Abstract
Abstract In 1737–8, officers aboard three British warships sent to Africa to secure seaborne commerce engaged in private trade themselves, in violation of navy regulations and parliamentary statute, and carried enslaved Africans to Barbados. Slave trading merchants from Bristol, Liverpool and London – whose business was hurt by this illegal competition – co-ordinated efforts and lobbied the admiralty and the house of commons to put a stop to naval trading and gain restitution for their losses. The episode was part of a long process of negotiation among stakeholders in the developing fiscal-naval state that eventually produced shared expectations about naval professionalism and the duty of commerce protection that were significantly influenced by mercantile interests.
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