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The Speech of James Stephen, Esq. at the Annual Meeting of the African Institution, at Free-Mason's Hall, On the 26th March, 1817

Anti-Slavery International, 'Recovered Histories' collection. Friends House Library, London. Goldsmiths' Library of Economic Literature, University of London. British Library. Bibliothèque Nationale de France.

African Institution Speech Stephen Slave Register Bill West Indies Jacobins Europe

Speaking at the Annual Meeting of the African Institution in London, James Stephen defended the society against West Indian hostility to its campaign for a register of slaves: "Misrepresentations, invectives, personal slanders, are again unsparingly employed; and the old watch-words of methodists, enthusiasts, fanatics, and jacobins, are brought once more into play" (8). Stephen suggests that "the general voice of Europe" (9) is united against the slave trade, and the "liberal spirit of the age" (23) calls for reform of colonial slavery. He argues that the enemies of abolition, who would keep Africa in a state of "ferocious anarchy" (9), are the true Jacobins, comparing them to Robespierre & the French revolutionaries.