Book Description

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can usually download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1884 edition. Excerpt: ... CHAPTER XIII. A Circumstantial Account Of The True Causes Of The Liverpool African Slave Trade, By An Eve WitNess--Liverpool, 1797. RISTOL, too secure in a traffic in which she had hitherto had no rival but London, was so engrossed in her attentions to the supply of the plantations, and satisfied with the advantages resulting from it, that she does not appear to have been inclined to embark in an attempt which seemed to her not only precarious, but dangerous: from this neglect the cause will appear to have originated, which ultimately impoverished her African trade, and raised that of Liverpool to its present permanent state. The Spanish dollars which had begun to crystallise the heretofore crusty chests of the Liverpool merchant by one species of smuggling, made them indifferent to the hazard which would attend a second attempt of the same kind. The annual number of slaves then imported in this trade, cannot be determined at the present day, but the encouragement must have been very great, to increase the vessels more than double in seven years. "The attempt at this African contraband trade, succeeded so much beyond the expectation of the adventurers, that factors on the part of Liverpool began to be settled at Jamaica, whereby so many of the slaves as did not find a timely and secure market with the Spaniards, remained on the island, and contributed to the occasional supply of the Jamaica planters, whereby an easy gradation was formed to the increase of that branch of the traffic in which Bristol had long been without a rival; in this attempt Liverpool presently became also successful, the proceeding of her merchants in this trade enabled them to sell their slaves to the islanders four and five pounds per head less than London and...