Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-xbtfd Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-15T07:07:27.127Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Remittance Procedures in the Eighteenth-Century British Slave Trade

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  13 December 2011

Kenneth Morgan
Kenneth Morgan
Affiliation:
KENNETH MORGAN is professor of history at Brunel Business School, Brunel University, in Middlesex, England.
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

This article considers the changing nature of remittance procedures in the eighteenth-century British slave trade. It explains why bills of exchange became the preferred form of making payment for slave sales, rather than specie or produce. It also indicates the legal and institutional practices that informed the circulation of bills of exchange in a notoriously risky form of long-distance trade. The growth and complexity of the British slave trade, which was conducted mainly by private merchants, led to procedures such as remitting bills “in the bottom” of ships that had supplied slaves to North American and Caribbean markets and the extension of lengthy credit periods to purchasers. Colonial factors played a role as well, acting as the agents for coordinating remittances, and secure British merchant houses were deployed as “guarantees” for payment by bills. The development of credit practices associated with the slave trade, including remittance procedures, helped to strengthen the British economy by providing sound, complex intermediary instruments for the realization of profits from international trade.

Type
Special Section: Trade in the Atlantic World
Information
Business History Review , Volume 79 , Issue 4: Trade in the Atlantic World , Winter 2005 , pp. 715 - 749
Copyright
Copyright © The President and Fellows of Harvard College 2005

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

1 For data on the volume of the British slave trade over time, see David Eltis, Behrendt, Stephen D., Richardson, David, and Klein, Herbert S., The Transatlantic Slaue Trade: A Database on CD-ROM (Cambridge, U.K., 1999)Google Scholar.

2 Richardson, David, “The British Empire and the Atlantic Slave Trade, 1660-1807,” in Marshall, P. J., ed., The Oxford History of the British Empire. Vol. 2: The Eighteenth Century (Oxford, 1998), 442Google Scholar.

3 Miller, Joseph C., “A Theme in Variations: A Historical Schema of Slaving in the Atlantic and Indian Ocean Regions,” Slavery and Abolition 24 (2003): 170CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

4 Morgan, Kenneth, Slavery, Atlantic Trade and the British Economy, 1660-1800 (Cambridge, U.K., 2000), 36–44Google Scholar.

5 University of Melbourne Archives [hereafter UMA], Lowbridge Bright to Bright, Milward & Duncombe, 24 Sept. 1773, Lowbridge Bright letterbook (1765-73), Bright family papers.

6 Bowen, H. V., Elites, Enterprise and the Making of the British Overseas Empire, 1688-1775 (London, 1996), 92CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

7 The significance of these printed materials for businessmen is summarized in McCusker, John J., “The Demise of Distance: The Business Press and the Origins of the Information Revolution in the Early Modern Atlantic World,” American Historical Review 110 (2005): 295–321CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

8 Mancke, Elizabeth, “Negotiating an Empire: Britain and its Overseas Peripheries, c.1550-1780,” in Daniels, Christine and Kennedy, Michael V., eds., Negotiated Empires: Centers and Peripheries in the Americas, 1500-1820 (New York, 2002), 248Google Scholar.

9 Detailed consideration of these general points is included in Morgan, Kenneth, ed., The Bright-Meyler Papers: A Bristol-West India Connection (Oxford, forthcoming)Google Scholar.

10 See, among many studies, Price, Jacob M., Capital and Credit in British Overseas Trade: The View from the Chesapeake, 1700-1776 (Cambridge, Mass., 1980)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Edwards, Michael M., The Growth of the British Cotton Trade, 1780-1815 (Manchester, 1967), ch. 10Google Scholar; Truxes, Thomas M., Irish-American Trade, 1660-1783 (Cambridge, U.K., 1988), 58–68Google Scholar; Newman, Jennifer, “‘A very delicate Experiment’: British Mercantile Strategies for Financing Trade in Russia, 1680-1780,” in Blanchard, Ian, Goodman, Anthony, and Newman, Jennifer, eds., Industry and Finance in Early Modern History: Essays Presented to George Hammersley on the Occasion of his 74th Birthday (Stuttgart, 1992), 116–41Google Scholar.

