Winston Smith

On behalf of the British people, I would like to apologise for the slave trade. I am sorry we were the first great power in history to turn its guns on it. I am sorry it cost us around 2,000 sailors to free 150,000 people they would never meet. I am sorry the rest of the world took so long to follow. Slavery did not begin with Britain. It is as old as civilisation. Babylon wrote it into law. Rome built an empire on it. The Vikings sold Englishmen through the slave market at Dublin. In 1625 Barbary corsairs took 60 men, women and children out of a Cornish church; by 1640 Parliament was told 3,000 to 5,000 English people were held in Algiers alone. Every great power of the age took part in the Atlantic trade. Portugal and Spain for a century before an English ship did. Then the Dutch, the French — and the British, who in the eighteenth century carried more than anyone. That is the record. It is not disputed here. Then a nation turned on the trade that had made it rich. Wilberforce's bill was beaten year after year. On 25 March 1807 it passed. Then Britain did the part the critics never mention — it sent the Royal Navy to enforce it. The West Africa Squadron sailed in 1808, two ships for 3,000 miles of coast, and hunted slavers for nearly sixty years. Britain paid Spain and Portugal to open their ships to search. HMS Black Joke ran down the slaver El Almirante in 1829 and found 466 people in her hold. Around 2,000 British sailors died doing it — most of fever, to free people they would never meet. 1,600 slave ships seized. 150,000 Africans set free. In 1833 Parliament borrowed £20 million to end slavery across the Empire. The debt was not finally redeemed until 2015. The United States needed a civil war. Cuba held slaves until 1886. Brazil until 1888 — eighty-one years after Westminster voted. Yes, we took part in the trade. Every power of the age did. None of them fought it like we did. So yes. I will apologise. I am sorry it cost us so much. I am sorry the rest of the world took so long to follow. That is not something you apologise for. That is something you teach. #history #britishhistory #royalnavy #westafricasquadron