WEST DERBY HUNDRED 



LIVERPOOL 



greater advantages. Though Thurot/*' a brilliant 

 French privateer, found his way into the Irish Sea, 

 and in 1 758 and 1 759 caused much alarm in the 

 Mersey, rendering necessary the fortification of the 

 port,'** and though ninety -eight Liverpool vessels 

 were during the course of the war captured by the 

 French,'*' the activity of the Liverpool traders in 

 privateering was vastly greater than it had ever been 

 before, and their captures were on the whole exceed- 

 ingly valuable. It is not possible to state the exact 

 number of ships employed ; '*° but it was very large, 

 -and these years in particular were distinguished by 

 the activity of William Hutchinson, perhaps the 

 boldest and most successful of Liverpool privateers.'" 

 The result of the war was practically to sweep French 

 •commerce from Atlantic waters, and to establish 

 English ascendancy in the West Indies almost as 

 ■completely as on the North American continent. 

 In the commercial gains which thus accrued Liverpool 

 had the lion's share. 



In the War of the American Revolution the port 

 suffered very seriously. Not only was trade with the 

 revolted colonies practically stopped, but American 

 privateers made West Indian waters unsafe, and under 

 Paul Jones even ravaged the coasts of Britain,'" 

 while the commerce of the Americans themselves was 

 ■of such negligible amount as to make privateering use- 

 less."' ' Our once extensive trade with Africa is at a 

 •stand ; all commerce with America is at an end,' and 

 the ' gallant ships ' were ' laid up and useless ' in the 

 docks."" During the war the population actually de- 

 ■creased, and the shipping of the port diminished from 

 84,79a to 79,450 tons.'" The distress thus caused 

 led to grave riots, the most serious of which broke out 

 in 1775, when 3,000 unemployed sailors laid siege to 

 the Town Hall, and terrorized the town for a week."" 

 The regular troops of the garrison had to be distri- 

 buted through the town."' Nevertheless the town 

 took a vigorous and patriotic part in the war. A 

 large fort with barracks was erected on the north 

 shore, where the Prince's Dock now is ; "* a regiment 

 •of regular troops known as the Liverpool Blues was 

 raised, mainly at the cost of the Corporation — it was 

 •employed in the garrisoning of Jamaica ; "' a corps of 

 local volunteers was also raised in 1782 ;'^* while the 

 pressgang found a field in Liverpool for its unpopular 

 activity.'" When in 1778 France and later Spain 

 and Holland joined in the war, privateering once 

 more became a profitable pursuit, and provided em- 

 ployment for idle ships ; no less than 120 privateers, "° 

 •of 31,000 tons, were plying from Liverpool within a 



year of the French declaration of war, and nearly 

 9,000 sailors thus found employment.""* The years 

 from 1778 to 1782 were the period of Liverpool's 

 greatest activity in privateering ; '"" ' the merchants 

 of Liverpool,' we are told, ' have entered more 

 into the spirit of arming ships than any others in 

 England' ;'"' and many brilliant feats are recorded, 

 of which no account can here be given. Some hun- 

 dreds of French prisoners occupied during these years 

 the old tower and the powder magazine in Brownlow 

 Hill.«™ 



The profits of privateering, however, great as they 

 were, were a poor consolation for the almost com- 

 plete destruction of trade. The declaration of peace 

 was immediately followed by a great revival, and the 

 decade, 1783—93, was an era of amazingly rapid 

 advance.'"' The French Revolutionary War did not 

 at first interrupt this advance, but rather accentu- 

 ated it. Though it at first caused a commercial panic, 

 which rendered necessary the issue of Corporation 

 notes under Parliamentary powers,™* this was tempo- 

 rary only ; and the port gained far more by the 

 destruction of French trade than it lost by the dislo- 

 cation of its commerce caused by the war. At the 

 outset of the war privateering was again actively under- 

 taken ;*"' but it never attained the same dimensions 

 as during the American War, because there were not 

 so many idle vessels to welcome this mode of employ- 

 ment ; and after a few years privateering almost 

 ceased, for the very satisfactory reason that there 

 were so few ships belonging to France and her allies 

 on the seas as to make it an unprofitable enter- 

 prise. ™° French privateers made the seas dangerous, 

 and trading vessels had to be prepared to fight 

 unless they sailed in large convoys ; ™ many hun- 

 dreds, perhaps thousands, of Liverpool sailors were 

 captured by the enemy and peopled French prisons, 

 from which they sometimes made daring escapes *°' 

