NoThe British Empire abolished slavery following the 1806 Slave Trade Abolition Act, which passed into law in 1807. The first attempt to abolish it was 1782. France followed suit in 1819, Spain was bribed to do so in 1820 (we forked out £400,000 for that one), and Portugal got £300,000 to end slavery by 1830. However, His Majesty's Navy still had to patrol the Atlantic to prevent slave smugglers from getting through to supply the Americans, who as we all know, were none too keen to let their "Negroes" go free.
(
TV's Nosemonkey,
Fri 14 Nov 2003, 13:45,
archived)