This is an edited excerpt from my current nonfiction book project about the Royal Navy’s West Africa Squadron enforcing the ban on the slave trade between 1819 and 1822, the story of two Black seamen who served on the Squadron’s HMS Pheasant and the role of my fourth great grandfather, William Pennell, British consul in Bahia, Brazil and his assignment spying on the Brazilian slave trade.

WARNING: The official report contains detailed and troubling description of the conditions on a slave ship and may be disturbing to some readers.

There are links to Wikipedia to provide context for online readers of this post. There will be more details in the book

HMS Pheasant  was a Royal Navy 22-gun Merlin class sloop that was launched in1798 and participated in the wars against Napoleon and the United States before it was assigned to the “Preventative Squadron” more commonly known as the West Africa Squadron to enforce Great Britain’s law outlawing the slave trade in then north of the equator.

The Pheasant’s commanding officer was Commander Benedictus Marwood Kelly (he signed his reports B. Marwood Kelly, preferring his second  name), He had risen through the ranks and served in the Mediterranean,  Africa and West Indies.

HMS Pheasant had departed from Plymouth in mid-April 1819, stopping at Madrid and Praia in the Cape Verde Islands before arriving at the British colonial headquarters at Freetown, Sierra Leone on June 7.   There Kelly supplemented his crew by hiring a contracted gang of “Kroomen” from the local population.   The sloop then proceeded to Cape Coast Castle in what is today Ghana.  The infamous former castle where the enslaved had embarked through the “door of no return” was now the actual base of operations for the West Africa Squadron.

At Cape Coast Castle on July 19, 1819, Kelly signed on five local men as regular ship’s crew (not contractors like the Kroomen). Two of the men who joined the Royal Navy listed in the muster books as Quashie Sam and Quabino Encoom are two forgotten Black Royal Navy heroes and their story is the focus of the book I am working on.

On July 30, 1819, patrolling off the mouth of the River Campo, (in today’s Cameroon) HMS Pheasant intercepted a Portuguese slave ship, Novo Fleciade. It was the first time that most of the officers and crew had seen and experienced the horror of boarding slave ship.

The conditions on the Novo Fleciade were so bad that Kelly abandoned the rest of the patrol and sailed back to Freetown.

On August 17, the Pheasant arrived back at Freetown and the following day August 18, 1819, Kelly reported to the Admiralty using the ship’s position somewhat near to the more familiar Princes Island (today Principe) to locate the report:

I have the honour to report for the information of the Lords Commissioners of the Admiralty the arrival of His Majesty’s Sloop Pheasant under my command at this anchorage with the Portuguese schooner Novo Fleciade  off Princes Island having on  board 71 said to be have taken at Cabinda for the above island which I detained at 30th ult (July 30) at Lat 2 34 N and Long 9 50 East in consequence of not being provided with the necessary passport according to the fourth article of the Portuguese treaty and under circumstances highly suspicious that her cargo being processed without the prescribed limits.

That state where I found those truly unfortunate victims of the most cruel of human bondage will I trust in the opinion of their lordships be deemed a sufficient cause for leaving my assigned station, in order to relieve their suffering and in their then state must have  worsened during an estimated voyage of three weeks to a month to this place.

The schooner or floating prison in which these unfortunates were confined is only the berthen of 11 tons and is divided into two compartments in order to separate the males from the females. The former were found in a state shocking to every principle of humanity this consisting of seventeen men shackled together in pairs, by the legs, and 20 boys, one on the other, in the main hold, a space measuring 18 feet in length, 7 feet 8 inches main breadth, and one foot 8 inches in height; and under them the yams for their support.

One of these unfortunate creatures was in the last state of dysentery, whose natural evacuations ran involuntarily from him amongst these yams, creating an effluvium too shocking for description.

This man was taken aboard the Pheasant and in spite of every comfort and nourishment which the ship could afford him aided by the great care the surgeon he died five days afterward.

In order to ascertain more accurately the disease of which he died his body was opened and it was the opinion of the surgeon that his death was caused by his bowels being completely atrophied from a want of necessary elements prior to his coming on board the Pheasant.

