General orders of the government of officers in the plantations

This work contains 111 directives from the Custom House in London to the officers in the ports of the British territories. They are organised chronologically from 1764 (discussing the implementation of the Sugar Act) to 1805 (with guidelines on the salvation of wrecked vessels and goods). The publication was created for the Stationary Office in London and for internal use only. The regulations deal with all kinds of transatlantic commodities such as rum, cocoa, wine, tobacco and gold. They also contains many examples of the bureaucracy of empire: regulating how accounts have to be sent, the negotiation of the salaries and leave of absences of the officers and the provision of printed forms. A number of documents deal specifically with the slave trade.