Volume Eleven - Pre-Victorian to the Present Day - some more aspects - Random Rants, Notes and Articles No. 1 . . .

1843 - A Slave from the Land of Liberty

The following report within The British and Foreign Anti-Slavery Reporter of November 1843 illustrates a change of attitude within the British public to slavery following the Slavery Abolition Act of 1833 which provided for the immediate abolition of slavery in most parts of the British Empire.

A runaway slave, belonging to an American vessel that lay out in the Penarth roads last week, was found secreted on board a Waterford brig in the Bute docks, which he had entered some weeks previous as an able seaman. A strong party of the American ship's crew, having ascertained his place of retreat, entered the brig and forcibly bore off the unfortunate slave. Neither remonstration nor resistance was offered on the occasion, and the Yankee trader having conveyed the poor fellow on board, immediately set sail for his destination. The captured slave was an excellent seaman, and bore upon his person many of the severe marks of his helpless condition, and the brutality of his task-masters. [It is a disgrace to the people of Cardiff to have allowed this poor fellow to be recaptured, and dragged back by his tormentors from the sanctuary of the British soil.] -  Times.

Further condemnation etc. of the failure to save the black slave, Edward Simpson, from the American vessel 'Altorf' was published on December 13th. The article comments :

Had the poor fellow but put himself into the hands of a magistrate, or made himself known to any respectable person on shore, he would have been safe enough. Instead of this, however, he hired himself on board a British vessel, the Eagle. And here also, it appears, he might have been safe, if it had not been for the treachery of two men, of whose conduct we know not how to speak in terms of reprehension sufficiently severe. It is the belief (as we learn from a letter which we do not publish) of the captain and crew of the Eagle, that the pilot of that ship betrayed Simpson to the American captain ; and it is obvious, from the strange conduct of the policeman, that he was employed by the Yankees to ascertain the correctness of the information given by the pilot. How we repine to say that these men were Englishmen. We blush crimson at the thought that any two inhabitants of this land of freedom could be found, who would lend themselves to the discovery and forcible abduction of a slave. - The British and Foreign Anti-Slavery Reporter [970] [499] 15th November 1843 and 13th December 1843.