Samuel Pepys ran into a little knot of seafaring men at the Exchange, who told him some hair-raising tales about their time in Algiers.

The Russian Consul in New York issued a stern rebuke to those trying to break Britain’s ban on slave-trading by sailing under his nation’s colours.

John Wesley called for a world in which no one was forced to go against his conscience or to serve against his will.

John Wesley wondered how those involved in the slave trade would feel if the tables were ever turned on them.

Two years into America’s Civil War, cotton workers in Manchester defied current opinion among politicians and the press, and pledged their support to the Union.

In replying to a letter of support from Manchester’s cotton workers, US President Lincoln showed how deeply touched he had been.