A Respectable Trade. Philippa Gregory
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‘We ship slaves already,’ Sarah said sharply. ‘You saw the accounts with me. You saw the figures. You saw that we bought three hundred and twelve on Daisy’s last voyage, you read it yourself. You saw wastage on voyage – sixty-two, you knew that meant that sixty-two of them had died during the passage. You saw how they sold in Jamaica – they went for fifty pounds each. My idea is to bring a sample of them on to England. To train them here to be house servants, to sell them for households in England. Isn’t it the fashion?’
‘Yes,’ Frances said slowly. Lady Scott had a little black boy to carry her fan and run her messages, and every lady in London had a black maid or a handsome black footman to ride behind the carriage, and a little black girl to play with the children. But all the slaves that Frances knew had been imported singly from the West Indies, brought over by returning planters, sold by slaving captains. ‘Can you train them in large numbers, and sell them in large numbers?’
‘Why not?’ Sarah demanded. ‘It was done in the past. In the last century people imported slaves direct from Africa. I have heard of a Liverpool merchant who has imported a dozen this year. They take up little space on the ship coming home from the Sugar Islands, and they will sell in England for eighty or ninety pounds each. But if our slaves could become known for their manners and their training, we could command an even greater price.
‘You shall teach them. They are the pupils you would have had, if you had come to us as a governess. Now you will take a profit rather than a wage but they will still be your work. They will be famous for their smartness and their training, and that will be your job.’
‘I’m not sure …’ Frances said.
‘You can have no objection,’ Sarah said coldly. ‘You knew we were Bristol merchants. You accepted the Trade well enough when it took place at a distance. You came for a job with us.’
‘I did not know I was to be governess to slaves … Josiah never said …’
‘You can have no objection though. You knew where our wealth was earned.’
‘I have no objection,’ Frances said. ‘Of course I have none. I know that it is a good thing to take the Africans away from their paganism and to teach them godly work and religion.’
‘And they are not humans, not as we understand humans,’ Sarah reminded her. ‘They are animals. They cannot speak unless we teach them; otherwise they just grunt and moan. They are not fully human.’
‘Oh,’ Frances said. ‘I had not realised. I have never had much to do with them. Lady Scott has a nigger pageboy, but I have never seen one fully grown.’
‘So you will teach them?’
Frances nodded. ‘I only hesitated because I do not know if I can. I have taught children, but they were human children. I wouldn’t know how to teach niggers.’
Sarah nodded grimly. ‘Then let me tell you, Sister, that you had better find a way to teach them. This will be the saving of our Cole and Sons and its key to the future. If we can train and sell slaves then we can make a fortune big enough to satisfy Josiah’s ambition, and to pay for Queens Square. If we do not, it will not be Queens Square for you, you will stay here forever, beside the filthy water of the dock – cold and damp in winter, deadly in summer.’
There was a long silence. Frances could feel herself becoming breathless and put her hand to the base of her throat to steady her pulse. ‘You are not exaggerating?’ she confirmed. Her little cough rose up and choked her for a moment.
Sarah waited until she had her breath back. ‘The bottom is slowly falling out of the Trade,’ she said. ‘If, in a few years, our Bristol partners can get a better return in land and building, or in shops, or in importing cotton to Manchester, they will no longer put their money with us. Then we will not be able to send out ships at all and our investment – in our ships, in our warehouse, in the quay – will be thrown away. We have put so much money into the Trade that we have to trade, and we have to make the Trade pay.’
‘I will try, Sarah, I will try my best to teach them.’
Sarah smiled a wintry smile. ‘You were a governess, weren’t you?’ she asked. ‘You replied to our advertisement for a governess? We planned all along that you should teach them. But now instead of working for a wage you are working for yourself. You shall be their teacher and you shall recommend them to their places and give them a character. You will make this plan work for us. You will earn the new town house. You want it, don’t you?’
Frances looked around the tiny parlour and breathed the tainted air. ‘Yes,’ she said. ‘Of course I do.’
Josiah came in for his dinner in the mid-afternoon in thoughtful silence. Frances, new to his moods and weary herself from Sarah’s long lessons with the account books, sat at the foot of the table and said nothing. Her cough was troubling her. She sipped water, trying to choke it back. Sarah waited until the tablecloth had been taken away and a decanter of port set at Josiah’s hand before she asked:
‘Trouble?’
He raised his head and smiled. ‘Oh! Nothing. I have been all day seeking proper insurance for Rose. Ever since the Zong case it has been more and more difficult.’
‘The Zong case?’ Frances asked.
‘Business,’ Josiah said dismissively.
‘She should understand it,’ Miss Cole pointed out. ‘It is her business too now.’
‘Oh aye, you’re probably right,’ Josiah agreed. ‘The Zong case, my dear, took place half a dozen years ago and concerned the good ship Zong which is still in dispute with the insurers.’
‘Why?’ Frances asked.
‘Well, it is a long story, but basically the Zong ran short of water while sailing to Jamaica. There was much illness on board and the captain took the decision to pitch a quarter of the cargo overboard.’
‘What cargo?’ Frances asked stupidly.
‘She does not understand,’ Miss Cole said.
‘It is simple enough,’ Josiah said briskly. ‘The captain of the Zong, fearing that a large number of his four hundred and seventy slaves would die of thirst, had them thrown into the sea to drown.’
Frances looked from Josiah’s face to his sister’s. ‘To save the drinking water?’
Josiah allowed himself a small sly smile. ‘Well, that is what the captain claimed. However, while they were in the midst of these kindly killings, it came on to rain and it rained for two days.’
Miss Cole hid a little laugh behind her hand.
‘And the good ship Zong docked with full casks of drinking water in Jamaica.’
The two of them smiled at Frances, expecting her to understand the joke. She shook her head.
‘It was a fraud,’ Miss Cole said impatiently.
‘The captain was lying,’ Josiah explained. ‘See here, Frances, he had a bad batch of slaves, very sick, dying on him, dropping like sick flies. Slaves who die of illness are a cash loss – a loss to the traders; but slaves drowned at sea are paid for by the insurance. Captain Luke Collingwood had the neat idea of slinging all the sick men and women over the side and claiming for them on the insurance.’
‘He drowned them for the insurance money?’
Josiah nodded. ‘In three batches, over three days as I remember. A hundred and thirty-one altogether.’
‘And they say the big Liverpool shippers are better,’ Miss Cole crowed. ‘You never heard of a Bristol captain cheating like that.’
‘He