Few historians have noticed that, from the abolition of slavery in the British West Indies (1834) to the same milestone in the United States (1865), the planters of the British colonies of Jamaica, Trinidad, and Guiana made repeated attempts to entice over the black Americans whose white rulers seemed so eager to expel them. The planters’ offer divided abolitionists, who heard echoes of the prejudicial premise of Liberian colonization, but who also saw an opportunity to boost the free-labor British Caribbean. The 2,000 black Americans and Canadians who immigrated to the British West Indies at the turn of the 1840s found many things to commend in their new home – and many things to condemn. Such ambivalence about the entire venture was shared by the British government, which forever feared that colonial canvassers would jeopardize Anglo-American relations by accepting fugitive slaves. Latterly joined by the other European powers with West Indian colonies, namely, France, the Netherlands, and Denmark, Britain approached the matter gingerly during the American Civil War, when the prospect of benefiting from wholesale emancipation, but under the fraught auspices of the US military, offered unimaginable risk and reward.

Chapter 6 explores Burke’s early views and legislative activities on foreign trade by analyzing Account of the European Settlements in America, which he coauthored with Will Burke. I explain how the Account offered some of the earliest glimpses into Burke’s conception of imperial political economy: the British Empire possessed the right to rule its colonial possessions, but its governance should be selective in regulating their internal affairs. Furthermore, the Account criticized the idea that the accumulation of gold was the best means to opulence, thereby challenging a core tenet of mercantilism. More important, the Account stressed that the character and fortitude of the English people would enable Britain to counter the imperial threat of its rival, France. In addition, Chapter 6 explores Burke’s leading parliamentary role in orchestrating the passage of the Free Port Act of 1766, which created six new free trade ports in the West Indies. Such legislative efforts showed that he was a champion of merchants and commercial liberty early on in his career in the House of Commons.