The Africa trade from the ports of Scotland, 1706–66
2004; Frank Cass & Co.; Volume: 25; Issue: 3 Linguagem: Inglês
10.1080/0144039042000302260
ISSN1743-9523
Autores Tópico(s)Historical Economic and Social Studies
ResumoClick to increase image sizeClick to decrease image size Notes This paper could not have been written without the help, advice and encouragement of Professor David Richardson of the University of Hull, who kindly lent me a copy of The Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade: A Database on CD-ROM. In the early days of my researches at the National Archives of Scotland, Edinburgh, I was fortunate enough to meet David Dobson of St Andrews, who kindly drew my attention to several slave trade voyages I might otherwise have overlooked, and I gratefully acknowledge his assistance. My thanks also go to Valerie and James Leaver of Highgate for their valuable assistance at a late stage in the work. The encouragement I have had from Professor Paul Lovejoy of York University, Toronto, Dr Christopher Fyfe, formerly of the University of Edinburgh, and Susannah Honeyman of Edinburgh are gratefully acknowledged. Until her death in November 2002, my good friend Marlene Hinshelwood, and her partner Dr Geoffrey Brooker, took a most helpful, though a deservedly critical interest in my progress with a project from which this article is the first ‘spin-off’. My thanks also go to Dr Gad Heuman, Editor of Slavery and Abolition for his patience in dealing with the several drafts of this article submitted in 2003 and 2004. I am grateful to staff at the National Archives of Scotland, Edinburgh, the Public Record Office, Kew, and the British Library, St Pancras, for their courteous help at all times, and for advice whenever I requested it. 1. There is firm evidence for Scottish interest in trade with Africa, during the seventeenth century, and in the period between 1700 and the Act of Union of 1707: (1) Two Scottish vessels were trading on the West African coast in 1637, but they did not trade for slaves. They traded for gold in the area of Cormantine, an English fort on the Gold Coast, and probably for sugar at the Portuguese island of São Tomé. Robin Law, ‘The First Scottish Guinea Company, 1634–9’ Scottish Historical Review, 76 (1997), 185–202. (2) In 1663 the Scottish merchant John Browne, who had a patent to refine sugar in Scotland, was authorized by the Crown to send out four Scottish ships annually for ‘full and free trade with the King's lands, islands, possessions and territories in Asia, Africa and America’. As Robin Law has observed, this may refer to Tangier, a British possession from 1661 to 1684, and a possible source of sugar. R. Law, pp.201–2. Three vessels from the Firth of Forth are known to have sailed for Tangier in 1667. Eric J. Graham, A Maritime History of Scotland, 1650–1790. East Linton (2002) p.144, citing S. Mowat, Ships into Leith, 1624–1690, database of the Leith Customs Records. Scots were present in the civil population of Tangier, and Scottish soldiers from the Earl of Dumbarton's Regiment (later the 1st Regiment of Foot, or Royal Scots) distinguished themselves in action during the siege of Tangier, 1680–84. E.M.G. Routh, Tangier: England's Lost Atlantic Outpost, 1661–84 (London, 1912) pp.187–9, 194–5, 320 fn. 2, 323–5. 2. In 1696 the Company of Scotland Trading to Africa and the Indies investigated the possibility of trading for slaves on the West African coast, but nothing came of this until 1699, when the Company of Scotland, in association with a Scottish merchant resident in Rotterdam, sent The African Merchant to the western Gold Coast to trade and to examine the possibility of establishing a Scottish fort and trading post in that area. Such a fort, had it been established, would have had no purpose other than trading for slaves, ivory, gold, etc. The African Merchant does not appear to have traded for slaves on the West African coast, and she returned to Leith in 1700, with a cargo of gold dust, ivory and rice. George P. Insh The Company of Scotland Trading to Africa and the Indies (London/N.Y., 1932) pp.245–52. G.P. Insh, Historian's Odyssey: The Romance of the Quest for the Records of the Darien Company (Edinburgh/London, 1938) pp.241–55, 319–20. 