In order to render their miseries and in light as possible their irons were knocked off and together with some of the strongest of the boys all in 22 in number were taken on board the Pheasant.  On coming on board their appearance was most distressing scarily one of them could stand from cramps and evident starvation ..in the hold, the space allocated to the females  34 in number was which contracted with that of the males measuring 9 feet in length and 2 feet in breadth but apart from they were not confined in irons and perhaps during the day being allowed on deck  did not present as quite a disturbing  an appearance  as the latter.

Under these circumstances I decided immediately to take the vessel in tow and proceeding as expeditiously as possible to his place.

The Portuguese commissioner  have not yet arrived  but Mr.[Thomas] Gregory His Majesty’s Commission Judge has taken upon himself to direct their removal from the vessel  to some more comfortable habitation onshore and I am happy to say from the unremitting action from Mr. Dunbar  the surgeon which entitled him to my highest commendation which was emulated by every individual on board  they were this day landed with from that which they received on board that it would be highly gratifying to all those who had been instrumental in affecting  so agreeable a change  and now wait for comparatively happy fate  confirmed  wait for comparatively happy fate  confirmed when the Portuguese commissioner shall arrive.^[1]  

Cabina was in what is today Angola, south of the Equator and one of the few places under the treaties that Portugal could take slaves.

  Three days later, on August 21, portions of Kelly’s report was released to or obtained by the Sierra Leone Royal Gazette,  a newspaper founded by a Black Nova Scotian  Abraham_Hazeley.    The Royal Gazette is believed to be the first Black owned newspaper in sub-Sahara Africa.  Like many smaller papers of the era in Britain and its colonies, the Royal Gazette was a hybrid that depended on government support, publishing official notices as a “gazette” while maintaining some level of journalistic independence.

The report was supplemented by its own reporting Latin quoting reporter adding details on the horrific conditions on the ship. It took until February 1820 for copies of the Gazette to reach London, where the Royal Gazette’s report became major news in theTimes, the Morning Chronicle and other newspapers across Britain.

There had been other newspaper reports on the capture of slave ships in the past, by the winter of 1820, the situation had changed.    Newspaper printing was rapidly improving and expanding.

For the past two decades, British newspapers had published accounts, mostly based on Admiralty reports in the official London Gazette, of the wars with Napoleon and the United State.  The daily newspapers had increasingly printed often anonymous letters from serving officers with details of the actions, stories that had filled newspaper pages attracting more readers.The Naval Chronicle, which had been the main source of war news since 1799 had closed in December 1818.

       At the beginning of the war with Napoleon most of the newspapers in Europe were using printing presses that had progressed only slightly since Johannes Gutenberg had perfected movable type in 1436.  While the larger and more profitable London and other large city newspapers were using more efficient letterpress printing, the smaller regional papers were still setting type and printing by hand.

        Only the most profitable papers like the Times would occasionally use somewhat larger headlines.  While the most important stories such as the victory at Trafalgar were always on the front page, on more routine news days, more often the stories were added as they became available usually with no headline or break in the overall text.  Thus, a naval dispatch could be found between a court case at the Old Bailey and report on some lord’s dinner party.

       In 1800, in the UK, Charles Stanhope, 3rd Earl Stanhope nvented a more efficient letterpress made of cast iron together with plaster molds to create full size printing plates. That allowed larger paper with more content and faster press runs. Adoption was slow.   Also in London, Fredrich Koenig was working on a steam driver letter press which he patented in 1810.  In November 1814, just as the wars were ending, Koenig sold two improved versions to the Times which could print 1,100 double sided pages in an hour.

       The history of  the abolition of the slave trade has concentrated on campaigners such as William Wilberforce, Thomas Clarkson and Granville Sharp, together with former slaves including Olauduh Equino; famous court cases like Lord Chief Justice Mansfield’s ruling in Somersett’s Case and the case of the murder of slaves in the Zong/Zorg  case, debates in Parliament and day to day work in many churches.

       The creation of the West Africa Squadron at a time of relatively fewer urgent news stories allowed the London newspapers to continue their narrative of Britain’s heroic navy that had begun in the wars.  The provincial and small-town newspapers reprinted the London newspapers. When the London newspapers eventually reached North America, the same accounts of the fight against the slave trade in Africa were then reprinted in many newspapers across the United States, including some in the slave holding South.

