STATUTE LAW REVISION: SIXTEENTH ... - Law Commission

survived denunciation, none made provision for adjudication by mixed courts.
Sections 7 and 8 are therefore obsolete.
8.5 Sections 9 and 10 deal with the disposal of condemned vessels and slaves.
Section 9 provides for vessels condemned under the Act by a slave court to be
taken into Crown service or to be broken up. This reflected provisions of existing
slave trade treaties and is now an unnecessary anachronism. In any event, its
repeal would be consequential upon the proposed repeal of the provision for
jurisdiction to condemn contained in section 5. Section 10 provides that slaves
seized under the Act are, for the purpose of seizure and condemnation, to be
deemed the property of and condemned for the sole use of the Crown and,
subject to Treasury regulations, to be handed over as the court may direct.
There are no such Treasury regulations extant and the whole section is obsolete:
there have been no reported cases of proceedings for the condemnation and
forfeiture of slaves in the courts of the United Kingdom for over 160 years. 28
8.6 Sections 11 to 16 relate to the payment of bounties for slaves and vessels
captured. Section 11 makes detailed provision for payments to commanders and
crew of British naval vessels responsible for seizure of condemned slaves, goods
and vessels, including a £5 bounty for each slave condemned or a bounty of £4
per ton of the tonnage of the condemned vessel. Section 12 makes similarly
detailed provision where the seizures were otherwise than by a commander of a
British or foreign vessel. Section 13 makes provision for bounties to be awarded,
in accordance with existing slave trade treaties, to commanders of foreign
vessels for slaves and ships condemned by any British slave court. Section 14 is
an evidential provision ancillary to sections 11 to 13. These sections are
obsolete: the very concept of payment of such bounties, at a rate set in 1830, 29 is
now an absurd anachronism, as are the tonnage bounties, and no such
payments have been made in recent times. 30 Section 15 relates to the payment
by the Treasury of costs and damages awarded against a person seizing,
detaining or prosecuting a ship in purported pursuance of the Act; it is essentially
ancillary to section 5 which is proposed for repeal. Section 16 provides for
bounties and other sums payable under the Act to be paid out of moneys
provided by Parliament, and for the Naval Agency and Distribution Act 1864 31 to
apply to payments to commanders of vessels. Its repeal would be consequential
on the repeal of sections 11 to 15.
8.7 Sections 17 to 23 deal with certain miscellaneous issues. Section 17 gives the
protection of those authorised to make seizures under any customs Act to those
28
See Two Slaves (1828) 2 Hag Adm 273; 166 ER 244; Three Slaves (1832) 2 Hag Adm
412; 166 ER 294.
29 The payment of bounties for condemned slaves was introduced by the Act 47 Geo.3
Sess.1 c.36 (1807), s 11: £13 per man, £10 per woman, £3 per child. The Slave Trade Act
1824,
s 68, set the bounty at £10 payable for all and the Act 11 Geo.4 & 1 Will.4 c.55 (1830)
reduced the bounty to the £5 payable now under s 11 of the 1873 Act.
30 See the Explanatory Note to the Distribution of Prize Money (Amendment of Regulations)
Order 1973, SI 1973 No 232, which states that payments under the Naval Agency and
Distribution Act 1864, regulating the payment of prize, slave and other bounties, “are now
confined to salvage awards”; see further, s 16 of the 1873 Act, infra.
31 See n 30.
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