Africa [caption title]

(London: Printed by George Eyre and Andrew Strahan, Printers to the King's most Excellent Majesty, 1799), 1799. ESTC N60288 (Lincoln's Inn Library and Wellcome Institute). Fine.. 4to, disbound, paginated [637]-652, untrimmed. An act passed by Parliament in the summer of 1799, delineated in 39 paragraphs, that regulated the slave trade beginning in August, 1800 - an act no doubt intended to placate the growing voices of opposition to the English slave trade. The act stipulates how many slaves could be stowed in a ship (by mathematical formula according to the size of the ship, but never more than 400); that slaves must be separated from other cargo; and that the space for the slaves "be full and complete perpendicular height of five feet." Nothing is said about their treatment, other than that the ship's surgeon was required keep a log of illnesses and deaths of both slaves and crew. Much of the act is taken up with its enforcement, and the penalties and fines for violations; it also regulates the conditions and treatment of the crew. The acts of Parliament were usually published separately and later issued in collections of the Public General Statutes; this one was issued as part of the collection of statues Passed in the Thirty-Ninth Year of the Reign of His Majesty King George the Third: Being the Third Session of the Eighteenth Parliament of Great Britain. This copy is disbound from such a volume.