More information : 'The MANCHESTER . . . the QUESTER and HOPEWELL, for Africa, the MONMOUTH . . . and the TRAFFORDS . . . were drove ashore at Leverpool in the late gale of wind, and all their cargoes damaged: considerable damage is done to the small craft . . . ' (2)
'Extract of a Letter from Liverpool, March 18.
'On Tuesday Morning, about Nine o'Clock, a violent Gale of Wind, at West, preceded by a dreadful Roaring of the Sea, arose here. At Ten it blew a Storm, and about Eleven veered to the WNW and was attended with such heavy Squalls of Wind that the oldest Person here don't remember the like. The Sloop DUKE, Thomas Deaz, for Drogheda; a River Sloop TARLTON, for Preston; and Brigantine, QUESTER, Potter, for Africa, sunk; Brigantine DROGHEDA MERCHANT, James Hays, for Drogheda, and the Brigantine MANCHESTER, Randle M'Donald, for Londonderry, overset, sunk, and were stranded all of them opposite to the Town.' (8)
Source (8) suggests, therefore, that the date of the storm was 15-MAR-1757.
'Extract of a Letter from Liverpool, March 18.
'I mentioned in my last a violent Gale of Wind on Tuesday last, in which . . . the QUESTER, Potter, for Africa, sunk.' (9)
QUESTER, brigantine of 20 tons, 38 standardised tonnage, built 1752 in Philadelphia, registered in Liverpool 1757; left Liverpool 18-FEB-1757; shipwrecked before embarkation of slaves. (5) The same vessel, with a change of ownership,* left Liverpool on 13-JUN-1757, for the Windward Coast, shipping slaves to St. Eustatius in the Dutch Caribbean. (6)
*A change of ownership was common following a wrecking incident in which the vessel was recovered, and represents an enforced sale or injection of funds to cover the cost of recovery, repair, and refit. (7)
Master: William Potter (5)(6); Potter (8)(9)
Crew: 12 (5)
Owners: pre-wreck, Richard Powell, John Blackburn, Peter Leay, William Potter (5); post-wreck, William Crosbie, John Crosbie, Richard Trafford, William Trafford, Thomas Chalmers, William Rankine, and Hugh Pringle (6); thereafter in French hands (6)
Date of Loss Qualifier: Reporting date of incident.
Additional sources cited in Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade Database:
David Richardson, Katherine Beedham, and M M Schofield, Liverpool Shipping and Trade, 1744-1786, ESRC Archives, University of Essex, 1992 (5) and (6);
Gomer Williams, History of the Liverpool Privateers and Letters of Marque, with an Account of the Liverpool Slave Trade, London, 1897, pp127, 165 |