       What historians seem to have neglected (including those who downplay or denigrate the efforts of the West Africa Squadron) was that as literacy increased and newspaper circulation was growing, people in Britain were now reading about the horrors of the slave trade, to use the more modern phrase, at the breakfast table ( in the case of the Novo Fleciade likely spoiling their appetite)  or with their afternoon tea, rather than having to make an effort to attend a meeting of abolitionists or sit through a church sermon.   The accounts of the West Africa Squadron and the slave ships it captured were a force multiplier that increased support for abolition.

The Times reprinted the Royal Gazette’s account in full^[2] including naming the owner of the slave vessel which was not in Kelly’s report but was likely gleaned from the court records.

’EXTRACT FROM THE SIERRA-LEONE GAZETTE OF THE 21st of AUGUST 1819.

We congratulate our friends on the return to this harbour, on the 17th inst., from her first cruise of his Majesty’s ship Pheasant, B. M. Kelly, Esq. Commander, with a prize, viz. the slave schooner Novo Felicidade, of Prince’s Island, the property of Illustrissimo Signor Don Joze Ferraro Gomas, Governor of that island…

As the circumstances attending the capture of the Novo Fleciade  may tend to expose in its true light, the present mode of carrying on the traffic, we shall communicate to our readers such informa­tion as we have been able to obtain.

After quoting from the report, The Sierra Leone Royal Gazette continued with its own reporting and editorial.

 This wanton act of cruelty against unoffensive individuals is performed for the benefit of a monster holding the high rank of Governor. auri sacra fames^[3].

We glory in the difference between true Britons and slave-dealers. Cap Kelly found these Africa: in the very lowest state of degradation and misery; he not only broke their fetters but his officers, and crew, by their humane care and attention, preserved their lives for freedom—only one died on the passage. the political problems facing the squadron.

From the non-arrival of the Portuguese Commissioners, the commission being incomplete, the trial of the vessel did not take place.

After going through a regular examination of the wit­nesses, the 71 ci-davant [former] slaves in good health and sent to the town of Bathurst.

Bathurst was a community on the outskirts of Freetown built to house the formerly enslaved.

The Portuguese had delayed sending its commissioners to the Mixed Commission to Sierre Leone thus initially limiting the effectiveness of the Commission.   The British, from the Foreign Secretary Robert Stewart, Viscount Castlereagh to its ambassadors and consuls, had complained and put diplomatic pressure for the Portuguese government, which was split between the royal family that had fled to Brazil during the Napoleonic and the bureaucracy in Lisbon.

After the Napoleonic Wars, Great Britain negotiated treaties with a number of nations that limited the slave trade. If a ship was seized two judges, one British and one from the flag country of the ship would sit in a court called a Mixed Commission that would decide whether the ship had violated the laws and treaties.

For Portugal slave trading was still permitted south of the equator, where the market was thin. Portuguese and Brazilian slavers (Brazil was still part of Portugal at this time) preferred the traditional markets in the Bight of Biafra and Bight of Benin. Portuguese policy was to pay lip service to the treaties while continuing to promote the slave trade.

With no Portuguese commissioners in Freetown that meant the seized ships couldn’t legally be tried and condemned.

  In the case of the Novo Fleciade, after diplomatic notes were exchanged, the Portuguese eventually agreed that Gregory could judge the case along and he condemned the Novo Felciade.^[4]   The slaves on board were then released officially.

Evidence showed that the ship had purchased the slaves at Old Calabar a major slaving and seaport in what is today Nigeria.

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[1]. Benedict Marrwood Kelly, “Letters from Captains, Surnames K, 1816-1822,” n.d., UK National Archives, ADM1/2027 Kew.

[2]. Anonymous, “Slave Trade,” The Times (London), February 28, 1820. “Extract from the Sierra Leone Gazette Dated 21st August 1819.,” Morning Chronicle (London), February 28, 1820.

[3]. Auri sacra fames is a Latin phrase from Virgil’s Aeneid, meaning the “accursed hunger for gold” It was paraphrased by St. Paul in the desire of money is the root of all evil (I Timothy 6:10) and quoted by John Milton in Paradise Lost and later John Maynard Keynes in his economic essays.

[4]. Anthony Sullivan, Britain’s War Against the Slave Trade The Operations of the Royal Navy’s West Africa Squadron 1807-1867 (Barnsley, South Yorkshire: Pen & Sword Books, 2020). 65