11 Inikori, Joseph E., “The Credit Needs of the African Trade and the Development of the Credit Economy in England,” Explorations in Economic History 27 (1990): 197–231CrossRefGoogle Scholar, and Africans and the Industrial Revolution in England: A Study in International Trade and Economic Development (Cambridge, U.K., 2002), 314–61CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

12 Price, Jacob M., “Credit in the Slave Trade and Plantation Economies,” in Solow, Barbara L., ed., Slavery and the Rise of the Atlantic System (Cambridge, U.K., 1991), 301, 305Google Scholar; Galenson, David W., Traders, Planters, and Slaves: Market Behavior in Early English America (Cambridge, U.K., 1986), 28CrossRefGoogle Scholar. The use of bonds as legal instruments is explained in Holden, J. Milnes, The History of Negotiable Instruments in English Law (London, 1955)Google Scholar.

13 5 Geo. II c.7.

14 Price, “Credit in the Slave Trade,” 309-10.

15 K. G. Davies, “The Origins of the Commission System in the West India Trade,” Trans-actions of the Royal Historical Society, 5th series, no. 2 (1952): 91.

16 Denzel, Markus, “The Transatlantic Cashless Payment System in the Northern Atlantic Zone from the 17th Century to c.1840,” in Pietschmann, Horst, ed., Atlantic History: History of the Atlantic System 1580-1830 (Göttingen, 2002), 263–77Google Scholar.

17 Public Record Office, The National Archives, London [hereafter PRO], Treasury [hereafter T] 70/8, entries for 19 Feb. and 8 Mar. 1706, f. 21r.

18 For the problems arising from the chaotic nature of circulating metal in the Caribbean, see Ragatz, Lowell Joseph, The Fall of the Planter Class in the British Caribbean, 1763-1833: A Study in Social and Economic History (New York, 1928), 90–91Google Scholar.

19 Richardson, David and Evans, E. W., “Empire and Accumulation in Eighteenth-Century Britain,” in Brotherstone, T. and Pilling, G., eds., History, Economic History and the Future of Marxism: Essays in Memory of Tom Kemp (London, 1996), 91–92Google Scholar.

20 E.g., PRO, Board of Trade [hereafter BT] 6/75, Committee minutes, Dominica, 3 June 1785, f. 661.

21 Eltis, David, Economic Growth and the Ending of the Transatlantic Slave Trade (New-York, 1987), 51Google Scholar.

22 Richardson, David, “The British Slave Trade to Colonial South Carolina,” Slavery and Abolition 12 (1991): 156–57CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

23 Davis, Ralph, The Rise of the English Shipping Industry in the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries (London, 1962), 279Google Scholar; Morgan, Kenneth, Bristol and the Atlantic Trade in the Eighteenth Century (Cambridge, 1993), 81CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

24 Grace, Edward to Hoffey, Peter, 16 Oct. 1769, in Ashton, T. S., ed., Letters of a West African Trader: Edward Grace, 1767-70 (London, 1950), 36Google Scholar.

25 UMA, Richard Meyler to Whatley, Meyler & Co., 22 Nov. 1754, Richard Meyler letter-book (1751-64), Bright family papers.

26 UMA, Henry Bright to Richard Meyler, 25 July 1749, ibid., loose correspondence.

27 Anderson, B. L., “Money and the Structure of Credit in the Eighteenth Century,” Business History 12 (1970): 90CrossRefGoogle Scholar; McCusker, John J., Money and Exchange in Europe and America, 1600-1775: A Handbook (Chapel Hill, N.C., 1978)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

28 Rogers, James Steven, The Early History of the Law of Bills and Notes: A Study in the Origins of Anglo-American Commercial Law (Cambridge, U.K., 1995)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

29 Davies, K. G., The Royal African Company (London, 1957), 359–60Google Scholar.

30 Davies, “The Origins of the Commission System,” 89-107.

31 Pares, Richard, A West-India Fortune (London, 1950), 62, 80–81Google Scholar.

32 Cf. S. G. Checkland, “Finance for the West Indies, 1780-1815,” Economic History Review, 2nd series, no. 10 (1957-58): 466.

