The literary work

Poems

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The Slave Ship

1840

The Slave Ship (Slavers Throwing overboard the Dead and Dying - Typhon coming on)

In 1781, the captain of a slave ship inbound to Jamaica had ordered 132 slaves to be thrown overboard when drinking water was running low so that insurance payments could be collected. As an opponent of slavery, Turner was inspired to depict these horrific events in his painting «The Slave Ship». He exhibited it at the Royal Academy of Arts in 1840 and paired it with the following extract from his unfinished and unpublished poem Fallacies of Hope:

Fallacies of Hope

Source: Lancaster University Library

Aloft all hands, strike the top-masts and belay;

Yon angry setting sun and fierce-edged clouds

Declare the Typhon's coming.

Before it sweeps your decks, throw overboard

The dead and dying – ne'er heed their chains

Hope, Hope, fallacious Hope!

Where is thy market now?