Henry Dundas: A ‘Great Delayer’ of the Abolition of the Transatlantic Slave Trade

Abstract

Henry Dundas, first viscount Melville (1742–1811), lord advocate in Scotland, MP for Edinburgh and Midlothian, first lord of the admiralty, home secretary and the first secretary of state for war, was one of the most powerful politicians in the eighteenth-century British parliament. His involvement in the gradual abolition of the slave trade after 1792 was amongst the most controversial episodes of his career. His role has attracted much interest in the last few years, although there are two irreconcilable schools of thought amongst historians. This article reassesses Dundas's role in the gradual abolition of the transatlantic slave trade. His contributions in the houses of parliament between 1791 and 1807 are examined and situated in the appropriate imperial context. Memoirs and published pamphlets reveal how contemporaries viewed Dundas's activities and motives at the time and since. His parliamentary activities are compared with new insights from his personal correspondence as well as public and private communications from West India societies, merchants and planters. By overlaying parliamentary events with commercial networks, Henry Dundas's collaboration with the West India interest is revealed, and how this operated and was perceived at the time. This article—the first detailed study of its type—thus illuminates Henry Dundas's role as a great delayer of the abolition of the slave trade.

Centring transatlantic slavery in Scottish historiography

“…In 1992, Michael Fry could claim the actions of Henry Dundas, Home Secretary in the Pitt administration, secured rather than impeded the abolition of the slave trade between 1792 and 1807 (Fry, 1992). New research has led to Dundas being described as a 'great delayer' of the transatlantic slave trade (Mullen, 2021b). 8 David Phillip Miller examined the life of the 'great improver' of the steam engine, James Watt, yet failed to address the implications of his father's Atlantic business (Miller, 2019).…”