3. In 1701 and in 1707, the Company of Scotland Trading to Africa and the Indies initiated or licensed voyages in the Indian Ocean slave trade from Madagascar. (1) Two vessels owned by the Company of Scotland, the Speedy Return and Content, on their return from the Darien expedition in 1701, were ordered to Madagascar. Slaves were purchased from a pirate band on that island, carried to Bourbon (Reunion), where they were sold. The events that followed are outside the scope of this article, but see Richard C. Temple New Light on the Mysterious Tragedy of the ‘Worcester’, 1704–05 (London, 1930); G.P. Insh (ed.) Papers Relating to the Ships and Voyages of the Company of Scotland Trading to Africa and the Indies (Edinburgh, 1924) pp.245–8; G.P. Insh (1932) pp.253–312; G.P. Insh (1938) pp.256–306; John Prebble, The Darien Disaster (London, 1978) pp.1–9, 308–16. (2) In 1707 in what was almost its last act, the virtually bankrupt Company of Scotland licensed a voyage from Leith to Madagascar, where slaves would be purchased from the pirates, carried to Java and sold to the Dutch. The Neptune, owned by a group of Edinburgh merchants, was severely damaged in a storm off the coast of Madagascar and was subsequently seized by pirates. G.P. Insh (ed.) (1924) pp.259–60; R.C. Temple (1930) p.322. 4. ‘Bass’ John Spreul, An Accompt Current betwixt Scotland and England Ballanced (Edinburgh, 1705), pp.13–14. In referring to ‘the Negroes Coast’ Spreul may have meant the Slave Coast, but the phrase could mean almost anywhere on the West African coast from Senegal to Angola. (The eponym ‘Bass’ refers to Spreul's period of some seven years imprisonment on the Bass Rock in the Firth of Forth, during the 1680s.) 5. The Will of Robert Richardsone, in the National Archives of Scotland (NAS) at C8.8.83/25, and on the website ⟨Scottishdocuments.com⟩. Robert Richardsone, mariner of Leith, died ‘abroad’, presumably while on the voyage of The Two Brothers. He had a one-twelfth share in the ship, cargo and profits on this voyage, and was also owed his wages as ‘seaman and sailor aboard the said ship’. All Robert Richardsone's property, real and personal, was left to Bessie Dougall, his spouse, or to her assigns (I am grateful to David Dobson of St Andrews for bringing this will to my attention.) See also note 32 below. 6. Journal of the House of Commons, 16, 29 January to 4 March 1709, February 1710 and March 1711. On the ending of the Royal African Company's monopoly of the Africa trade in 1698, and the subsequent history of the Company, see James A Rawley, The Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade NY/London (1981) pp.159–64; K.G. Davies The Royal African Company (London, 1957). 7. Elizabeth Donnan, Documents Illustrative of the Slave Trade to America, 4 vols. (Washington, D.C., 1930–35) see index refs.; Walter Minchinton, Celia King and Peter White, Virginia Slave Trade Statistics, 1698–1775 (Richmond, Va., 1981); Walter Minchinton, ‘The Seaborne Slave Trade of North Carolina’, North Carolina Historical Review, 71 (1994), pp.1–61; James A. Rawley (1981) pp.243–5, Nigel Tattersfield, The Forgotten Trade (London, 1991), pp.348–9; T.M. Devine Scotland's Empire, 1600–1815 (London, 2003), see index refs.; David Eltis, Stephen D. Behrendt, David Richardson and Herbert S. Klein The Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade: A Database on CD-ROM Cambridge (1999), hereinafter referred to as Database. 8. The Customs Accounts for Scotland are in the National Archives of Scotland, in the series E.504, and may be examined at General Register House, Edinburgh, situated at the east end of Princes Street, though they are stored elsewhere and must be ordered in advance. Four ledgers relating to Greenock (Sept. 1748–Oct. 1752 and Oct. 1758–April 1762) have been microfilmed, and may be consulted at General Register House, without prior notice. Papers relating to legal cases arising from the voyages of the Loyalty, Hannover or Hanover in Table 1; or to the St George and the unidentified vessel of 1719 in Table 2, may be found in the series Ac.9 and Ac.16/1, located at West Register House, Charlotte Square, Edinburgh, where they may be examined, unless withheld for conservation reasons. 