For England to thrive, for her balance of trade to be healthy and for her power to be extended into the Atlantic world, the slave trade had to be deregulated and privatized, they reasoned. Without such a move, the sugar and tobacco plantations of the Americas had no viable future, and England would no longer be able to supply the nation with those highly desirable commodities. Few people disagreed with the economic case, and fewer still concerned themselves with the plight of the enslaved Africans whose commoditized bodies were placed at the centre of a debate about the nature of English
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