33 Anderson, B. L., “The Lancashire Bill System and its Liverpool Practitioners: The Case of a Slave Merchant,” in Chaloner, W. H. and Ratcliffe, Barrie M., eds., Trade and Transport: Essays in Economic History in Honour of T. S. Willan (Manchester, 1977), 60–61Google Scholar; Quinn, Stephen, “Money, Finance and Capital Markets,” in Floud, Roderick and Johnson, Paul, eds., The Cambridge Economic History of Modern Britain. Vol. 1: Industrialisation, 1700-1860 (Cambridge, U.K., 2004), 153–54Google Scholar.

34 For summaries of these points, see McCusker, Money and Exchange, esp. p. 21, and Mann, Bruce H., Republic of Debtors: Bankruptcy in the Age of American Independence (Cambridge, Mass., 2000), 11–12Google Scholar. The interaction between credit, bills, reputation, and trust is explored in Muldrew, Craig, The Economy of Obligation: The Culture of Credit and Social Relations in Early Modern England (London, 1998)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

35 Guildhall Library, London, [?] to John Fisher, 22 June 1763, attorney's letterbook, Jamaica trade (1762-63), MS. 14,280.

36 E.g., Lancaster Public Library, Lancaster, Eng., John Rawlinson to Joshua Hirob, 30 Apr. 1793, John Rawlinson foreign letter and sale book (1791-98); Institute of Common-wealth Studies, University of London [hereafter ICS], John Taylor to Simon Taylor, 2 Aug. 1794, and Simon Taylor to John Taylor, 30 June 1795, Simon Taylor papers, boxes 14 and 14B.

37 McCusker, Money and Exchange, 22.

38 PRO, T 70/1549(2), Coppells & Goldwin to John & Thomas Hodgson, 1 Mar. 1783.

39 Richardson, “The British Slave Trade to Colonial South Carolina,” 154.

40 E.g., UMA, Jeremiah Meyler to Richard Meyler, 29 Aug. 1761, Bright family papers, box 8.

41 E.g., PRO, T 70/1534, John Cockburn to Richard Miles, 30 Nov. 1776.

42 Nash, R. C., “The Organization of Trade and Finance in the Atlantic Economy: Britain and South Carolina, 1670-1775,” in Greene, Jack P., Brana-Shute, Rosemary, and Sparks, Randy J., eds., Money, Trade, and Power: The Evolution of South Carolina's Plantation Society (Columbia, S.C., 2001), 84–85.Google Scholar

43 For discussions of these national financial crises, see Sheridan, Richard B., “The British Credit Crisis of 1772 and the American Colonies,” Journal of Economic History 20 (1960): 161–86CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Price, Capital and Credit in British Overseas Trade, 124-39; and Hoppit, Julian, Risk and Failure in English Business (Cambridge, U.K., 1987), 132–39Google Scholar. The impact of the 1793 credit crisis on a leading Bristol slave trader is discussed in Morgan, Kenneth, “James Rogers and the Bristol Slave Trade,” Historical Research 76 (2003): 189–216CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

44 Checkland, “Finance for the West Indies,” 469; Checkland, S. G., “American versus West Indian Traders in Liverpool, 1793-1815,” Journal of Economic History 18 (1958): 147CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

45 The South Sea Company: Minutes of the Committee of Correspondence, [26] Jan. 1713/14, in Donnan, Elizabeth, ed., Documents Illustrative of the History of the Slave Trade to America, 4 vols. (Washington, D.C., 1930-1935), vol. 2, p. 176Google Scholar.

46 PRO, High Court of Admiralty [hereafter HCA] 15/34, Richard Laugher et al. to Crump & Hasell, 10 Oct. 1722; Bristol Central Library, Tyndall & Assheton to Isaac Hobhouse, 20 July 1729, Jefferies Collection, vol. 13; Tyndall & Assheton to Hobhouse & Tyndall, 16 Mar. 1729/30, in Donnan, ed., Documents, vol. 2, p. 388.

47 Benjamin A. King & Robert Arbuthnot to Isaac Hobhouse & Stephen Baugh, 24 Nov. 1740, in Dresser, Madge and Giles, Sue, eds., Bristol & Transatlantic Slavery (Bristol, 2000), 49Google Scholar.

48 UMA, Richard Meyler to Tilghman & Ringgold, 17 Feb. 1753, to Whatley, Meyler & Co., 22 Nov. 1754, and to Jeremiah Meyler, 4 Jan. 1755, Richard Meyler letterbook (1751-64), Bright family papers.

