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Baldwin, Samuel.
From the library of a Liverpool slave trader. A Survey of the British Customs; containing the Rates of Merchandise As established by 12. Car. II C.4, II Geo. I. C. 7, and other Statutes; with Tables of the Net Duties, Drawbacks, Bounties, &.c payable thereon, Under all Circumstances of Importation and Exportation. Also a Distinct and Practical Account of The Several Branches of the Revenue called the Customs. With an Appendix, containing an Abstract of all the Laws now in force relative to the Customs. The whole continued to the End of the Session of 9. Geo. III.
Publisher: Printed for J. Nourse, Bookseller in Ordinary to His Majesty, opposite Catherine-Street, in the Strand, London;
Date of Publication: 1770
Stock Code: 15123
First edition, first state. Quarto, pp., [4], ix, [3], 228; [2], 304, [4] of contents, sig., [pi]² a-c² B-E⁴ F-3H²; [A]1 B-C⁴ [D]² E-4F² a². Collated and complete. Arranged in two parts with separate half-titles, pagination, and registration. Contemporary full calf, spine on five raised bands, blind rolls to edges, all edges dyed red. With the contemporary ownership inscription of the Liverpool slaver trader ‘Tho[mas] Leyland’ to front free end-paper. Some loss to head and tail of spine, wear to corners, joints cracked but holding well. Leather appears to have been refurbished at some point. Soiling to front endpapers, some marginal browning to first few leaves but generally a clean copy. A rare volume gathering tables of rates, laws and regulations, and indexes on goods for the purposes of customs. Adam Smith used the book as a reference source for Wealth and Nations (1770), and he kept a copy in his private library (See Adam Smith’s Library, 130). This copy is from the library of Thomas Leyland (c. 1752-1827), slave owner, banker, merchant and three times Lord mayor of Liverpool. Upon his death, as a result of his dealings in human chattel, Leyland was one of the richest men in England. Leyland’s ships transported approximately 22,365 enslaved Africans to the Americas. The regulation of the trade in kidnapped and enslaved African people and the goods resulting from plantations in the Caribbean and North America were a central task of customs and excise in this period. This copy would have been a regularly used source for Leyland, who made his wealth both from slave ships and from the trade in goods including liquor, china, textiles, arms, tobacco, wine, rum, sugar, sailcloth, and iron. The extensive tables on the regulation of the plantation trade and rated goods more generally would have been essential reference sources for a merchant with a large and diverse business. Leyland’s archive is divided between Liverpool County Archive, Liverpool University Library, the HSBC archives, and the University of Michigan. This book was a practical working document in the trade in enslaved people, which warrants being placed in conversation with Leyland’s wider documentary record. Kress states that the second state of the work, with a second Appendix, was issued in 1774.


£1250.00