"Taking a wasps' nest... is more effective than catching the wasps one by one," he remarked.
Palmerston, the great advocate of gunboat diplomacy, was speaking in support of a British naval officer, Joseph Denman.
Denman had attacked and destroyed slave quarters on the West African coast and had been sued by the Spanish owners for damages.
It was British policy to try to destroy the slave trade, but this sometimes ran into legal complications.
The British attorney general, in a gem of delicate legal advice, declared the following year that he "cannot take it upon himself to advise... that the instructions to Her Majesty's naval officers are such as can with perfect legality be carried into execution...
"[He] is of the opinion that the blockading of rivers, landing and destroying buildings and carrying off of persons held in slavery... cannot be considered as sanctioned by the law of nations."
Denman, a hero of the anti-slave trade campaign, was eventually vindicated and the Royal Navy carried on with its anti-slavery operations.
SLAVERY IS STILL PRACTICED IN THE MUSLIM WORLD!
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