The abolition of the slave trade, 1792 (coloured etching)

Creator: Isaac Cruikshank; S. W. Fores Cruikshank’s print relates to the notorious case of Captain John Kimber of the merchant ship 'Recovery'. In the House of Commons on 2 April 1792, William Wilberforce accused Kimber of brutally assaulting and murdering a teenage slave girl, who refused to dance on deck. The incident took place on 22 September 1791, when the ship was bound for Grenada. The girl died following convulsions on 27 September. The Admiralty Court tried Kimber in June 1792. While Wilberforce persisted in his belief that Kimber was essentially guilty, the case was poorly handled and he was honourably acquitted. Once released, Kimber demanded compensation and a public apology. Cruikshank produced this print only eight days after Wilberforce’s statement in Parliament. The original caption read: ‘The abolition of the slave trade. Or the inhumanity of dealers in human flesh exemplified in Capt’n Kimber’s treatment of a young Negro girl of 15 for her virgin modesty.’ The two prints in the NMM collections have an amended sub-title with Kimber’s name erased and substituted by hand to read ‘exemplified in the cruel treatment’. This was presumably undertaken after the trial to prevent any legal action by Kimber, particularly as Cruikshank’s overtly sexualised version of events was at odds with the official evidence, and thus to allow the remaining stock of prints to be sold.