Morice’s Catastrophe, 1728–1731 and Beyond

Matthew David Mitchell ()
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Matthew David Mitchell: Sewanee: The University of the South

Chapter Chapter 6 in The Prince of Slavers, 2020, pp 185-216 from Palgrave Macmillan

Abstract: Abstract By the late 1720s, Morice’s increasing debts in the colonies; uncertainty in the slave-supply markets in the Bight of Benin and the slave-demand markets of Brazil; and the high cost of the multiple-ship system all combined to undermine his finances. His ultimate nemesis, though, was the rising competition from the Dutch Republic and from Bristol, whose lower costs allowed them to undersell his captains and condemn his ships to disastrously long loading in the African slaving ports throughout 1731. His desperation at the failure of his system of trade drove him first to embezzlement on a grand scale from the Bank of England, and then to death by probable suicide, leaving his family and assorted creditors to grab what they could of his insolvent estate.

Date: 2020
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DOI: 10.1007/978-3-030-33839-8_6

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