123

Brazil viewed through a naval glass: with notes on slavery and the slave trade

British Library. Bibliothèque Nationale de France.

Brazil Navy Patrol Slavery Slave Trade Mixed Commission Courts

This travel narrative,written by a midshipman in the British navy on anti-slavery patrol in Brazil in the 1850s, gives an account of how ships suspected of belonging to slave traders were identified and boarded. Much of the narrative is based on the author's shore leave and his explorations of Brazil, but it is particularly interesting for his attempts to anticipate the pro- or anti-slavery bias of the reader and to mock and confound both in his descriptions of Brazilian slavery (see a satire of the "philanthropist" (48) and the "Americans of the pro-slavery class" (74)).

The appendix contains an account of the trial of the Magano, captured by the author's ship off Rio de Janeiro harbour in February 1851 and sent to be tried by the mixed commission courts at St Helena.