49 Richardson, “Profits in the Liverpool Slave Trade,” 64-65; Keele University Library, Staffordshire [hereafter KUL], William Whaley & Co. to Capt. Patrick Dwyer, 1 Apr. 1748, and William Davenport & Co. to Capt. Isaac Hyde, 20 Aug. 1759, William Davenport letter and bill book (1748-61); [?] to Capt. Richardson, 11 Oct. 1767, Trading Accounts: King of Prussia, Davies-Davenport Papers, Raymond Richards Collection.

50 KUL, William Davenport & Co. to Capt. John Maddocks, 13 July 1755, William Davenport letter and bill book (1748-61), ibid.

51 KUL, William Davenport, Lawrence Spencer & Robert Cheshire to Capt. Samuel Sacheverall, 26 July 1753, ibid.

52 E.g., KUL, William Davenport to Capt. John Maddocks, 10 July 1755, to Capt. Samuel Sacheverall, 28 Jan. 1755, William Davenport letter and bill book (1748-61); Alexander Nottingham & Co. to Capt. Joseph White, 13 July 1767, and William Davenport & Co. to Capt. William Patten, 23 Nov. 1764, Trading Accounts: Sisters, Henry, King of Prussia, ibid.; William Davenport, William Whaley et al. to Capt. William Earle, 22 May 1751, in Abolition and Emancipation: Parts 2 and 3: Slavery Collections from the Merseyside Maritime Museum, Liverpool (Marlborough, 1999)Google Scholar.

53 Richardson, “Profits in the Liverpool Slave Trade,” 73; Anderson, “The Lancashire Bill System,” 77, 80 (quotation).

54 Southern Historical Collection, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, Josiah Smith Jr. to George Austin, 31 Jan. 1774, Josiah Smith Jr., letter copybook (1771-84); Richardson, “The British Slave Trade to Colonial South Carolina”: 145.

55 Donnan, ed., Documents, vol. 4, pp. 291-94; KUL, William Davenport to Austin & Laurens, 28 Jan. 1755, William Davenport letter and bill book (1748-61), Davies-Davenport Papers.

56 Sales of slaves on the Hare, July 1756, in Hamer, Philip M., Rogers, George C. et al., eds., The Papers of Henry Laurens (Columbia, S.C., 1968- ), vol. 2, pp. 260–62Google Scholar.

57 Moses Lopez to Aaron Lopez, 3 May 1764, in Tobias, Thomas J., ed., “Charles Town in 1764,” South Carolina Historical Magazine 67 (1966): 72Google Scholar.

58 Duke University Library, Durham, N.C., Hogg & Clayton to Alexander Strachan & Co., 6 June 1766, Hogg & Clayton letterbook and accounts (1762-71).

59 Price, “Credit in the Slave Trade,” 311-15.

60 E.g., Henry Laurens to Edward Martin, 10 June 1764, to Richard Oswald & Co., 10 Aug. 1764, to Meyler & Hall, 22 Sept. 1764, to Ross & Mill, 2 Sept. 1768, in Hamer, Rogers et al., eds., Laurens Papers, vol. 4, 303-4, 362, 439, vol. 6, pp. 88-89, vol. 7, p. 636; Library of Congress, Washington, D.C. [hereafter LC], Levinus Clarkson to his father-in-law, 18 June 1774, Levinus Clarkson Collection; Price, “Credit in the Slave Trade,” 311-15; Richardson, “British Slave Trade to Colonial South Carolina”: 151-60.

61 Anderson, “The Lancashire Bill System,” 60-61.

62 Cf. Davies, “The Origins of the Commission System,” 94.

63 Price, “Credit in the Slave Trade and Plantation Economies,” 313.

64 Richard B. Sheridan, “The Commercial and Financial Organization of the British Slave Trade, 1750-1807” Economic History Review, 2nd series, no. 11 (1958): 252-53.

65 Robert Pringle to [?], 4 May 1744, in Edgar, Walter B., ed., The Letterbook of Robert Pringle, 1737-1745, 2 vols. (Columbia, S.C., 1972), vol. 2Google Scholar.

