quarter, and one by one the strongholds which Rupert had gained in Lancashire were recovered by the Parliamentary troops. Liverpool was besieged by Sir John Meldrum, who reduced it to great straits. But the Royalist officers held out manfully, and would not yield. Whereupon certain traitors, fifty in number, went over to Sir John, with a quantity of cattle; and the residue being mostly Irish, and fearful if the town were stormed that they would get no quarter, secretly conspired, and, seizing their commanders, gave them up with the place to the enemy. Sir John Meldrum thus took two colonels, two lieutenantcolonels, three majors, fourteen captains, and great store of ordnance, arms, and ammunition. After this, Liverpool took no further part in the civil war. The Parliament, to compensate its citizens for their losses, gave the corporation the rights of ferry across the Mersey, once held, as we have seen, by the monks of Birkenhead. Besides this, it granted 500 tons of timber towards rebuilding the town, which timber was to be felled upon the estates of the principal malignant Cavaliers of Lancashire; and later on gave a lump sum of £10,000, with the confirmation of the charters and liberties of the town.

But the time was now approaching when Liverpool was to enter upon its great career of commercial prosperity. The difficulties of navigation, however, continued great. The channel up to the port was neither buoyed nor beaconed as it is now with numerous splendid light-houses, such as the Formby and the Perch Rock light, better known as the New Brighton Light-house, on the Cheshire side. To the dangers of entrance, through which strange ships were frequently cast away with loss of crews and cargoes, were added those of the port, in which vessels could not lie with safety. The first step towards remedying these evils was the excavation of the old dock, which was commenced in 1699, and the Marlborough, which entered it on the 8th of June, 1700, was the first ship to use it. This dock was completed under permission from Parliament nine years later, when a special Act provided that a duty "shall be imposed for twenty-one years [from Midsummer, 1710] upon the tonnage of all ships trading to or from Liverpool to any port of Great Britain or Ireland, as well as to or from foreign countries, for making a wet dock." The trade of Liverpool was so far principally coastwise, the shipping of light burthen and not numerous. In 1710 the number frequenting the port was 84; but within six years, owing to increased facilities, it rose to 113.

Another trade was developed in the commencement of the eighteenth century, from which Liverpool was to gain great wealth, although but little honour. In the year 1709 the first slave-ship sailed from Liverpool for the African coast. It was but a small adventure, as the ship weighed only thirty tons, but the returns were so satisfactory that the vessels employed rapidly increased in size and number. By 1753 eighty-eight ships were engaged in the slave trade, and carried in all upwards of 25,000 slaves from Africa westward. In 1760 the aggregate trade of Liverpool with Guinea and the West Indies exceeded that of London. Ere long nearly everybody in the place, directly or indirectly, was concerned in the traffic. One street in the town where sales were effected was nicknamed Negro Street, and the following is one of many such notices still preserved :

"TO BE SOLD, at St. George's Coffee-house, a very fine Negro Girl, about eight years of age, very healthy, and has been some time from the Coast."

The trade was threefold. Liverpool exported woollen and hardware goods from Manchester

and Sheffield, which were bartered on the Coast for slaves, and these again were exchanged in the West Indies for rum and sugar.

When the storm for abolition of the slave trade was raised in England, the outcry was treated in Liverpool as mere affectation and cant. Colonel Tarleton, M.P., one of the Liverpool members, in one of the innumerable debates upon the subject, enlarged upon the injustice of depriving the Liverpool merchants of a business on which were founded their honour and their fortunes. He praised the slave trade as a nursery for seamen. He ignored the horrors of the "middle passage," the dreadful sufferings endured by the living cargoes, crowded to excess, chained heavily, and flogged if they murmured. According to him the practice was decidedly beneficent, because