 On the other hand French prisoners in large num- 

 bers (4,009 in 1799) were immured in the gaol in 

 Great Howard Street, and formed a feature of Liver- 

 pool life.™ 



Deprived to a large extent of the excitement of 

 privateering, the military enthusiasm of the turbulent 

 Liverpool population found other vents. The press- 

 gang was a continual terror, and its ravages frequently 

 passed all reasonable bounds.^'" The fort was strength- 

 ened and armed with fifty guns, while batteries were 

 erected at the mouths of the docks.'" Large forces of 

 volunteers and yeomanry were raised;'" in 1804 

 180 officers and 3,686 men were reviewed."' A 



583 Williams, op. cit. 172 and passim. 



SS4 Picton, Liv. Munic. Rec. ii, 120; 

 Derrick, Letters from Li-u, &c. 



S85 Williams, op. cit. App. iii, 665. 



'S6 Mr. Williams has collected a large 

 -amount of material bearing upon this 

 period, op. cit. 79-178. 



587 Williams, op. cit. 127 ff. 



'88 Brooke, Liv, in the last quarter of the 

 xviii Cent. 365-6 ; Williams, op. cit. 223, 

 362 ; Mahan, /«/?. ofSea-foiver. 



589 Nevertheless, it "was carried on not 

 without success; cf. Hist. MSS. Com. Rep. 

 .XV, App. vi, 371. 



'5" ire. General Advertiser, 29 Sept. 

 1775. 



591 Williams, op. cit. i8i. 



5'" Brooke, Li-u. in the last quarter of the 

 jcviii Cent. 328 fF, 



598 Hist. MSS. Com. Rep. xv, App. v, i S 2. 



59* Picton, Rec. ii, 18 1-3 ; Brooke, 



op. cit. 371. 



595 Brooke, Liv. in the last quarter 

 of the xviii Cent. 339, 379; Amer. MS. 

 in Royal Inst. (Hist. MSS. Com.), i, 

 178. 



59* Brooke, op. cit. 372 ; Williams, op. 

 cit. 319. 



697 Williams, op. cit. 189-302, collects 

 many examples from contemporary news- 

 papers and other sources. 



598 Ibid. 183. 



599 Ibid. 20. 



«»» Ibid. 183. 



511 St. Vincent Gaaette, 7 Mar. 1778, 

 apud Williams, 215, 



'"2 Brooke, op. cit. 135. 



595 Thus the number of ships engaged 

 in the slave trade, which had sunk as low 

 as II (tonnage 1,205) '" 1779, rose at 



31 



once to 85 (12,294) in 1783, and to 132 

 (22,4.02) in 1792. 



SM 33 Geo. Ill, cap. 31 ; Picton, Liv. 

 Munic. Rec. ii, 25 1-2 ; Hughes, Li-v. Banks 

 and Bankers, 144-58. 



COS Williams, op. cit. 315. 



595 Ibid. 316. 



597 Williams, op. cit. 306 ; Picton, Liv, 

 Munic. Rec. ii, 189. 



598 Seacome Ellison, Prison Scenes, gives 

 a typical narrative of such an escape. 



599 Brooke, op. cit. 489 ; Troughton, 

 Hist. Liv. 226. 



610 Williams, op. cit. passim ; for a 

 peculiarly flagrant episode, see Liv. Ad- 

 vertiser, 19 May 1794. 



511 Picton, Liv. Munic. Rec. ii, 254, 

 287. 



512 Brooke, op. cit. 434. 



515 Liv. Advertiser, 11 Jan. 1804. 



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