An Abstract of the Evidence Delivered Before a Select Committee of the House of Commons in the Years 1790, and 1791; On the Part of the Petitioners for the Abolition of the Slave-Trade.

In November 1788 Parliament enacted the Dolben Bill, which limited the number of slaves in a cargo to five for every three tons of a ship's burthen. Within a few months, anti-slavery activists in Plymouth tested the new bill by obtaining the measurements of the slave-ship Brookes and imposing slaves in its hold— in the ratio much less than required by the "humane" Dolben Bill— with stupefying results. There are 294 persons pictured (one per ton); the Dolben Bill would have put the number at 495. The famous engraving of slaves closely fitted in the hold of the Brookes is one of the most powerful and influential images in the history of social justice. It was immediately reproduced by the influential London Society for the Abolition of Slavery, in the form of a large wood-engraving depicting, not only the hold of the Brookes, but also her hull and top deck. This edition's very early wood-engraved version of the Brookes' hull and hold (Figures I-VII, based on two of the eight sections of the earlier London plate) is accompanied by a summary of testimony given by former participants in the slave trade. Antislavery activists compiled this summary "so that Members of Parliament wouldn't have to wade through thousands of pages of transcripts of hearings. And then, most unexpectedly, they found that they had produced a best-seller. Although the phrase was unknown at the time, they had inadvertently compiled the first great work of investigative journalism. For this was the first book against slavery that, instead of arguing from the Bible, relied entirely on a carefully-documented series of eyewitness accounts. The testimony was shocking then and it is still shocking today" (Adam Hochschild).