3-071-227 - The Print Collector/Heritage Images

The East African Slave Trade: recent conflicts with slave dhows, from sketches by our special artist, Mr. J. Bell - H.M.S. London - headquarters of the British Squadron on the east coast of Africa, 1881. 'Much regret was felt...at the news...reporting that on the 3rd December Captain C. J. Brownrigg, of H.M.S. London, in a steam-pinnace, with ten men ran alongside a dhow full of slaves, flying French colours and that, after a fierce resistance by the Arab crew, Captain Brownrigg [and three others] were killed...The place where this conflict occurred was on the shore of the Isle of Pemba...The London is a store-ship of 4375 tons, anchored at Zanzibar, and is the head-quarters of the naval squadron for the suppression of the slave trade there. She was an old line-of-battle ship..One day in the course of last month the London made a good capture of a slave dhow near the island of Pemba. On that occasion one of the boats, under the command of Lieutenant Travers, succeeded in releasing one hundred and forty slaves, principally males. These made an aggregate of over five hundred slaves liberated since the date of the ship's commission, March, 1878; while nearly two thousand five hundred tons of dhow shipping have been destroyed during that period'. From "Illustrated London News", 1881.