A Respectable Trade

Josiah nodded. ‘Keep the ship safe, whatever you do. I will see her set sail on the tide at dawn tomorrow. And your orders will be on your chart table in your cabin.’

The captain stooped and picked up Josiah’s hat, and returned it to him with a smile. ‘Cover your head, Mr Cole, I shall see you in the Merchant Venturers’ Company yet.’

Josiah bared his brown teeth. ‘Please God,’ he said tightly.

Next morning Josiah was up early waiting on the quayside in thick cold fog. Rose was loading her final stores, extra boxes of trade goods carried swiftly and efficiently from Josiah’s warehouse: crate after crate of Birmingham muskets with flints and shot and gunpowder. Josiah was pouring munitions into Africa, to feed their need of guns.

Captain Smedley was not aboard; he would join the ship at Kingsroad anchorage, when the pilot had guided her down the Avon gorge, with the rowing boats towing her. Josiah wrote one final letter of instructions to him and left it in his cabin.

4th September 1788

On this Trip above all Others I must stress that we have to show a Profit. To this End select the Very best Negroes you can find; but do not Delay too long off Africa. Ship Women and young children and Pack them very Close. I want you to carry as many as Six Hundred. The Extra deaths in passage will be paid for by the Extra profit in taking So many.

On this voyage, on this one Voyage only, you are to go straight to the Spanish colonies and sell the slaves There, for Bullion. The papers to cover this Voyage make No mention of the Spanish colonies, and you will Destroy this letter when you Have Read it. I know that this is Smuggling and you will see a Bonus on your Return. This will be the only Time I will ask you to Trade with the Spanish, and I will Reward your Success. Buy what Sugar they offer, provided it is of Good quality, but take No notes of Credit. I want nothing but Gold and Sugar. Do not Fail me, Captain Smedley – Ship as many as you can find and Pack them Tight!

The Rose was rocking temptingly on the tide, the waves slapping the quayside. The pilot came aboard as Josiah watched the barges attaching their lines.

‘Take care now,’ Josiah said under his breath. The ship was uninsured for the middle voyage and would be perilously overloaded. He dared not tell Sarah; he hardly dared acknowledge to himself what he was doing.

The dockers slipped Rose’s moorings and the rope snaked through the green water and was hauled up to the ship. The rowing boats moved slowly forward and the towing ropes sprang out of the water and quivered tautly, shedding drops of silver water along their length. There was the silent, precious moment as the ship hesitated, as if she could not believe that she were free, freely in her element after weeks of being tied to land, then slowly, almost reluctantly, the Rose moved away from the dockside and gathered speed as she glided down the channel towards the heights of the Avon gorge.

‘God speed,’ Josiah said under his breath. She was undercapitalised on this trip. She was financed by himself and only three other small partners. He had taken three shares to himself and the others had only one share each. He had borrowed to buy the extra trade goods, he owed more than a thousand pounds on her. She was undercapitalised and underinsured. Josiah had no choice but to send her outside the law to sell to the Spanish plantations. It was a risk he had never taken before; but the Spanish would pay highly and in bullion. Josiah was sailing very close to the wind. ‘God speed,’ he said.

As if to justify Josiah’s belief in his luck, that very day, when the sun had risen, showing red through the smoke from the lead shot tower, Mr Waring took breakfast with his wife and finally decided to sell the house in Queens Square to the Coles. Mrs Waring had heard from the bishop’s wife herself that the new Mrs Cole was the daughter of the Reverend John Scott who had held the living at Claverton Down. Stephen Waring was frankly incredulous that a Miss Scott should marry a man such as Josiah, and sleep above a sugar store, but Mrs Waring was more acute. ‘I daresay if Josiah Cole is good enough for Lord Scott he is good enough to buy our house,’ she remarked archly. ‘And I daresay, Mr Waring, that you can name your price if Mr Cole has to provide a good house for his new wife.’

Mr Waring said nothing but when he retreated to his office he wrote a note to Josiah naming a price for the house that was high enough to discourage any but the most eager.

If Josiah had been a regular at the top table of the coffee shop, he would have known that other houses in Queens Square were about to come on the market. If Josiah had been acquainted with the wealthy men of the city, he would have been in no hurry to snap up 29 Queens Square when 18 and 31 would be on the market within the month. The richest merchants were moving from the square; the city centre was becoming too noisy, too dirty and too crowded for them. Their wives had ambitions to be ladies of leisure, they did not want a parlour which also did service as an office.

