ABSTRACT
This chapter begins by outlining British domestic measures to prohibit the trade. It presents the British assault against the foreign slave trade, much of which centred, at least initially, on interventions against foreign slave ships based on the law of prize. The chapter focus on the law of prize has drawn upon a broad understanding of international criminal legal history. The use of British capital and goods in the foreign slave trade, the participation of British subjects in the trade abroad and the inherently international nature of the slave trade necessitated an international response to the trade’s suppression. British interventions against foreign slave ships were initially based on the law of prize. Prize had an enduring influence on slave trade repression and, as subsequent chapters show, on the construction of recaptives. Many of the judgments emanating from the Vice Admiralty Court in Sierra Leone were legally problematic.
