and granted in London in order to relieve this horrible condition.
It seems at once obvious that the following would be some of them at
least:

1st, A clear announcement that this slavery was prohibited by
the Queen's Anti-Slavery Proclamation of 1845, and would not be
permitted.

2nd, Women who "supposed themselves to belong" to masters would be
at once told that they were free agents and belonged to no one.

3rd, The master who dared claim the ownership of a former slave
would be prosecuted and suitably punished.

4th, Any slave perishing miserably from disease would not only be
healed at public expense, but placed where there was no further
risk of contagion.

5th, Since such slaves had "an urgent claim on the _active_
protection of the Government," they would be treated as wards of
the State until safe from like treatment a second time.

6th, Since this slavery had sprung up in defiance of law, any
official who at a future time connived at such crime would be
liable to impeachment.

The Ordinance sent home for sanction, and approved of by Mr.
Labouchere as needed for the "protection" of slave women, was
proclaimed as Ordinance 12, 1857, after some slight modifications, and
an official appointed a few months before, called the "Protector of