• Stammers, M, K, "Guineamen": Some Technical Aspects of Slave Ships, in Tibbles, Anthony (ed.), Transatlantic Slavery: Against Human Dignity, HMSO, 1994
  • 35        . . . three-masted sailing rig. In its basic form, this carried square sails on the bowsprit projecting ahead of the ship and on the fore and main masts, and a triangular fore-and-aft lateen sail on the mizzen mast at the stern.  . . . Spare baulks of timber lashed on the deck could be fashioned into replacement masts and spars after storm damage, and bolts of spare canvas could be cut and sewn into new sails.
    
    38        . . .  During the eighteenth century . . . masts increased in height for topgallant and royal sails. Light-weather sails known as studding sails . . . extended out on spars from the normal sails. . . .'reef points' . . . were short lengths of rope sewn into the sails by which the area of sail could be reduced to stop the vessel labouring in an increasing wind.  
    
    39        . . . the average size of Liverpool vessels . . . 1785(:) under 140 tons burthern.
    
    40        'frigate built' . . . meant she was built with a raised after deck. . . it gave the master and crew a raised position of defence against revolt, which was reinforced with swivel guns and a barricade whilst at anchor off the West African coast. . .  The last quarter of the eighteenth century witnessed . . . the introduction of copper sheathing.  . . . Iron anchor cables . . . were available from about 1800 though rare in merchant ships.

OTHER REFERENCES

Clarkson, Thomas,The History of the Rise, Progress and Accomplishment of the Abolition of the African Slave Trade London 1808

Clarkson. T, Essay on Impolicy of the African Slave Trade, 1788

Dow, George Francis, Slave ships and slaving, 1927, Westport, Conn.: Negro Universities Press, 1970.

Uden, G and R. Cooper, Dictionary of British Ships and Seamen