| Administrative History | At the time of this correspondence, Canning was Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs (to 20 April 1827) and Prime Minister (from 12 April 1827). Gladstone, an 'owner' of enslaved peeople who possessed plantations in Demerara (later part of Guyana), had criticised Wilmot Horton's publication "The West India Question Practically Considered" saying that it “neither went to the root or met the difficulties with which the question is surrounded”. He went on to write a critique in the Liverpool Courier under his pseudonym, Mercator. |