Anna (1789 ship)

Anna first appeared in Lloyd's Register (LR), in the volume for 1789.[1] Her owner, John Dawson, and his partner Peter Baker, were the largest firm of slave traders in Great Britain. Dawson appointed James Irving captain of Anna. She was a purpose-built enslaving vessel.[2] Anna was a smaller enslaving vessel than was common, less than one tenth the size of Princess Royal, and may have been a response to the restrictions placed on the slave trade by the Dolben's Act.[3] Irving discussed Anna in his letters to his wife, many of which have been recorded. Not long before Anna was lost, he wrote the "Vessel runs out very fast".[4]

Anna sailed from Liverpool on 2 May 1789.[5] Three weeks later, on 26 May, she shipwrecked on Morocco's Atlantic coast. Lloyd's List reported that Ann, Irving, master, from Leverpool to Guinea, had been wrecked at Uld Nun (Wad Nun (Noun River (Morocco)), in Guelmim-Oued Noun). It further reported that she had been plundered and her crew made slaves.[6] The shipwreck represented a significant loss for Dawson because she was a new build and had been registered just 17 days before her first voyage.[3] Anna was a new vessel, but it is unlikely she had a marine chronometer to calculate longitude. Irving was aware of how dangerous the passage through the channel between the Canary Islands and North Africa was, however, he still miscalculated and was caught by strong currents in poor visibility. William Lemprière writes in his account of Irving's captivity that Dawson commanded Irving to sail through the channel and was thus responsible for the ship's loss.[7] The crew included Irving's cousin, also called James Irving, and Mathew Dawson, the nephew of John Dawson, the ship owner.[8] In 1789, seven British enslaving ships were lost, four of them on the coast of Africa.[9]

The crew of Anna were captured after the shipwreck and enslaved by North Africans. After 14 months of enslavement Irving was released; the exact circumstances of the release are unknown however Irving was in contact with the British authorities and wrote pleading for his release. Their owners handed Irving and ten other crew from Anna to British vice consul, John Hutchinson; they then sailed to England.[10] Ten out of the original crew of 11 survived the shipwreck and arrived back in England in October 1790. The one crew member who died was called James Drachen; he was described in the ship's log as a "Portuguese Black" that died of a fever.[11] In December 1790, Irving became captain of Ellen, another of Dawson's enslaving ships.[12] The ship's log records Irving's death on 24 December 1791, during her next voyage, but does not indicate how he died.[13]

• Behrendt, Stephen (1990). "The Captains in the British Slave Trade from 1785 to 1807" (PDF). The Historic site of Lancashire and Cheshire. Retrieved 6 July 2021.
• Inikori, Joseph (1996). "Measuring the unmeasured hazards of the Atlantic slave trade: Documents relating to the British trade". Revue française d'histoire d'outre-mer. 83 (312): 53–92.
• Schwarz, Suzanne (2008). Slave Captain - The Career of James Irving in the Liverpool Slave Trade. Liverpool University Press.