Mehuru captures Frances’ attention particularly adept and comprehending the nuances of the English language, he serves as a facilitator with the other slaves. The most impressive of this group, Mehuru, a priest in his native land now reduced to the property of the whites. It is her job to take the Africans in hand, teaching them the rudiments of language to increase their value as house servants as opposed to being sold to work on plantations.

With no security, Frances eagerly makes her bargain with Josiah, haunted by her need for a safe place in society.Īs Josiah sends his newly purchased ships in search of more human cargo, the first group is brought to Frances. However, when Josiah enters into a purely financial marriage with Frances Scott, it is with an eye to combining his skills with her excellent social contacts. Josiah Cole, a Bristol merchant, has long desired to increase his cargo and take advantage of the surge in economic growth, somewhat kept in check by his sister, Sarah. The merchant class is expanding trade boundaries, exporting and importing plantation goods, the most enormous profits from trafficking in humans plundered from the Dark Continent.

The lucrative slave trade is the topic of Gregory’s reissued novel, set in Bristol, England in the prosperous late eighteenth century.

A respectable trade by philippa gregory