9. The Customs Accounts for Port Glasgow, 1742–65 (E.504/28/1–12), Greenock, 1742–67 (E.504/15/1–14), Dumfries, 1743–66 (E.504/9/1–3), Montrose, 1742–60 (E.504/24/1–4) and Leith 1753–55 and 1763–65 (E.504/22/5–6, 10–11) were examined, but I may have overlooked some relevant departures and arrivals, especially in cases where voyages in the slave trade from Scottish ports commenced with a departure for the Netherlands. 10. The sole extract known to have survived from the Scottish Customs Accounts, 1707–42, relates to Kirkcaldy, and covers the period March to June 1737 (Laing Mss. II, 491/11/4, Edinburgh University Library). There is probably more material relating to voyages in the Africa trade from Scottish ports, or in Scottish registered vessels from English ports, in other records from the Scottish Board of Customs. Most of the records from the Scottish Board of Customs are deposited with the National Archives of Scotland at General Register House, Edinburgh. However, much of the correspondence between local Customs collectors and the Boards of Customs in Edinburgh and London has been deposited in several Scottish regional archives. For a general guide to these materials and their location, see Frances Wilkins, Scottish Customs and Excise Records, with particular reference to Strathclyde, from 1707 onwards (Kidderminster, 1992). However, since that work was published some materials from smaller museums and archives, among them the Greenock Customs House Museum, have been transferred to the National Archives of Scotland in Edinburgh, primarily to ensure their conservation. For guides to the PRO materials, see Walter Minchinton, Naval Office Shipping Lists for Jamaica in the Public Record Office, London (East Ardsley, 1977); Walter Minchinton and Peter Waite, Naval Office Shipping Lists for the West Indies (excluding Jamaica) in the Public Record Office, London (East Ardsley, 1981). 11. In 1748, the Anglo-Scottish merchant house of Oswald, Grant & Co., with headquarters in the City of London, purchased Bance Island, an old Royal Africa Company fort and slave trading station in Sierra Leone. For a study of this slave trading business, David Hancock, Citizens of the World: London Merchants and the Integration of the British Atlantic Community, 1735–1785 (Cambridge, 1995), and his article ‘Scots in the Slave Trade’, in Ned C. Landsman, Nation and Province in the First British Empire: Scotland and the Americas, 1600–1800 (Lewisburg/London, 2001) pp.60–93. Scots or Scots-Irish merchant houses were conspicuous in both the Bristol and Liverpool slave trades. For example, at Bristol, the house of Anderson & Co. (1764–1805) sent out at least 82 vessels in the slave trade; while at Liverpool, vessels owned or chartered by the house of Shaw & Co. (1752–1807) made at least 87 voyages in the slave trade (Source Database). 12. There were problems with navigation, harbour and mooring facilities on the River Clyde in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. Though the Clyde is a tidal river right up to the city of Glasgow, the mouth of the river at Gourock is some 25 miles from the city. The river, though tidal, was shallow and contained many sandbanks and other obstacles to navigation, and hence to the development of maritime commerce. The problem was that vessels drawing more than two feet of water could not ascend the river much above Dumbarton, and could not reach the city, except on a spring tide, or when the river was in flood. On the development of harbour facilities and the improvement of navigation on the Upper Clyde, T.C. Smout, ‘The Development and Enterprise of Glasgow, 1556–1707’, Scottish Journal of Political Economy, 7 (1960) 204–10; E.J. Graham (2002) pp.318–21; J.D. Marwick, The River Clyde and the Clyde Burghs (Glasgow, 1909). 13. Database voyage number 21806. E. Donnan, Documents, 2, p.175, cites a report (PRO T.70/6 f.52) to the effect that on 30 May 1717, the George had approximately 190 slaves on board, bound for Barbados or Virginia. Walter Minchinton, et al. (1981) pp.34–5. The slaves who survived the Middle Passage may have been sold in Barbados, or at some other location in the West Indies, where no record has survived, the remainder being taken to Virginia. 