The Forgotten Trade is slave-trading, and this volume is based largely on the 1700 log of an English ship, the Daniel and Henry, and on accounts and entries from various minor British ports in the early 18th century. It was, of course, an infamous business, and to be fair to them, a number of merchants or seamen-adventurers found one slaving voyage enough or more than enough for a lifetime. The high death rate among the chained-up Africans seems to have been due mainly to dehydration, though too many skippers regarded it as sheer perversity on the part of the slaves rather than as a reflection on themselves. There is a great amount of detail, and rather too few clarifying outlines of the whole noxious business, but the material is still fascinating and shows how easily men can numb their consciences when profit calls.
