A Respectable Trade. Philippa Gregory

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      Frances looked around the tiny parlour and breathed the tainted air. ‘Yes,’ she said. ‘Of course I do.’

       Chapter Six

      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 did not cheat, Sister,’ Josiah reproved her. ‘He ran his ship at a profit. Lord Mansfield himself sat in judgement and ordered a retrial.’

      ‘The captain was tried for murder?’ Frances asked.

      The look the two of them turned on her was of blank incomprehension. ‘Lord, no!’ Josiah shook his head. ‘It is no crime to kill slaves. This was a civil matter. The insurers refused to pay out. They argued that slaves are insured only against accident, not against deliberate drowning. They won the first round in the courts and then it went to appeal. Lord Mansfield sat on the appeal, I remember. He said that it was exactly the same as if horses had gone overboard, and that the owners should be insured against their goods going into the sea for whatever reason.’

      Miss Cole nodded in mild triumph. ‘He said that slaves are property, Lord Mansfield himself said they were the same as horses.’

      ‘But it has left us with great difficulties,’ Josiah went on. He rubbed his hand across his face and his boyish exuberance suddenly drained away. ‘Because his lordship ruled that all slaves lost at sea are to be paid for by the insurance, there is a fear that all captains running at a loss will simply drown their slaves and claim for them. The insurers do not trust us. I have spent all day trying to find someone to insure a cargo of slaves for me, and they put in so many requirements and conditions that it is hardly worth insuring at all.’

      Sarah looked anxious. ‘We dare not sail without insurance,’ she said. ‘What if the ship were to go down and we were to lose all? Or a slave revolt? Josiah, we must insure.’

      ‘I know! I know!’ he snapped. ‘But now they will only insure against rebellions. They will not compensate for sickness, or for slaves who suicide. If a slave is whipped to death they will not compensate. If a slave starves himself to death they will not compensate. If they kill themselves what can I do? I cannot carry such losses.’

      Sarah was grave. ‘Someone must insure us.’

      Josiah shrugged his shoulders crossly. ‘They are all in a ring. If I could break into the Merchant Venturers then I could share my insurance with them. On the inside they all insure each other. It is the little fish left on the outside which bob about trying to snap at trifles. If I could get inside the Company then I would be safe.’

      He broke off and looked at Frances, his mood lightening. ‘We can do it, I know we can do it. With the house at Queens Square and with you, Mrs Cole, to give me some presence in the world, we will get there. We have been trading for two generations, we are respectable Bristol merchants. They will invite me to join, they must invite me to join soon.’

      ‘It is an old trade,’ Frances said. ‘Respectable.’ She was thinking of the ship in the drizzling rain. The one hundred and thirty-one men and women thrown over the side into the heaving water, clinging to the ropes and screaming as they went overboard, bobbing in the wake of the ship as it ploughed on without them, trying to swim after it in the buffeting waves, and then seeing, on the edge of their vision, a dark scythe-like fin as it came straight towards them, slicing through the water.

      ‘Rose is nearly ready to sail,’ Sarah said. ‘We have to have insurance within the week. And we are still two partners short.’

      ‘I will get it,’ Josiah promised. ‘I will get it in time, and partners for the voyage as well. I cannot have her sitting on the dock eating up my money doing nothing. I will get insurance for her and partners too. Trust me, Sarah, I have never failed before.’

      Josiah was trying, but the mood of the city, as sensitive as a flock of little wading birds which scavenge at the edge of the sea, was against him. There was a whisper around Bristol that Josiah was losing his sure touch. He was spending too much time with his new wife, he was seen driving in a hired carriage to the Hot Well, to the Clifton Down. СКАЧАТЬ