An Original Handwritten and Signed Letter by Slavery Abolitionist Sir William Dolben, 3rd Baronet. Dated 1790. A third person letter requesting three dozen hampers of sherry to his lodgings. Sir William Dolben, 3rd Baronet 1727 – 1814 was an English Tory politician and abolitionist. During his long parliamentary career as an independent MP, he was a fervent advocate of parliamentary reform and the abolition of slavery. He took up the abolitionist cause after he chanced to visit a slave ship docked in the port of London; the conditions he found on the ship so horrified him that he resolved at once to work for abolition. The slave ship he documented, the Brookes, became infamous for the depictions that were drawn and published by Thomas Clarkson to support the anti-slavery movement. With the support of other abolitionists like William Pitt, Dolben put forward a bill (Dolben's Bill) in 1788 to regulate conditions on board slave ships; it passed as the Slave Trade Act 1788 (Dolben's Act) by a large majority. Size is 180mm x 113mm. Condition is good. With folding crease. Paper residue and light repair to rear