Solicitor General (1794 ship)

Solicitor General was launched in Bermuda in 1785. She came to England circa 1794 and first sailed as a West Indiaman but then new owners in 1795 employed her as a slave ship in the triangular trade in enslaved people. She was wrecked on the coast of North Africa on her first voyage on her way to acquire captives. Her crew were themselves enslaved, not being freed until mid-1797.

History
Great Britain
NameSolicitor General
Launched1785, Bermuda
Acquired1794
FateWrecked 11 August 1795
General characteristics
Tons burthen141 (bm)
Complement19
Armament8 × 6-pounder guns
NotesBermuda cedar

Career

Solicitor General first appeared in Lloyd's Register (LR) in 1794.[1]

In August 1794 Lloyd's List reported that Solicitor General was sailing from Antigua to Liverpool when she had put into St Kitts in a leaky condition.

Year Master Owner Trade Source & notes
1794 ___ (Yeates?)
J.G.John		 Lightfoot Bristol−Antigua LR; raised 1790
1795 J.G.John
T.Smith		 Lightfoot Liverpool−Antigua
Liverpool–Africa		 LR; raised 1790
1796 T.Smith Forbes & Co. Liverpool–Africa LR; raised 1790

Captain Thomas Smith sailed from Liverpool on 17 July 1795.[2] In 1795, 79 vessels sailed from English ports, bound for Africa to acquire and transport enslaved people; 59 of these vessels sailed from Liverpool.[3]

Solicitor General was lost on the Barbary Coast on 11 August 1795. She was on a voyage from Liverpool to Africa.[4] Her 19 crew members survived, only to have the locals enslave them. Smith and his crew were finally freed circa July 1797.[5] While they were awaiting ransom, their captors held the crew in Passereet, a town reportedly five days travel from Santa Cruz (possibly Agadir, once the Portuguese port and fort of Santa Cruz do Cabo de Gué). There they worked “all day in the sun”.[6]

After being ransomed, Thomas Smith died on 19 June 1801, while he was master of Trelawney, and on his eighth voyage as a master of vessels transporting enslaved people.[7]

Seventeen ninety-five was the worst year in the period 1793–1807 for losses among British slave ships. Fifty vessels were lost that year, 40 of them on the coast of Africa, and three Africa-bound from British ports.[8] Because she had not yet arrived on the slave coast of Africa, Solicitor General might have been classified as one of the three.

Citations
  1. LR (1794), Seq.No.S585.
  2. Trans Atlantic Slave Trade Database – Solicitor General voyage #83572.
  3. Williams (1897), p. 680.
  4. "The Marine List". Lloyd's List (2778). 22 December 1795.
  5. Schwarz (2008), p. 45 &47.
  6. Sears (2012), pp. 124–125.
  7. Behrendt (1990), p. 137.
  8. Inikori (1996), p. 62.

References
  • Behrendt, Stephen D. (1990). "The Captains in the British slave trade from 1785 to 1807" (PDF). Transactions of the Historic Society of Lancashire and Cheshire. 140.
  • Sears, C. (2012). American Slaves and African Masters: Algiers and the Western Sahara, 1776-1820. Springer. ISBN 9781137268662.
  • 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. ISBN 9781846310676.
  • Williams, Gomer (1897). History of the Liverpool Privateers and Letters of Marque: With an Account of the Liverpool Slave Trade. W. Heinemann.
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