66 Price, “Credit in the Slave Trade,” 313; Rhodes House Library, Oxford [hereafter RHL], Lascelles & Maxwell to Gedney Clarke, 20 Nov. 1750, and to James & Alexander Harvie, 23 Nov. 1756, Lascelles & Maxwell letterbooks (1746-48, 1754-56), Richard Pares transcripts. These transcripts (made from records destroyed during World War II) are available on microfilm from Microform Academic Publishers, Yorkshire, England. Cf. Richard Pares, in Humphreys, R. A. and Humphreys, Elisabeth, eds., The Historian's Business and Other Essays (Oxford, 1961), 223Google Scholar.

67 UMA, Jeremiah Meyler to [Henry Bright], 1 July 1752, Bright family papers, box 56.

68 Richardson, “The British Slave Trade to Colonial South Carolina”: 151, 153-55, 159-60.

69 Austin & Laurens to Satterthwaite, Inman & Co., 22 Dec. 1755, and to Thomas Hinde, 23 Dec. 1755, in Hamer, Rogers et al., eds., Laurens Papers, vol. 2, pp. 46, 49.

70 Henry Laurens to John Knight, 12 June 1764, to Richard Oswald, 24 May 1768, to Ross & Mill, 2 Sept. 1768, in Hamer, Rogers et al., eds., Laurens Papers, vol. 4, pp. 307-11, vol. 5, p. 694, vol. 6, pp. 88-89; Nash, R. C., “Urbanization in the Colonial South: Charleston, South Carolina, as a Case Study,” Journal of Urban History 19 (1992): 20CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

71 Price, “Credit in the Slave Trade,” 318-20; James H. Soltow, “The Role of Williamsburg in the Virginia Economy, 1750-1775,” William and Mary Quarterly, 3rd series, no. 15 (1958): 467-82. For a useful brief discussion of the financing of slave sales in the Chesapeake, see Walsh, Lorena S., “Mercantile Strategies, Credit Networks, and Labor Supply in the Colonial Chesapeake in Trans-Atlantic Perspective,” in Eltis, David, Lewis, Frank D., and Sokoloff, Kenneth L., eds., Slavery in the Development of the Americas (Cambridge, U.K., 2004), 97–98, 108-10Google Scholar.

72 Virginia Gazette, 23 Mar. 1769.

73 Chambers, Douglas B., “The Transatlantic Slave Trade to Virginia in Comparative Historical Perspective, 1698-1778,” in Saillant, John, ed., Afro-Virginian History and Culture (New York, 1999), 6, 13 (quotation)Google Scholar; Westbury, Susan, “Colonial Virginia and the Atlantic Slave Trade” (Ph.D. diss., University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, 1981), 40–53Google Scholar.

74 Historical Society of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, Charles Steuart to Thomas Ogilvie, 25 July 1752, and to Susanna & Elias Minveill, 13 Feb. 1753, Charles Steuart letterbook (1751-53); LC, Samuel Galloway & Thomas Ringgold to James Gildart, 30 Nov. 1762, Galloway-Maxcy-Markoe papers, vol. 6.

75 Price, “Credit in the Slave Trade,” 320-21.

76 PRO, T 79/30, printed memorial of J. T. Warre on the debt of Wayles & Randolph, 22 June 1798.

77 Cambridgeshire Record Office, Cambridge, [hereafter CRO], Caleb Fletcher to John Tharp, 23 Feb. 1802, Tharp Papers, R.55.7.128 (c).

78 Davies, “The Origins of the Commission System,” 95.

79 E.g., Edward Grace to Day & Walsh, 22 June 1769, in Ashton, ed., Letters of a West African Trader, 32; Williams, Gomer, History of the Liverpool Privateers and Letters of Marque with an Account of the Liverpool Slave Trade (London, 1897), 550Google Scholar; John Chilcott to Akers & Houstoun, 6 Mar. 1775, in Minchinton, W. E., “The Voyage of the Snow Africa,” The Mariner's Mirror 37 (1951): 193CrossRefGoogle Scholar; National Maritime Museum, Greenwich, Thomas Deane et al. to Capt. William Llewellin, 30 Oct. 1771, account book of the Hector (1770-73); Lancaster University Library, John Satterthwaite to Richard Hetherington, 8 Sept. 1781, John Satterth-waite letterbook (1781-82); Liverpool University Library [hereafter LUL], Parke Heywood & Co. to Capt. Joseph Fayrer, 10 Sept. 1782, papers of the Ship Harlequin, Dumbell papers, MS. 10.46; LUL, Leyland, Penny & Co. to Capt. Charles Wilson, 12 May 1783, papers of the Ship Madampookata, ibid., MS. 10.47.

