BIRT, John

Official responsibility affirmed and enforced, in a letter to Sir George Grey, Bart., M.P., Under Secretary of State for the Colonies, on the administration of the Act for the Abolition of British Colonial Slavery.

London: John Hatchard & Son, 1837 8vo., 16pp., preserved in recent plain wrappers. A very good copy. First edition: very scarce. Goldsmiths 30183. Kress C.4307. Black 4855 (copy at N.L.Ireland). John Birt (1787-1862), a Baptist Minister, was a member of the committee of the Manchester and Salford Anti-Slavery Society. His letter to Sir George Grey roundly accused Sir Robert Peel's Tory government of failing in its enforcement of the 1833 Abolition of Slavery Act. ('When we expected emancipation, we received an ill-disguised slavery'). The Colonists were being allowed to profit unfairly from the loosely administered £20 million compensation fund while slavery was effectively only being 'remodelled' as spurious apprenticeship.

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