14. Database voyage number 20529. From Port Glasgow the Loyalty sailed to Liverpool for fitting out and cargo in August 1718, then to Rotterdam for out-rig and cargo in November, then to Cork for provisions in February 1719, then to the African coast for slaves. The Loyalty was taken by pirates in May 1719, probably in the Sierra Leone area, before the embarkation of slaves had been completed. The pirates eventually released the Loyalty and the vessel reached Barbados, where her presence was recorded on 4 December 1719, PRO CO. Barbados 33/15. The pirates had damaged the Loyalty, repairs were necessary, and these probably delayed her return to Glasgow, but her cargo of Barbados sugar was sold in Glasgow in May 1720. (This account may be enlarged from papers relating to cases heard in the High Court of the Admiralty of Scotland, NAS Ac.9/769 and Ac.16/1/316–400). For an account of the pirates in West African waters in 1719–20, Daniel Defoe, A General History of the Pyrates (London, 1972 repr.) pp.166–76, 191–3. Defoe mentions the taking of two Scottish ships by Captain Howel Davis, but places the action off the Gold Coast, not in Sierra Leone (for the second Scottish ship, see Table 2 and note 34 34. Not in the Database. See the Register of the Criminal Court of Admiralty for Scotland, NAS Ac. 16/1/316–400, The Crown v. Roger Hows and others, wherein Arkenqual is mentioned as the commander of a Scottish vessel, taken by pirates and plundered in 1719. The trial record suggests that up to ten African captives were taken off this Scottish vessel by the pirates, who first tortured and then murdered them. See also note 14 above. ). 15. Not in the Database. Almost certainly this is the same vessel as that which made the 1717 slave trade voyage from London, see Table 3. The primary sources for the 1719–20 voyage of the Hannover or Hanover, and the court cases that followed its completion, are to be found in the records of the High Court of the Admiralty of Scotland in the NAS at Ac.9/1042 and Ac.7/33/433–583. These items may be consulted, but they are extremely fragile and the staff at West Register House will not accept requests for photocopies to be made from them. For an account of the voyage and the court cases, see Eric J. Graham and Sue Mowat, `The Slaving Voyage of the Hannover of Port Glasgow, 1719–20’, History Scotland, 3/5 (Sept./Oct. 2002), pp.26–34. 16. Not in the Database. Source: PRO CO. 33/16. The Neptune left Barbados for Glasgow towards the end of July 1731 with a cargo of sugar and cotton. 17. Database voyage number 25211. I failed to locate this vessel in my search of the Port Glasgow and Greenock Customs Accounts in 2003, but it is possible that a record may be found in the Customs Accounts for Dumbarton, or the Lower Clyde ports. Alternatively, this vessel may have been chartered by merchants from English or American ports. 18. Database voyage number 90406. (Methuen is also written as Methven and Methwen in the Scottish records). The Methven, Duncan Campbell, master, is recorded as clearing from Port Glasgow for Rotterdam, with a cargo of 180 hogsheads of Maryland tobacco, on 29 April 1751, see NAS Port Glasgow C.A. E.504/28/5. On departure from Port Glasgow the Methven moved down stream to Greenock, where some 41 cwt. of Braziletto wood were loaded for Rotterdam on the 16 May 1751. This was followed on the 20 May 1751, by a quantity of linens, woollens and hats. The linens included over 1000 yards of the cheapest British linens. Cheap linens, woollens and hats invariably formed part of slave trade cargoes from the Clyde. For the Methven at Greenock, NAS Greenock C.A. E.504/15/5. A report of the Methven/Methuen from the coast of West Africa was printed in the Glasgow Courant 29 June 1752, and in the Aberdeen Journal # 236, July 1752. ‘By the Elijah, Captain Low, from Africa, we have advice that after a passage of 7 weeks the Methven of Glasgow, Coppel, arrived on the Windward Coast in Guinea, December 11th, had begun his purchase of Negroes and was to touch at every place of trade from Cape Palmas to Anamboo till his number was complete. He left him at Grande Bassa, December 31st, all well.’ (I am grateful to David Dobson for this quotation). It may be noted that the Methven/Methuen does not appear to have returned to the Clyde. 19. Not in the Database. NAS Greenock C.A. E.504/15/9, loading for Africa, 2 May 1759. The Agnes returned to Greenock from Virginia in February 1760 with tobacco, pig iron, barrel staves and hoops. NAS Greenock C.A. E.504/15/9. Investors: James Dunlop and David Hutcheson. 