Park Street was paved almost to the crown of the hill and on either side of the street elegant town houses in pale honey stone were springing up. The first few houses in Great George Street had been sold and others were planned. The astute men were buying up land all around Great George Street, and on either side of Park Street, and architects were drawing plans for elegant terraces to rise one above the other all the way up the hill. Mr Waring was discreetly negotiating, through an agent, for land even farther from the dockside. He did not share Josiah’s love of the city centre. Mr Waring was interested in Clifton.

Queens Square was falling from fashion and the prices would slide as soon as it became apparent. Mr Waring opened the paper again and added a note along the bottom.

I can Offer you this house at This price for a Week Only, Mr Cole. I have had a Pressing enquiry from Another man to Whom I must reply within Eight days.

He folded the paper over, dropped red wax on it, and pressed his seal on it.

Thoughtfully he took up another page.

Dear Tom,

Oblige me by Keeping your house Off the market for a Week. I have a Buyer for mine and I do not want him Distracted.

He scrawled his initial and sprinkled sand over the note, rang for a footman to deliver them both, and went through to the parlour.

‘I think you should call on Mrs Cole, my dear,’ he said to his wife. ‘Warehouse or no warehouse, I think she would reward an acquaintance. And certainly, I shall be happy to do business with her husband.’

Chapter Seven (#ulink_be0691b4-544a-5366-87fb-63b2235e3150)

‘We have to rise,’ Josiah said to Sarah, Stephen Waring’s note in his hand. ‘We have to move in the circles where capital is available. The little men are growing wary of risk and the bigger men want only large investments. You are right, the Trade is in a temporary decline. It will boom again – we have seen it come and go – and we have to ride out these doldrums. There are great chances in this city if we can but grasp them. We have to move in the circles of those that know.’

Sarah was pale with anxiety. ‘We had only three partners for Rose,’ she said. ‘And she will not be home until late next year. Daisy will not be in until this December. We cannot overextend ourselves, Josiah. Mr Waring’s price is far too high for that house. We are carrying too great a risk on the Rose, and too much of our capital is tied up in her. We cannot buy a new house as well.’

‘Then we must borrow,’ Josiah said determinedly. ‘Another house might not come vacant for months, even years. You know how sought-after that address is, Sarah. I have been waiting for a house for nearly a year. We have to buy it now, we dare not wait. We have to borrow.’

Sarah shook her head. She feared debt more than anything in the world. ‘Is there nothing left from her dowry?’ She nodded to the room above the parlour where Frances was lying down, sick with a headache, her curtains drawn against the noise of the streets near her window and the smell from the middens in the backyards.

‘No, it was all invested in Daisy.’

‘Please God that she comes in safe with them and we see a profit.’

Josiah bowed his head. ‘Please God,’ he said.

The Vessle Daisy, at St Kitts.

15th August 1788

Dear Mr Cole,

I send this Letter to you by the Bristol ship Adventure which is leaving Port tomorrow, to Announce that I have arrived Safely in St Kitts, Praise God.

Tomorrow I shall arrange for the Sale of the majority of the Slaves who are generally Good in health and Well in appearance. Prices seem to be Lower than at my Last Visit but you can be Assured I shall do my Best.

According to your Instruction I have reserved Twenty slaves for your use. Three men, Five women, Four infants, Four girls and Four boys. I will bring them Home as you Instructed and will indeed take Care that they have Blankets as they may be Weakened by Cold.

I will Seek other Cargo tomorrow but I Fear we may be Disappointed this Late in the Season. Be Assured however That I will do my best as Per your Instructions.

With God’s Will I shall Complete my business here within the Month and set sail for Bristol as Soon as may be Possible. I hope to convey my respects to you in person in the month of December 1788.

Your obdt servant,

Capt. William Lisle.

Josiah placed the letter before Sarah. She threw her needlework to one side and snatched it up.

‘Where did you have this?’

‘From the master of the Adventurer. He had a good crossing. The letter is dated August, it has taken him only six weeks to get home. He does not speak well of the trade in St Kitts.’

‘What does it say about the slaves?’ Sarah scanned the letter quickly and then looked up. ‘Twenty,’ she said. ‘And as I ordered, children, and he has even brought infants.’

‘Infants?’ Frances was at the table, making entries into the household ledger. A pile of bills was under a paperweight, and she was ticking them off as she entered the petty sums.

‘If I could have bought babes in arms I would have done,’ Sarah declared. ‘They are bound to learn the quickest, and you have the more work from them.’

‘Oh,’ Frances said. ‘When will they arrive?’

‘January at the latest,’ Josiah replied. ‘It takes more than a month to load the ship in the West Indies, and then he will have to come home through the autumn storms. Please God they will make safe landfall by Christmas.’