Abstract
Alison Brown and Jonathan Harlow’s source collection, Atlantic Venture Accounts of Eighteenth-Century Bristol, provides a sampling of documents from the Bristol archives that offer insights into maritime history in the eighteenth century. It includes nine chapters; all but two focus on one ship, covering multiple voyages. The documents pertaining to these voyages include logbooks, accounts, owners’ instructions, portledge bills, a surgeon’s journal, and others relating to provisioning and crewing. The short introduction explains that Bristol was the leading importer of sugar in Britain in the eighteenth century. Most ventures had multiple owners to share in the risk and expense of outfitting them; these were temporary partnerships rather than joint-stock companies. The typical voyage crossed the Atlantic and visited two or three Caribbean islands before returning to Bristol, or sometimes London. Some went to Africa first and participated in the so-called ‘triangular trade’. The ventures featured in this volume include slaving voyages, merchant ships and a privateer. We get a sense from the documents of ‘what made a voyage profitable or otherwise’ (1), and the risks associated with transatlantic trade and travel in the latter half of the eighteenth century.
There are several things that maritime, economic and Caribbean historians can take from this collection. There are many letters from owners of vessels giving instructions to captains. In these, we see ‘just what sort of considerations and expectations the owners had in mind as they commissioned yet another venture’ (5). They detail many contingency plans and contain the names of contacts in different colonies who could aid captains, suggesting it was common for plans to change. The owners of the slaving vessel Jason gave instructions about where to sell the enslaved captives and what prices to accept. If the desirable price was not offered, the captain was instructed to move on to another colony. The owners also instructed captains about what goods to bring back and how they expected to be paid; cotton and sugar came up frequently as desirable trade goods. Other accounts reveal ships and even whole crews lost at sea, tales of desertion and even fears of mutiny. The editors speculate briefly on why the ships’ crews might have been dissatisfied, but there is room to expand on this discussion.
These ventures sailed in times of both war and peace, with each circumstance requiring different types of preparation. Brown and Harlow note differences in crew sizes during peace versus war because of the risk of capture by the enemy. One of the more interesting documents is the anonymous surgeon’s journal from the privateer Dreadnought. Through the 1757 journal, we see how social relations worked on board ship, what kinds of ailments afflicted sailors and how illnesses were treated. We also see the uncertainty of privateering, as vessels never knew if the colours being flown by approaching ships were authentic or a ploy. During the American Revolution, shipowners either took out extra insurance in case of capture or obtained letters of marque, even if they did not intend for the ship to take prizes. The potential for extra income from selling a captured vessel’s cargo would have been appealing to crew members. Letters from owners instructed captains to sail under convoy to avoid privateers, but the logbook of the Levant from 1798–1799 also reveals the challenges of this practice. It was difficult to stay together and required ships to travel a different course.
From documents pertaining to merchant ships, we learn what was necessary to crew and provision a long-haul sea voyage. In the accounts, there are the names of the tradesmen and women who contributed to the outfitting of ships and supplied them with food, goods and other provisions. The lists of food and drink loaded on board the vessels allow us to see what kinds of provisions were given to the crew and what was desired in the colonies. We also see how crew members were paid. Besides the needs of the crew, the ‘very full listings of freight and of merchandise’ (84) reveal what Caribbean islanders needed and wanted in the eighteenth century, including ready-made clothes, tools and building supplies – none of which will be surprising to Caribbean historians. The lists also show who was shipping these goods and to whom. The illustrations and logbooks show the length of journeys between islands and from Europe to the Caribbean. Beyond the written accounts of the various ventures, there are excellent illustrations and charts. The journal of the Lloyd is full of rich navigational detail and ship illustrations. The volume also contains beautiful fold-out maps.
Atlantic Venture Accounts of Eighteenth-Century Bristol provides a useful collection of documents for historians and students of maritime history, which will no doubt inspire additional research in the Bristol archives. There are several references to a forthcoming volume by Kenneth Morgan, Documents on the Bristol Slave Trade. It whets the appetite of the reader for such a collection, but perhaps some of the material on the slaving vessels could also have been included in this volume to provide additional context. The editors assume a lot of knowledge on the part of the reader. The volume and document introductions are typically brief, often lacking much in the way of context for the documents. The glossary and appendices are helpful for terms, monetary units and measurements; additional footnotes would have been helpful to explain the important Acts of Parliament and events referenced in the text that might be unfamiliar to non-experts. Overall, the rich sources featured make this a useful volume for specialists and teachers of eighteenth-century maritime history.
