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130 people thrown overboard, then insured
A captured ship
The Zorg began as a Dutch ship, captured off Liberia by a British captain licensed to prey on enemy vessels during the American Revolutionary War, then sold at Cape Coast Castle to a Liverpool captain named Hanley. He paid with an IOU in the name of William Gregson, a wealthy slave merchant, moved half his crew aboard, and loaded 440 Africans onto a vessel meant for about 300.
The voyage goes wrong
That same day, the other governors had thrown Robert Stubbs out of his fort at Anomabu, and he took refuge on the Zorg. When the captain fell sick, command went to Stubbs, who put the ship off course. A crossing that should take two months ran past three. Stubbs mistook Jamaica for Hispaniola and sailed three days beyond it, with no water left, 11 crew, and about 70 Africans already dead. Over three days, women and children first, 130 to 140 captives were thrown overboard to drown.
The insurance trial
Gregson had insured the captives at 30 pounds a head, and every slave ship carried insurance, which made Lloyd's of London the leading underwriter of them. Policies paid for deaths in an insurrection, not for natural deaths or suicides, and nobody had tested what happened when captives were thrown overboard. The insurers refused, Gregson sued, and Stubbs was the only witness. He testified that the Africans had to go over the side or everyone would have died, and the court ruled for the merchants.
How did privateers get licensed to capture ships?
Governments issued documents called letters of marque that authorized private ship owners to seize enemy vessels in wartime. Captured ships and cargo went before a prize court, which ruled on the legality of the capture and ordered the sale. The proceeds were split among the owners, officers, and crew according to agreed shares. Many nations renounced privateering in the 1856 Declaration of Paris, though the United States never signed it.
How could a captain mistake Jamaica for Hispaniola?
In the 1780s no ship could measure its longitude reliably without a precise clock, so east-west position was estimated by dead reckoning. Marine chronometers existed but were rare and costly, and merchant ships seldom carried them. Jamaica lies roughly 100 miles west of Hispaniola, so a navigator whose estimate was off by that distance could take one island for the other. Both are large, mountainous islands in the northern Caribbean.
How does maritime law treat jettisoned cargo?
Maritime law long recognized the principle of general average, under which cargo deliberately thrown overboard to save a ship was a loss shared among everyone whose property was saved. The principle traces back to ancient Rhodian sea law. Lawyers for the owners framed the loss of the captives in those terms, as property sacrificed for the safety of the voyage. Marine policies of the period commonly listed jettison among the perils they covered.
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