ABSTRACT
The 'friend to all mankind', as the author of The Wrongs of Almoona, or the African's Revenge signed himself, published what appears to be his only work in 1788, at a moment when the anti-slavery campaigners led by Thomas Clarkson and William Wilberforce were confident that the slave trade would shortly be abolished by parliamentary legislation. The Wrongs of Almoona, a 'narrative poem founded on historical facts' according to its subtitle, represents the Jamaica of 1655, not 1788, and the English forces, who appear at the end of the poem to defeat the Spanish, promise to be more rational and liberal than the previous regime. The poem thus proposes the reformation, rather than the immediate abolition of the slave trade. The Colonel, who had seized Jamaica from the Spanish in 1655, educates Almoona in rational battle tactics, by prohibiting the passion of, and demanding patience from, the slaves.
