“Our extensive trade to Africa is at a stand; all commerce with America is at an end,“ lamented the General Advertiser.
The problem lay in a temporary halt to the slave trade caused by enemy privateers (serving the rebellious American colonies) and the Government’s ban on the expert of guns and gunpowder to African chiefs.
Liverpool’s merchants felt that the ensuing mass unemployment among the port’s seamen would enable them to cut their wages.
For several days, the rebels held the upper hand.
Well-armed and angry, they attacked and looted at will, even laying siege to the Exchange (Town Hall).
But excessive drinking and poor discipline hindered their cause, which was finally crushed by the Royal Regiment of Dragoons from Manchester.
Several sailors were killed and many wounded.
While deploring the slave trade and detailing the callous indifference for human life which enabled it to happen, Frank is one of the few modern writers to include the crucial part played by brutal African warlords.
The Slave Trade Act had passed through Parliament in May, 1807, but slavers were given until the following March to land their last “human cargoes”.
Thus, at least another 50,000 people were enslaved.
This is why Frank finishes this volume at 1808. It also enables him to cover life in Liverpool during the American and French Revolutions.
He has produced a splendid book, meticulously researched and written in a vivid style, which should help the swelling numbers of students learn more about the rollicking days of our city, when tragedy and triumph, hope and despair, nobility and venality, pimps and preachers, rubbed souls along the quay- sides – much as they do today.
Of course, included in the cast are many of the usual characters – Banastre Tarleton, the ruthless soldier, politician and garter-snapper; Bamber Gascoyne, stitch-stretching politician and supporter of slavery; and William Roscoe, botanist, poet and opponent of slavery.
“Other books on Liverpool have taken a much wider span of years,” says Frank.
“Some go from before King John to the present day, but I didn’t want to take that route, trying to cover all Liverpool’s past.
“I wanted to focus on a generation because I feel that, by concentrating on a particular period, you can get more meat on the bones.”
But he is planning two more books about the city.
SLAVERS, Traders and Privateers; Liverpool, the African Trade and Revolution, 1773-1808, by Frank Howley is published by Countywise, at £14.95.
