History of the Liverpool Privateers and Letters of Marque, with an Account of the Liverpool Slave Trade, 1744-1812

Williams, Gomer

ISBN 10: 0853237891 / ISBN 13: 9780853237891

Published by Liverpool University Press, 2004

Your purchase helps support Sri Lankan Children's Charity 'The Rainbow Centre'. Ex-library, so some stamps and wear, but in good overall condition. Our donations to The Rainbow Centre have helped provide an education and a safe haven to hundreds of children who live in appalling conditions. Seller Inventory # Z1-C-083-03203

Synopsis:

By 1783 three ports in England – London, Bristol, and Liverpool – accounted for over sixty per cent of privateering commissions. History of the Liverpool Privateers… is still considered to be the best source of information on privateering and the slave trade, from Liverpool or any other port. Gomer Williams worked as a journalist for the Liverpool Mercury and drew on newspapers, private correspondence and first-hand accounts of the slave trade to produce his book. Writing in 1897, Williams lamented the fact that Africans were still being threatened by the commercial interests of Europeans. This facsimile edition has a new introduction by David Eltis, a world authority of the slave trade, and includes appendices listing all the Liverpool vessels bound for Africa from the beginning of the trade to Abolition.

Review: Readers should not forget what is as hard to appreciate today in the case of slave trading as it was over a hundred years ago when Gomer Williams wrote his book - that it was a legitimate endeavour in the eyes of domestic and emerging international law, and, more important, was not viewed as in any way immoral: before the late eighteenth century, slave trading and privateering were seen as indistinguishable from trading in Baltic timber or Canadian furs.

Bibliographic Details

Title: History of the Liverpool Privateers and ...
Publisher: Liverpool University Press
Publication Date: 2004
Binding: Soft cover
Condition: Good