it tended to relieve Africa from the chance of famine from overcrowding, and held out to her the blessings of prospective civilisation through her intercourse with Europeans. The championship of a trade which was so lucrative was naturally very keen in Liverpool itself. Clarkson, the philanthropist, who visited the place in prosecution of his great crusade to secure abolition, gives a vivid picture of the way in which he was received and his great cause ridiculed. He found people more hardened than at Bristol, though horrible facts were on every lip concerning the trade. The Liverpool merchants talked quite coolly, and without the slightest feeling, defending the trade both as to its humanity and its policy. But then the trade at Liverpool was four times greater than at Bristol. Clarkson became known, and the object of his visit, which did not gain him much favour. People came to the "King's Arms," where he lodged and dined at the ordinary, to stare at him like a wild beast. They continually sought to draw him into controversy, and to irritate him. They justified the trade, and talked contemptuously of men going about preaching abolition who had much better have stayed at home. Others said they had heard of a madman who thought of destroying Liverpool and all its glory. "Some," Clarkson writes, "gave the toast Success to the trade,' and then laughed immoderately, and watched me when I took my glass, to see if I would drink." Clarkson, however, held his ground and kept his temper. He resolved never to begin the discussion, and never to abandon it when commenced. He fought the fight practically single-hand. He could get no countenance and support even from those who agreed with him. They were afraid to speak their minds in Liverpool. He continued, however, to collect his evidence fearlessly, and, seeking out witnesses among the seamen who had made voyages to the Coast, his enemies, seeing them come and go from the inn, became the more incensed against him, and called upon the landlord of the "King's Arms" not to harbour him in the house. But the landlord refused to turn him out, and encouraged Clarkson to persevere. Then

those interested in the trade grew still more furious. They sent him threatening letters anonymously, assuring him that if he did not leave Liverpool soon he would never leave it alive. He was forced to be most vigilant. He never went out at night, and by daylight was always armed. Once as he stood watching the waves at the end of the pier during a gale of wind, a number of malcontents made a rush at him, and but for his quickness would have thrown him into the sea.

Clarkson was not the only one, however, who in Liverpool raised his voice against the traffic in slaves. Roscoe, who was a native of the place, very early in his famous literary career reproached Liverpool with the trade. He published "An Original View of the African

Slave Trade" as early as 1787, demonstrating its injustice and impolicy, and making suggestions for its abolition. But before this, in his poem "Mount Pleasant," which was really meant to describe Liverpool, he dilates upon the wrongs of the African-"the style," says Hartley Coleridge, in his "Lancashire Worthies," " rising to an indignant fervour, which is something better than poetical." That a young and hitherto undistinguished clerk should have ventured so boldly to denounce the traffic to which Liverpool owed so much of her prosperity showed no small courage. This will account for Roscoe's being held in so little esteem in his own town. Although they might well have been proud of him as a fellow townsman whose literary achievements had won him renown wherever English literature was read, they owed him a grudge for his outspoken denunciations of "the trade." The ultra-Tories hated him. They had large estates in the West Indies, and apostrophised him as a meddler, a busybody, and a mischief-monger, who in attacking the slave trade attacked their vested interests, and desired to destroy the trade and prosperity of Liverpool. He was nevertheless

GROWTH OF TRADE WITH AMERICA.

297 a prosperous and successful man, who had the courage of his convictions, and who did much for his native town. He was an avowed Liberal, and was in some danger during the time of the French Revolution, when the terrors it inspired in this country drove people to the other extreme of slavish and excessive loyalty to the throne. Any person who spoke out fearlessly as the champion of freedom was in the minority, and often ran the risk of indignity, even of outrage. Roscoe, Dr. Currie, and W. Shepherd, all of cultured tastes, had formed a literary society in Liverpool; but they were compelled to dissolve it, lest their meetings should be wrongly interpreted and their intentions misrepresented to the Government of the day. It was Roscoe who mainly established the Athenæum in Church Street, although Dr. Rutter first projected it; Roscoe also established a botanical garden which greatly prospered. He was returned for Parliament, and sat during the short session in which the abolition of the slave trade was decreed. This was the Administration which was called the Cabinet of all the talents. Roscoe, after the dissolution, on his return to Liverpool was nearly torn in pieces by an infuriated mob. His cortége of carriages was denied admission along Castle Street, and he was beaten at the election.