80 UMA, Alexander Baillie to Henry Bright, 14 Nov. 1768, Bright family papers, box 25; Crosbies & Trafford, Charles Goore, William Rowe, William Boats, Robert Green, Charles Lowndes, and Thomas Kelly to Capt. Ambrose Lace, 14 Apr. 1762, in Williams, History of the Liverpool Privateers, 487.

81 PRO, T 70/1549(2), John & William Coppell to John and Thomas Hodgson, 14 Dec. 1782.

82 Richardson, David, ed., Bristol, Africa and the Eighteenth-Century Slave Trade to America. Vol. 4: 1776-1807, Bristol Record Society's Publications 47 (Bristol, 1996), xxviii.Google Scholar

83 E.g., Liverpool Record Office in Liverpool Central Library [hereafter LRO], Francis In gram & Co. to Capt. Henry Moore, 25 July 1782, papers of the Ship Blayds, Tuohy Papers; LRO, Robert Bostock to Lightfoot, Hill & Co., 5 May 1788, to Capt. Stephen Bowers, 1 Nov. 1788, Robert Bostock letterbooks (1779-92); LRO, Thomas Leyland to Capt. George Maxwell, 31 Aug. 1788, Thomas Leyland letterbook (1786-88); LUL, Thomas Leyland & Co. to [?], 31 May 1799, Records of the Earl of Liverpool, Dumbell Papers, MS.10.50 (1-2).

84 LRO, Robert Bostock to Capt. James Fryer, 19 Nov. 1788,17 July 1790, Robert Bostock letterbooks (1779-92); PRO, Chancery [hereafter C] 108/212, John Leigh & Co. to John Gordon, 31 Dec. 1806; PRO, C 107/12, James Baillie, Jr & Co. to James Rogers & Co., 14 Dec. 1790, and Campbell, Baillie & Co. to James Rogers & Co., 30 Apr. 1786; C 107/10, Francis & Robert Smyth to James Rogers, 26 Jan. 1788; C 107/8, Campbell, Baillie & Co. to James Rogers, 2 Apr. 1786.

85 E.g., Cambridge University Library [hereafter CUL], Samuel McDowal & Co. to P. M. Lucas & Co., 23 Jan. 1807, Lucas family papers, box 1; Strathclyde Regional Archives, Mitchell Library, Glasgow, James Fairlie to William Lennox, 17 July 1796, James Fairlie letterbook (1783-1815); CRO, Caleb Fletcher to John Tharp, 9, 23 Feb. 1802, Thar p papers; PRO, C 107/59, Grove, Harris & Papps to James Rogers, 9 June 1793, and Taylor, Ballantine & Fairlie to John Anderson, 9 Oct. 1793; C 107/14, Thomas Walker to James Rogers, 14 Dec. 1789; LRO, Thomas Leyland to Hibbert, Stephens & Rooster, 13 Dec. 1787, Thomas Leyland letterbook (1786-8); LRO, Ivory, Sandbach & McBean to Samuel Sandbach, 10 Mar. 1803, Parker papers; LUL, [?] to Capt. George Bernard, 7 June 1798, records of the Earl of Liverpool, Dumbell papers, MS.10.50.

86 [Wallace, James], A General and Descriptive History of the Antient and Present State of the Town of Liverpool, comprising a review of its government, police, antiquities, and modern improvements…, 2nd ed. (London, 1797), 232Google Scholar.

87 Cf. Coughtry, Jay, The Notorious Triangle: Rhode Island and the African Slave Trade, 1700-1807 (Philadelphia, 1981), 181–82Google Scholar.

88 “Account of the Liverpool Slave Trade, 1795,” in Donnan, , ed., Documents, vol. 2, p. 629Google Scholar.

