HMS Black Joke capturing El Almirante in 1829. The Black Joke was an ex-slave ship herself and the most successful ship of the West Africa Squadron. Courtesy RNM

In the bicentenary year of the abolition of Britain’s transatlantic slave trade, the Royal Naval Museum in Portsmouth is exploring the role played by the Navy in helping to combat the trade.

After Parliament outlawed the slave trade on March 25 1807, the West Africa Squadron patrolled the seas off West Africa for the next 60 years, searching and detaining slave ships and liberating some 150,000 enslaved Africans.

Chasing Freedom: The Royal Navy and the Suppression of the Transatlantic Slave Trade 1807-2007 runs until January 27 2008 and examines this little-known story.

Day to day life patrolling the West Africa coastline is detailed through extracts from original diaries like those of Midshipman CH Binstead, an officer on squadron flagship HMS Owen Glendower.

Binstead's diaries recounted the horrors to be found on slave ships. © Press Association

Binstead recounts his horror at boarding overcrowded, disease-ridden slave ships and watches his own crew suffer from tropical diseases like yellow fever, dysentry and malaria. Many sailors and slaves died in the process:

“Many large whales and sharks about us the later [sic] is owing to the number of poor fellows who have lately been thrown overboard,” he wrote.

“The ship is now truly miserable many of our own crew very sick and the decks crowded with black slaves who are dying in all directions and apprehensive their cases of fever are contagious.”

A reconstruction of a slave deck vividly shows the suffering endured by the millions of enslaved Africans. Artefacts from the trade are also available to examine and handle, including leg irons, handcuffs and a neck collar.

Lieutenant Binstead, portrayed in 1826. Courtesy RNM

Two new films have been produced for the exhibition, looking at some of the key figures of the abolition movement. The first recreates the arguments from both sides of the political debate, where even Admiral Lord Nelson was involved, putting forth his arguments for and against the Navy’s role in combating the trade.

In the second film - also a reconstruction - liberated Africans and the African Chief King Guezo of Dahomey describe their first-hand experiences in the suppression of the trade.

The displays will also highlight the historic and continuing role of the Royal Navy in combating people trafficking and piracy around the world.

“The role of the Royal Navy in combating this infamous trade cannot be overerestimated,” said Dr Colin White, Director of the Royal Naval Museum. “Chasing Freedom will really bring home the human situation for sailor and slave alike and chart the relentless efforts by the Royal Navy to combat slavery.”