20. Database voyage number 25214. NAS Greenock C.A. E.504/15/9, loading for Africa, 26 March 1760. Returned to Greenock, 21 May 1761, with tobacco, indigo, barrel staves and hoops. NAS E.504/15/10. Investors: James Dunlop, Thomas & David Hutcheson, James Stodart, Andrew Scott, Archibald Campbell and Andrew Donald. 21. Database voyage number 24552. NAS Greenock C.A. E.504/15/10, loading for Africa, July/August 1761. Buchanan & Simson formed a separate company for the voyages of the Patriot Pitt and Maxwell. The Patriot Pitt had capacity for 300 slaves, the Maxwell for 200, see letters dated 2 Nov. 1761 and 9 Dec. 1761, in the firm's Letter Book 1759–61, now in the NAS at CS. 96/506. On departure from Greenock the Patriot Pitt and Maxwell were ordered to the Isle of Man, to load brandy. The Patriot Pitt returned to Greenock from Guadeloupe and Africa in May 1763, discharging West Indian produce and six pieces of ivory, NAS Greenock C.A. E.504/15/11. On the house of Buchanan & Simson, the investors in the voyages of the Patriot Pitt and Maxwell, and other slave trade voyages the house invested in, Jacob M. Price, ‘Buchanan & Simson, 1759–63. A Different Kind of Glasgow Firm Trading on the Chesapeake’, William & Mary Quarterly 3rd series, 40 (1983) pp.3–41, esp.29–31. 22. Database voyage number 24019. NAS Greenock C.A. E.504/15/10, loading for Africa, 11 Sept. to 26 Oct. 1761. The Maxwell probably went to Maryland and/or Virginia, the Patriot Pitt having been diverted to Martinique. I found no evidence for the return of the Maxwell to Greenock. 23. Not in the Database. NAS Greenock C.A. E.504/15/10, loading for Africa, late Dec. 1761 to late Jan. 1762. Walter Minchinton, et al. (1981), p.165, records the arrival of the Agnes on the Upper James River on 7 Oct. 1762, with 118 slaves from the Gambia. Returned to Greenock with tobacco, barrel staves, beeswax and 6 cwt. of ivory in March 1763, NAS Greenock C.A. E.504/15/11. Investors: James Dunlop and David Hutcheson. 24. Database voyage number 24576. NAS Greenock C.A. E.504/15/11, loading for Africa, 6 August to 7 Sept. 1763. On the return voyage the Othello was stranded in Donegal, in the area of Malin Head, on the 6 December 1764. Part of the cargo was salvaged and brought into Greenock and Port Glasgow between January and May 1766, Greenock C.A. E.504/15/13, Port Glasgow C.A. E.504/28/13. The salvaged goods cleared through customs for Alexander Speirs, Robert Shannan, Richard Weir, Alexander Walker and Hugh Millikin, included mahogany, logwood, cotton, pimento and cow hides. 25. Not in the Database. NAS Greenock C.A. E.504/15/11, loading for Africa as tender for the Othello, 8 September 1763. 26. Not in the Database. NAS Greenock C.A. E.504/15/11, loading for Africa, 6 August to 1 September 1763. Investors: James Simson, John Baird, Colin Dunlop, James Weir and James Gammell. Left Grenada, under the command of W. Setton, in ballast for Glasgow, on 24 November 1764, PRO CO Grenada 106/1. 27. Database voyage number 24554, where recorded as returning from Barbados to Glasgow in April 1765. May have returned to a port on the Lower Clyde, or in ballast. I found no record of this vessel in the Greenock and Port Glasgow Customs Accounts in the second half of 1765. It is possible that this vessel was engaged in round-about trade in the Americas before its next recorded return to Greenock from Boston, Mass. in April 1766. 28. Database voyage number 91063, where recorded as leaving Greenock 24/1/1764, and disembarking slaves at Barbados on 26/2/1765. I found no record of the Coats having cleared customs at Greenock or Port Glasgow for any destination in late 1763 or early 1764. The arrival of the Coats at Greenock from Africa, Barbados and Dublin is recorded in Sept. 1765. Goods from Africa and Dublin were discharged, including small quantities of ivory, marble and Irish linen, NAS Greenock C.A. E.504/15/13. Goods from the West Indies were probably discharged at Dublin. 29. Not in the Database. NAS Greenock C.A. E.504/15/12, loading for Africa, 10 June to 12 July 1765. Investors: James Simson, Colin Dunlop, George McFarlan, William McCann, William Seward, James Weir, John Cunningham. Nothing known about this voyage. 