89 E.g., PRO, T 70/1549(2), John & Thomas Hodgson to Richard Miles, 2 June 1783.

90 ICS, John Taylor to Simon Taylor, 7 Aug. 1793, 2 Nov. 1794, and Simon Taylor to John Taylor, 30 June 1795, Simon Taylor papers, boxes 14 and 14B.

91 Thomas Mills to Richard Oswald & Co., 22 Dec. 1752, in Thorns, D. W., “West India Merchants and Planters in the Mid-Eighteenth Century with Special Reference to St. Kitts” (M.A. diss., University of Kent, 1967), no. 69, n.p.Google Scholar

92 LRO, Robert Bostock to Capt. Peter Byrne, 2 July 1787, and to Capt. Stephen Bowers, 19 June 1788, Robert Bostock letterbook (1779-90).

93 PRO, C 107/1, Jacob Jarvis to James Rogers, 2 Apr. 1787.

94 E.g., Henry Laurens to Day & Welch, 17 Dec. 1764, in Hamer, Rogers et al., eds., Laurens Papers, vol. 4, p. 538.

95 CUL, Simon Taylor to Chaloner Arcedeckne, 23 May 1793, Vanneck MSS.

96 UMA, Smith & Baillies to Henry Bright, 21 June 1763, Bright family papers, box 19.

97 Morgan, Bristol and the Atlantic Trade in the Eighteenth Century, 148.

98 Curtis Brett to [?], 4 Apr. 1763, in Curtis Brett letterbook (1762-76). Dr Martin Brett (Robinson College, Cambridge) kindly allowed me to see this manuscript belonging to his family.

99 [Wallace], A General and Descriptive History, 233n.

100 Henry Laurens to Ross & Mill, 2 Sept. 1768, in Hamer, Rogers et al., eds., Laurens Papers, vol. 6, pp. 88-89.

101 PRO, T 70/1549 (1), Charles Bell to Richard Miles, 20 Feb. 1783.

102 PRO, C 107/5, Munro McFarlane to James Rogers, 4 Sept. 1792; ICS, John Taylor to Simon Taylor, 6 Nov. 1791, Simon Taylor papers, box 14.

103 John Fletcher to Peleg Clarke, 22 Dec. 1774, in Donnan, ed., Documents, vol. 3, p. 296.

104 RHL, Lascelles & Maxwell to John & Alexander Harvie, 8 Jan. 1757, Lascelles & Maxwell letterbook (1756-59), Richard Pares transcripts.

105 LRO, Thomas Leyland to Capt. Charles Wilson, 9 Dec. 1786, Thomas Leyland letter-book (1786-88).

106 Ibid., 31 Aug. 1788.

107 Aberdeen University Archives, Harry Alexander to Alexander Leith, 15 June 1752 and 8 Dec. 1753, Leith family letters and papers, MS. 2,849.

108 Maryland State Archives, Annapolis, bill of complaint from Lyonel Lyde and Edward Cooper against Henry Darnall, George Attwood & William Digges's executors, 2 Dec. 1746, Chancery Records, vol. 8 (1746-48), ff. 9-75.

109 Connecticut Historical Society, Hartford, Nelson Burnet & Co. to Trumbull, Fitch & Co., 27 May 1766, Jonathan Trumbull Sr. papers, box 2.

110 LRO, Thomas Leyland to Michell & Daggers, 9 Dec. 1786, Thomas Leyland letterbook (1786-88).

111 Trevor Burnard and Kenneth Morgan, “The Dynamics of the Slave Market and Slave Purchasing Patterns in Jamaica, 1655-1788,” William and Mary Quarterly, 3rd series 58 (2001): 213; John Fletcher to Capt. Peleg Clarke, 30 July 1774 (quotation), 22 Dec.1774, in Donnan, ed., Documents, vol. 3, pp. 292, 298.

112 LRO, Bordieu, Chollet & Bourdieu to Capt. Robert Bostock, 29 Dec. 1785, Robert Bostock letterbook (1779-90); Price, “Credit in the Slave Trade,” 313n45.

113 Price, Jacob M., France and the Chesapeake: A History of the French Tobacco Monopoly, 1674-1791, and of its relationship to the British and American Tobacco Trades, 2 vols. (Ann Arbor, 1973), vol. 1, p. 687.Google Scholar

114 LRO, James Baillies to Robert Bostock, 14 Feb. 1786, Robert Bostock letterbook (1779-90); Sheridan, “The Commercial and Financial Organization of the British Slave Trade”: 254-56; and, for the reference to Dominica, see text above.

