Volume Thirteen - Pre-Victorian to the Present Day - even more aspects - Slavery - echoes of the past . . . .

Andrew Williams [1357] continues : -

There are several direct records of his involvement in the slavery business, for instance, in 1781 he worked for John Ashley, owner of Ashley Hall plantation in Vere parish. In March 1781 Hargreaves brokered an attempted sale of the estate “with or without 50 negroes and 50 head of stock” (Gazette of Saint Jago).

In October he helped coordinate the search for an enslaved person, Sawney, who had run away from Ashley Hall four years previously. According to the newspaper notice, Sawney was aged about 23 and blind in one eye. He had “learnt to be a very good tailor” since escaping the plantation and he usually wore Dutch beads and a sailor’s outfit (Royal Gazette D). Sawney’s fate is not known but an enslaved person by that name was recorded in Kingston Workhouse in 1786 and in Spanish Town Workhouse in 1791 belonging to two different slave-owners (Chambers 2013, 230, 267).

Hargreaves also loaned three bonds to Ashley worth £1,000 each and a mortgage on Ashley Hall was granted in security. The bonds were payable with interest on the Royal Exchange in the City of London on 1 July 1785, 1786 and 1787 respectively.

On the 23rd July 1794 John Ashley, the plantation owner, wrote to Hargreaves about his situation, explaining: I do not pretend to infer from this that I owe but a little money as from late improvements, purchase of adjoining land, and a great many negroes. I still owe a good deal of money – and from the experience I have had in the great sales you have made from the small quantities of sugar you have hitherto had from me, makes me wish to be once more a correspondent of yours. [Cumbria Archives - BDX 209/7/5/19]

George Law transferred his half of the mortgages on Pusey Hall and Ashley Hall to Hargreaves in 1796. The same year, Richard Batty died, and Pusey Hall became the property of John Pusey Edwardes. Edwardes’ total debt to Hargreaves was calculated at £14,000: £4,681 11s was the remainder of the mortgage, and £9,381 9s was the remainder of Batty’s account with Hargreaves. Deeds of defeasance were also executed on both mortgages, with the products from both plantations consigned to Hargreaves until 1800 in the case of Pusey Hall, and 1803 in the case of Ashley Hall.