Beschreibung:

John Godolphin and William Clerk, Judges of the Admiralty Letter signed, to the Commissioners of the Admiralty responding to their request for an inspection of the cargo of the White Unicorn, confirming that "the Sugars were in a drie condition", 1 page, folio, integral address leaf, 12 June 1654 John Godolphin (1617-78) and William Clerk (d.1655) were leading civil lawyers appointed to the Admiralty Court during the Commonwealth. This document relates to an investigation into a cargo of sugar imported, no doubt, from the slave plantations of the West Indies. Britain's growing appetite for sugar, as attested by this document, was to have huge consequences. This document dates from the time of Cromwell's "Western Design" aimed at supplanting Spain as the dominant power in the West Indies, a policy which presaged a new stage in British colonial history, in which vast fortunes were made from sugar worked by slave labour trafficked from West Africa.