1788 Parliamentary Act, under King George III

1788 Parliamentary Act, under King George III -- An Act to regulate the slave trade, for an initial period of one year. It sets out a series of rules to be followed by masters and surgeons of ships in order to increase the likelihood of survival of the slaves onboard their vessels. Essentially it is a series of orders and financial incentives to get slaves to their destinations alive and in better conditions than existed at the time of the Act.
-- 1788 Parliamentary Act, under King George III -- A remarkable Act Establishing a company for carrying on trade in Africa, in the Peninsulas of Sierra Leone, called the Sierra Leone Company. The Company to have buildings and secure trade rights within Africa in joint dealings with African Princes. Naming about 100 persons, including William Wilberforce, as joint stockholders -- 24 pages.
BACKGROUND: Foreign trade was established through coastal African rulers who prohibited European traders from entering the interior. In 1787, British Philanthropists founded the “Province of Freedom” which later became Freetown, a British crown colony and the principal base for the suppression of the slave trade. By 1792, 1200 freed slaves from Nova Scotia joined the original settlers, the Maroons, another group of slaves, rebelled in Jamaica and traveled to Freetown in 1800.Through the efforts of such men as William Wilberforce, Thomas Clarkson and Granville Sharp, Lord Mansfield formed an administration in 1806, which was instrumental in the British Empire’s abolition of the Trans-Atlantic slave trade (1807). The British established a naval base in Freetown to patrol against illegal slave ships. A fine of GBP £100 was established for every slave found on a British ship. In 1808 Sierra Leone officially became a crown colony with the land possessions of the Sierra Leone Company (formerly known as St. George’s Bay Company) transferred to the crown. The colony was dedicated to demonstrating the principles of Christianity, civilization and commerce. The Sierra Leone Company was the organization involved in founding the first British colony in Africa in 1792 through the resettlement of Black Loyalist African Americans, mostly ex-slaves who had initially been settled in Nova Scotia after the American Revolutionary War. The Sierra Leone Company was the successor to St. George's Bay Company which had made a mostly unsuccessful attempt in 1787 to establish a free settlement for the 'Black Poor' of London. Both ventures were promoted by the anti-slavery activist, Granville Sharp who published a prospectus for the proposed company in 1790 This was entitled Free English Territory in AFRICA. The prospectus made clear its abolitionist view and stated that several respectable gentlemen had already subscribed had done so "not with a view of any present profit to themselves, but merely, through benevolence and public spirit, to promote a charitable measure, which may hereafter prove of great national importance to the Manufactories, and other Trading Interests of this Kingdom". Among the early subscribers are many friends of Sharp involved in the Clapham Sect: Henry Thornton, William Wilberforce, Rev. Thomas Clarkson, Rev. Thomas Gisborne, Samuel Whitbread