d wronged him.[22]

The bursting of the South Sea bubble in 1720 shifted the bulk of the
separate trading from London to the rival city of Bristol. But the removal
of the duties in 1730 brought the previously unimportant port of Liverpool
into the field with such vigor that ere long she had the larger half of
all the English slave trade. Her merchants prospered by their necessary
parsimony. The wages they paid were the lowest, and the commissions and
extra allowances they gave in their early years were nil.[23] By 1753 her
ships in the slave traffic numbered eighty-seven, totaling about eight
thousand tons burthen and rated to carry some twenty-five thousand slaves.
Eight of these vessels were trading on the Gambia, thirty-eight on the Gold
and Slave Coasts, five at Benin, three at New Calabar, twelve at Bonny,
eleven at Old Calabar, and ten in Angola.[24] For the year 1771 the number
of slavers bound from Liverpool was reported at one hundred and seven with
a capacity of 29,250 negroes, while fifty-eight went from London rated
to carry 8,136, twenty-five from Bristol to carry 8,810, and five from
Lancaster with room for 950. Of this total of 195 ships 43 traded in
Senegambia, 29 on the Gold Coast, 56 on the Slave Coast, 63 in the bights
of Benin and Biafra, and 4 in Angola. In addition there were sixty or
seventy slavers from North America and the West Indies, and these were
yearly increasing.[25] By 1801 the Liverpool ships had increased to 150,
with capacity for 52,557 slaves according to the reduced rating of five
slaves to three tons of burthen as required by the parliamentary act of
1788. About half of these traded in the Gulf of Guinea, and half in the
ports of Angola.[26] The trade in American vessels, particularly those of
New England, was also large. The career of the town of Newport in fact was
a small scale replied of Liverpool's. But acceptable statistics of the
American ships are lacking.

[Footnote 21: Francis Moore, _Travels in Africa_, pp. 69, 202-203.]

[Footnote 22: Gomer Williams, _History of the Liverpool Privateers, with an
Account of the Liverpool Slave Trade_ (London, 1897), pp. 563, 564.]

[Footnote 23: _Ibid_., p. 471, quoting _A General and Descriptive History
of Liverpool_ (1795).]

[Footnote 24: _Ibid_., p. 472 and appendix 7.]

[Footnote 25: Edward Long, _History of Jamaica_ (London, 1774), p. 492
note.]

[Footnote 26: Corner Williams, Appendix 13.]

The ship captains in addition to