30. Not in the Database. NAS Greenock C.A. E.504/15/12, loading for Africa, 18 June to 5 July 1765. Investors: James Simson, Colin Dunlop, John Cunningham, James Weir, Alexander Creighton and Walter Ritchie. The Juba discharged Barbados sugar and a small quantity of ivory from Africa at Greenock on 2 July 1767, NAS Greenock C.A. E.504/15/14. 31. Not in the Database. See NAS Greenock C.A. E.504/15/13, loading for Africa, 10 to 20 May 1766. Investors: William Coats, William Gray, James Gammell, Neil Campbell and John Lindsay. No evidence was found for the return of this vessel to Greenock. The Coats probably returned to another British or Irish port, if this voyage was completed (cf. the 1764 voyage, note 28 above). 32. Not in the Database. The Dutch connection with this voyage is of interest. There were Dutch forts and trading stations on the Guinea Coast and Dutch islands in the West Indies. The will names two men with an interest in this voyage, Robert Thomsone, merchant burgess of Edinburgh, and Robert Watsone of Muirhall. See also note 5 above. 33. Database voyage number 20824. See Donnan Documents, 2, p.72, fn. 40, citing British Library Add. Mss. 10453, f. 189, for the reference to Scotland in the context of this voyage, also noting that the intended voyage was for gold and ivory, rather than slaves. Donnan, p.94, also records that this vessel was taken. Those responsible are likely to have been French or Jacobite privateers, or quite possibly European pirates or Barbary corsairs. 34. Not in the Database. See the Register of the Criminal Court of Admiralty for Scotland, NAS Ac. 16/1/316–400, The Crown v. Roger Hows and others, wherein Arkenqual is mentioned as the commander of a Scottish vessel, taken by pirates and plundered in 1719. The trial record suggests that up to ten African captives were taken off this Scottish vessel by the pirates, who first tortured and then murdered them. See also note 14 above. 35. Database voyage number 94597. The voyage of the Success is the first piece of direct evidence for slave trading voyages from Montrose in the 1730s. Local histories mention a ship's captain by the name of Stuart or Stewart, whose home was in Montrose, and who was reported to have been active in the slave trade between 1733 and 1753. D. Mitchell, The History of Montrose. Montrose (1866) p.78; David G. Adams, ‘Trade in the Eighteenth and Nineteenth Centuries’, in G. Jackson and S.G.E. Lythe (eds.), The Port of Montrose. A History of its Harbour, Trade and Shipping. N.Y./Tayport, Fife (1993) pp.125–49, esp.125–9. 36. Database voyage number 25212. The Database contains no reference to the departure of this vessel from Montrose to Rotterdam and Africa in October 1751, or to the return of the vessel to Montrose from Virginia, in December 1752. NAS Montrose Customs Accounts E.504/24/2 and E.504/24/3, and David G Adams, 126–7. The Montrose Museum holds the manuscript contract between Thomas Gibson, first captain of the Potomack Merchant, and Thomas Douglas and Co. 37. Not in the Database. NAS Montrose C.A. E.504/24/3, outward entries 20–29 March 1753. Returned to Montrose 4 June 1754, see entries in the Customs Accounts dated 2 February and 9 August 1755, relating to proceedings taken by the customs authorities for the recovery of unpaid duties, Montrose C.A. E.504/24/3; and NAS Ac.7/46/51–62 (for conservation reasons unavailable in 2003). D.G. Adams, p.127 for a single reference to this vessel in a slave trade context. 38. Not in the Database. The Delight probably left Montrose, or some other east coast Scottish port, late in 1752 or early in 1753, for the Netherlands, returning to Leith from the Gambia and Virginia in March 1754 with ivory, bees-wax, tobacco, barrel staves and naval stores. NAS Leith Customs Accounts E.504/22/5, and E.504/22/6 for the 29 June 1754, the latter entry relating to proceedings taken by the customs authorities for the recovery of unpaid duties. See also E. Donnan Documents, 2, p.499, citing CO 388/45, Dd. 162–7, for a reference in correspondence from Fort James, to an unnamed vessel from Scotland and Holland, under the command of a Capt. Elphinstone, proceeding up the River Gambia to trade. 