Most societies of that time did not even bother to outlaw slavery, let alone enforce those laws. There were contradictions within British society. That was an enormous advance over the many societies and nations that simply accepted slavery in that period.

Societies in Africa, the Middle East, the Americas, Asia and elsewhere in Europe were open in their commitment to and acceptance of slavery as an institution. You could say that slavery was the norm historically. Britain was the exception. And as the exception, managing a global empire, it continued to have many interactions with slave-driven economies.

By simply not moving the goal posts.

> so many Westerners keep making these strangely naïve and surface-level readings of history and politics

So they are naive for noticing a good thing in an ocean of evil, and you are keeping it real by thinking that until everything is perfect no progress matters. Got it.

And for the "benefiting", there's nothing anybody can do that you people won't label as benefiting even if it's 2nd, 3rd or 10th party. All the while posting this on devices produced by workers free only in name with materials from the poorest countries with the most horrible work conditions in their mines.

Yikes.

> All the while posting this on devices produced by workers free only in name with materials from the poorest countries with the most horrible work conditions in their mines.

Sweet, so you're obviously an anti-capitalist too right?

Are you saying that a failure to wipe out slavery everywhere simultaneously means the Navy's sacrifices of so many British lives were meaningless?

In the end, what ended mass slavery in the world? The British Empire and the American civil war, fought primarily by the descendents of the British. That's not nothing.