As I understand it, they did have a sizeable impact on the end of slavery: From what I remember: They banned slavery in the UK, and later on in all colonies a

As I understand it, they did have a sizeable impact on the end of slavery: From what I remember: They banned slavery in the UK, and later on in all colonies and territories, and applied diplomatic pressure on other nations to also do so. They would inspect the cargoes of other nations for slaves, and this led to several threats of war from the USA and other countries. Also, they would enter Brazilian and other nations ports and seize/destroy property of slavers, and free slaves, etc etc. It would be like the USA doing it today. People would be pissed, but there's no way they're declaring war on the world superpower. The wiki article is quite interesting: The Royal Navy established the West Africa Squadron purely to end the atlantic slave trade. It consisted of a sixth of the entire RN Fleet at the height of its operation. This whole thing operated for about 50 years. It was considered the most costly international moral action in modern history.