Times article on slavery

[BlasterBates]

Well a lot being said about Nelson's letter that it was a forgery, and that's true. Though Nelson did write a letter, but they changed some sentences. In the forged letter Nelson wrote:

"against the damnable and cursed doctrine"

but what he actually wrote was:

"against the damnable cruel doctrine"

[vetran]

excellent lets hope the knowledge spreads and we can work towards a better world

[NotAllThere]

Worth getting hold of a copy. This is to do with Edward and Sophie Wessex being greeted by protestors demanding the Queen say sorry, and demanding reparations.

Today, slavery is taught as though the transatlantic slave trade was the only slave trade that existed. The far larger trading of Africans east to the Arabs during the same period is utterly unknown. Where are their descendants? They didn’t have any. Because the Arabs who transported perhaps as many as 18 million Africans to their lands castrated all the males to ensure there were no more black Africans. I would be surprised if one in a million schoolchildren knows anything about this. For there is very little scholarship on the subject outside the French-speaking world.

Those who call for apologies seem to think that no apologies have been forthcoming before. Never mind demanding action from the Cambridges or Wessexes, this country’s laws putting an end to the slave trade were signed by King George III. Those who pretend that the Crown has never apologised for the slave trade or are overdue for an apology must simply be ignorant or mendacious. They cannot know, for instance, that Prince Albert spoke at a meeting in London dedicated to the extinction of the slave trade in 1840. During his remarks, the consort to Queen Victoria not only apologised for the slave trade but described it as having been “the blackest stain upon civilised Europe”. Why was Albert still speaking about the slave trade in 1840? Because although Britain had by then long abolished slavery, other countries in the world had not. What made Britain remarkable was not just that we were the first to stop taking part in the wicked trade ourselves, but that having stopped doing so we then went on to do everything we could to end it in the rest of the world as well.

Abolition is estimated to have cost just under 2 per cent of national income. That was the case each year for 60 years (from 1808 to 1867). Factoring in the principal costs and the secondary costs, such as the higher prices of goods the British had to pay throughout this period, Britain’s abolition and suppression of the Atlantic slave trade may actually have equalled any financial benefits accrued to the nation during the period of the trade. Britain’s actions have rightly been described by historians as “the most expensive example” of international moral action “recorded in modern history”.

Oh, and the war against the slave trade cost the lives of 1500 British sailors.

Recently, some idiots wanted to tear down Nelson's column, because he was vociferously in favour of the slave trade. There was a letter he wrote saying so. Except it was a forgery made by anti-abolitionists after his death.