115 For the use of guarantees in London, Glasgow, and Bristol by the Bristol slave trader James Rogers, see Price, “Credit in the Slave Trade,” 313n45.

116 LRO, Robert Bostock to Capt. James Fryer, 10 Jan. 1790, Robert Bostock letterbook (1789-92); PRO, C107/7, Thomas Daniel & Son to James Rogers, 19 July 1788.

117 Morgan, Kenneth, “Bristol West India Merchants in the Eighteenth Century,” Transactions of the Royal Historical Society, 6th series 3 (1993): 185–208CrossRefGoogle Scholar; C. H. Cave, A History of Banking in Bristol from 1750 to 1899 (n. p., 1899), 228.

118 Morgan, Kenneth, ed., “Calendar of Correspondence from William Miles, a West Indian Merchant in Bristol, to John Tharp, a Planter in Jamaica, 1770-1789,” in McGrath, Patrick, ed., A Bristol Miscellany, Bristol Record Society's Publications 37 (Bristol, 1985), 81–83, 110Google Scholar; Oliver, Vere Langford, ed., Caribbeana: Miscellaneous Papers relating to the History, Genealogy, Topography and Antiquities of the British West Indies, 6 vols. (London, 1909-1919), vol. 1, p. 211.Google Scholar

119 PRO, T 70/1549(1), Charles Bell to Richard Miles, 20 Feb. 1783 (quotation); Morgan, ed., “Calendar of Correspondence,” 82.

120 For examples of protested bills by Miles, see Morgan, ed., “Calendar of Correspondence,” 91, 105.

121 Ibid., 91, 93, 102, 105-6, 110.

122 Anderson, “The Lancashire Bill System,” 77.

123 Hoppit, Risk and Failure, 70.

124 Price, Jacob M., Perry of London: A Family and a Firm on the Seaborne Frontier, 1615-1753 (Cambridge, Mass., 1992), 38.Google Scholar

125 Price, “Capital and Credit,” 316-17; Richardson, “Profits in the Liverpool Slave Trade,” 72-73; Richardson, David, “Profitability in the Bristol-Liverpool Slave Trade,” Revue franqaise d'histoire d'outre-mer 62 (1975): 304–5Google Scholar.

126 E.g., In 1807 Thomas Cope of Philadelphia discounted 233 of the 338 bills payable to his house at various banks, including the Bank of North America. See Historical Society of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, T. P. Cope and Sons, bills payable and receivable, 1806-8. My thanks to Sheryllynne Haggerty for this reference.

127 Sheridan, “The Commercial and Financial Organization of the British Slave Trade”: 254-56.

128 See above.

129 For a general consideration of these matters, see Mathias, Peter, “Risk, Credit and Kin-ship in Early Modern Enterprise,” in McCusker, John J. and Morgan, Kenneth, eds., The Early Modern Atlantic Economy (Cambridge, U.K., 2000), 15–35.Google Scholar

130 Anderson, “The Lancashire Bill System,” 80; Price, “Credit in the Slave Trade,” 332-33; Meyer, Jean, L'Armement nantais dans la deuxième moitié du XVIIIe siècle (Paris, 1969).Google Scholar For payments in the Portuguese slave trade between Lisbon, Angola, and Brazil, see Miller, Joseph C., Way of Death: Merchant Capitalism and the Angolan Slave Trade 1730-1830 (Madison, Wis., 1988), 298–302, 475-76Google Scholar.

131 Eltis, Economic Growth and the Ending of the Transatlantic Slave Trade, 51.

132 Virginia Bever Platt, “‘And Don't Forget the Guinea Voyage’: The Slave Trade of Aaron Lopez of Newport,” William and Mary Quarterly, 3rd series, no. 32 (1975): 601-18; Coughtry, The Notorious Triangle, 195.

133 Barbara Solow, “Introduction,” in Solow, ed., Slavery and the Rise of the Atlantic System, 20.

134 Morgan, Slavery, Atlantic Trade and the British Economy, 74-78.