Slave Captain. The career of James Irving in the Liverpool slave trade

Notes:

First published 1995. Comprises an introduction covering Irving's career and involvement in the slave trade [pp3-79] having sections: 'Early career in the Liverpool slave trade'; 'Irving's voyages in the transatlantic slave trade'; 'Shipwreck and enslavement'; 'Freedom and return to England'. The remainder of the volume comprises transcriptions of 40 of his letters relating to his career in the Liverpool slave trade, 1786-91 [pp83-123], and of his journal when shipwrecked on the Coast of Barbary and enslaved, May 1789-Oct 1790 [pp127-48]. 'Irving's letters add little to what is already known about the organisation and business practices of the slave trade. The strength of Irving's material lies rather in what it reveals of the contemporary attitudes and values that sustained [this most evil system] in the eighteenth century'