[SLAVE TRADE]. Proposals Humbly offered to the Honourable House of Commons, for Enlarging and Protecting the Trade to Africa. [London, 1709?]. Folio broadside (330 x 209 mm). Half-title printed on verso, old folds. The proposal puts forward the idea that “Negroes would be carried in greater Numbers to our Plantations in America and Sold cheaper there, whereby we should Produce and Import more of our West-Indies Commodities…” and as a response, “The Revenue of the Crown would be hereby very much increased, and more of our Manufactures with which Negroes are Clothed, and Utensils for the Plantations will be that Way expended”. Between 1526 and 1867, the Atlantic Slave Trade saw some 12.5 million captured men, women and children arriving in the Americas. In 1660, King Charles II of England chartered the Royal African Company, granting its investors a monopoly on English trade in West Africa, establishing direct routes to English colonies in the Caribbean and North America. After the Royal African Company lost its monopoly on the slave trade in 1698, the numbers of enslaved Africans began to rise in the colonies as privateers began to take over. This rare pamphlet advocated the renewal of the Company’s monopoly on slave trade, but on this occasion, any person living in Great Britain may become a member of said Company providing that they pay an initiation fee. This new proposal would benefit the Crown and the Company as “The Trade will be Enlarged and Extended to many Places now unfrequented, or very little traded to, and abundance more of our Woollen and other Manufactures will be Exported, which the Makers will Sell at better Prizes when there are so many Buyers…”