But the cessation of the slave trade did not ruin Liverpool. It had always had other irons in the fire. Privateering, which had been very brisk and was very remunerative during the latter half of the eighteenth century, continued to bring in large returns through the French war. Now also the American trade rose rapidly to great proportions. "New channels of enterprise were continually opened up. The most powerful of these was the warehousing system, which gave all the advantages of a free port to one possessing so many natural advantages. It was followed by the practical opening of the trade to the East Indies; next by the introduction of steam navigation; and during late years by the complete abolition of the East India Company's monopoly. In addition to these causes, the rapid advance of our original descendants in the New World in wealth and population has called into operation an intercourse chiefly carried on through this port. Lastly, with her skilful engineers, and fortunate position as the outport of a country abounding in mineral fuel, she holds the sinews of that mighty power which is extending its conquests over the wide world; walking the waters through storm and calm and bridging the Atlantic itself."*

The gradual accretion of wealth brought many families to the front, and added largely to that illustrious roll of merchant-princes who had made England the richest nation in the world. Among the names best known in Liverpool during the earlier years of the present century, names which are still borne by worthy representatives, are those of the *Colonial Magazine.

Aspinals, Drinkwaters, Branches, Harpers, Cases, Hollinsheads, and others. There were three families styled respectively Hill, Lake, and Littledale, so that a wag said once on observing members of each present, and a fourth named Wood also of the company, that they had the materials of an exquisite landscape-Hill, Lake, Wood, and Littledale. Of one of the Woods, whose Christian name was Ottiwell, a good story is told. Being in court, the judge asked him to spell his name, when he replied that he spelt it "O double T, I double U, E double L, double U, double O, D." The Gladstones, again, have long been in high repute in Liverpool. Sir John Gladstone, the father of our ex-Premier, the Right Honourable William Ewart Gladstone, sat for years as member for the borough, and was highly esteemed in the House of Commons as a great authority upon commercial legislation, whose advice was constantly sought by the Ministry of the day. He was said to be one of the shrewdest merchants on 'Change; an excellent man of business, who guessed almost intuitively the best markets in which to buy, and who thus amassed considerable wealth.

Two Liverpool stories are worthy of reproduction. On one occasion the mayor and corporation, honest hospitable souls, were entertaining Prince William of Gloucester (who commanded the troops) at a banquet, and were so much delighted by his appetite that one of them exclaimed, "Eat away, your Royal Highness; there's plenty more in the kitchen!" It was during the visit of this prince that one Jonas Bold was mayor. The prince and his staff once attended the same church as the corporation, and the decorum of all present was sorely tried by the curious coincidence that the preacher had selected for his text the words, "Behold, a greater than Jonas is here."

The present aspect of the second greatest commercial city in England is what might have been expected from the rapid and giant strides it has made. Its architectural features fully correspond with its financial progress and importance. In no other town in England have efforts more praiseworthy been made to improve and beautify it. Vested interests and a conservative spirit may, no doubt, here and there have perpetuated somewhat mean and sordid reminiscences of its former mediocrity. Side by side with the most sumptuous edifices, on which neither money nor talent has been spared, are occasionally still to be seen houses, unpretending, almost squalid, which should have long since been removed. Exactly in front and within a stone's-throw of St. George's Hall-a splendid public building, of which more directly-there still remains a group of poverty-stricken houses, small shops for the sale of petroleum, second-rate cigar divans, "a pail bazaar, an eating-house, the turning into a narrow dingy street called Livesley Place, two or three old public-housesthe Warrior's Rest' and the Angel,' to wit-and Bentley's book-store, most of which specimens of the domestic and commercial architecture of the last age are made still more garish by enormous announcements of the wares dealt in by their proprietors permanently painted upon them in huge black letters."

Nevertheless the Corporation of Liverpool, pending the advent of some new Haussmann to deal in broader touches with the existing raw material, have never failed to do all in their power to improve. No less than three millions of money have been expended in this way during the last eighty years. The streets may still, most of them, lack the grandeur of great length, but the best are no longer narrow, their direction is calculated to utilise them to the full as main arteries of traffic, and no enterprise or expense has