39. Database voyage number 77781. The Glasgow is recorded as having left Leith for the Gambia on 22 May 1764, NAS Leith Customs Accounts E.504/22/11. The only cargo declared on departure from Leith was 6 hogsheads of tobacco, so in all probability Captain Smith was under orders to sail to some port in the Netherlands, or to London, in order to obtain a cargo containing a mix of suitable trade goods. It has not yet been possible to establish whether or not the Glasgow returned to Leith. 40. Database voyage number 76588. Registered Glasgow, 1717. Departure from London, 3 August 1717. A voyage in the asiento trade to the Spanish Colonies in America. A letter from the Directors of the South Sea Company to their agents at Cartagena, dated 31 October 1717, notes that the Hannover Galley, Robert Sikes, master, was one of five vessels the Company were sending to Spanish America with slaves, and was scheduled to embark 240 slaves, E. Donnan, Documents, 2, p.224, citing Brit. Lib. Add. Mss. 25563, f. 173. The Barbados Naval Office list records that this vessel had 90 slaves on arrival there, Nigel Tattersfield (1991), p.349, fn. 88, citing PRO, CO. 33/15. 41. Database voyage number 94504. Registered Glasgow, no date. Departure from Liverpool. First mate and several crew reported killed, Donnan, Documents, 2, p.431, citing a report in the Boston News Letter, 9/9/1731. 42. Database voyage number 94512. Registered Glasgow, no date. Departure from Liverpool. Nothing known about this voyage. 43. Database voyage number 77606. Registered Dundee, 1752. Departure from London. In the Barbados Naval Office list this vessel is recorded as the Belinda Hunter, PRO CO. 33/16, f. 74. This was probably the result of an error by the clerk, who mistook the term ‘bilander’ – a type of rig – for the name Belinda. The Hunter was shipwrecked, or otherwise destroyed, after the disembarkation of the slaves, and before returning to Britain. Sir G. Stewart was probably the second baronet of Blair and Balcaskie (Fife), 1686–1759. 44. Some London slave merchants, in the early eighteenth century, are known to have regularly sent their slave trading vessels to the Netherlands for some part of their West Africa cargo, J.A. Rawley (1981) p.235. 45. A knowledge of the pattern of local demand for European goods on the West African coast was vital to European slave traders, for there was considerable variation between one region and another as to what would sell and at what price. The European slave traders had to make a careful selection of an assortment of goods to be offered to the African traders in the areas where they intended to trade for slaves. British merchant houses active in the slave trade found it necessary to import a significant proportion of the trade goods they would offer in exchange for slaves. On the goods imported into Britain, subsequently exported in the slave trade along the West African coast, see David Richardson ‘West African Consumption Patterns and their Influence on the Eighteenth Century English Slave Trade’, in H.A. Gemery and Jan S Hogendorn (eds.) The Uncommon Market: Essays in the Economic History of the Atlantic Slave Trade (New York, 1979) pp.303–30; Jan S. Hogendorn and Marion Johnson, The Shell Money of the Slave Trade (Cambridge, 1986) esp. pp.80–100. 46. Scottish trading connections with the Netherlands were in existence long before the fourteenth century, when the first formal arrangements for the establishment of a ‘staple’ were reached with the authorities in Flanders. On the Scottish staple in the Netherlands, see Michael Lynch (ed.), The Oxford Companion to Scottish History (Oxford, 2001) pp.590–91, and sources cited. In the seventeenth century Scottish merchants were to be found in all the major commercial centres of the Netherlands, engaged in import–export business with the homeland, and offering factoring services to Scots seeking trading opportunities. On the Scottish merchant class of the seventeenth century, their trading interests and their links with the Netherlands, T.C. Smout, A History of the Scottish People, 1560–1830 (Glasgow, 1971 edn., 1985 repr.) pp.153–60, and the same author's Scottish Trade on the Eve of Union, 1660–1707 (Edinburgh/London, 1963); ‘The Glasgow Merchant community in the seventeenth century’, The Scottish Historical Review, 47 (1968) pp.53–71 and ‘The Early Scottish Sugar Houses, 1660–1720’, Economic History Review, 2nd ser., xiv (1961), pp.240–5
Referência(s)