Welsh Journals

copper, pewter etc spread particularly all over the county of Lanca- shire, so much influenced by this trade are now put into the most flourishing circumstances". In 1709 only one ship sailed from Liverpool to West Africa. By 1737 this had increased to 33 and by 1753 to 72 sailing from Liverpool to obtain slaves. In 1771 of 190 slaving ships sailing from British ports Liverpool accounted for 107. There was a decline in the trade 1776-1782 but it revived rapidly and over one hundred ships sailed from Liverpool in 17912. This represented a very considerable market for copper and brass goods especially neptunes (large pans used for evaporating sea water to obtain salt), bright manillas (rings and bracelets used as ornaments for the arms and legs) black manillas (rings and bracelets usually used by African natives as money). The proportion of copper and brass goods carried by these ships may have declined towards the end of the eighteenth century as the price of copper rose but the increase in the total trade more than com- pensated. The clearest statement of the connection between the copper industry of Holywell and the slave trade was made in a petition against a bill introduced to Parliament in 1788 to regulate the slave trade. "A petition of Thomas Williams, Esquire, on behalf of himself and his co-partners in the Manufacture of Brass Battery and other copper, Brass, and Mixed Metal Goods for the African Trade, at Holywell in the county of Flint, Penclawdd in the county of Glamorgan and Temple Mills in the county of Bucks setting forth that the petitioner and his co-partners have laid out a capital of £ 70,000 and upwards, to establish themselves in the said manufactories which are entirely for the African Market and not saleable for any other; the Petitioner and his Partners would loose the greatest part of the aforesaid capital unless they are indemni- fied".3 Obviously, this was an overstatement Williams was support- ing some very good customers who quite rightly saw the bill as the thin end of the wedge to abolish the slave trade. Thomas Williams was too shrewd a business man to reply solely on one aspect of trade but it was certainly an important market for some of his works. Liverpool had become an important market for copper and brass goods because of the demand from the African trade.4 It was probably this demand and the ease of transporting 2 MSS Liverpool Record Office 942 HOL 10 361-363. 3 Commons Journal 8. July 1788. Williams may also have had in mind an indirect demand which the African trade produced the copper sheathing nailed onto the hulls of ships sailing into tropical waters and this might decline if there were no slaving ships.