I developed this project over a fifteen-year period in three different countries, and so I owe thanks to a lot of people across the globe. The seed of this book was planted at Victoria University of Wellington, New Zealand, where I had enrolled as an undergraduate in history after abandoning a career as an accountant in the United Kingdom. I thought I had put accounting behind me when I emigrated, but I discovered that the skills that I had developed when analyzing businesses in the English Midlands proved equally useful for studying the accounts of an eighteenth-century Liverpool slave trader. I owe my entry into slave trade studies to Steve Behrendt, who drew me into the subject through his passionate undergrad teaching at Vic and then his expert supervision of my M.A. James Camp-bell, Malcolm Craig, Michael Devine, and Kate Jordan were also great friends and colleagues in Vic's M.A. program, and I was also fortunate to receive guidance from Vic's faculty, especially Dolores Janiewski and Glyn Parry. My time in New Zealand was a particularly happy period thanks to the friendship of Josh and Alanah Clark, Geoff Hayward, Scott and Hannah Radburn, and Nick Ruane.