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Ireland and the Making of Britain
pregnancy in the hope that they might thus fetch a higher
price from the Irish merchants and owners of estates to
whom they were to be consigned. 1
The commerce was
brisk "day after day they were exposed for sale, and
day after day they were sold." 2
Writers like William of Malmesbury make it clear
that there were numerous slave-markets throughout
England, and numerous ports whence the slaves were
shipt, but Bristol, being directly opposite Ireland where
families were habituated to the use and ownership of
English slaves, and being convenient to the aborigines
of the English hinterland who served as merchandise in
the traffic, was the chief port of embarkation. 3
It appears
that the Irish and continental merchants were able to pay
three or four times the rate that ruled in England where
the native chattel was cheap and where poverty was rife.
The traffic appeared quite the natural thing to the English
themselves, who knew no better and who resented the efforts
to rid them of a vice which brought them profit. Franco-
Norman writers are however unmeasured in their pro-
tests and in their expressions of horror over it, and particularly
over the depravity involving so many unnatural
forms of vice.*
The canker had eaten its way into the national life at
an early date so that even church dignitaries thought
themselves justified in enslaving their compatriots. .Thus
i Ancillasque prius ludibrio lecti habitas jamque praegnantes venum pro-
ponebant (Ibid.).
2Cotidie prostitui, cotidie venitari (Ibid.).
3 Vicus est maritlmus Brichstou dictus, a quo rector cursu in Hiberniam
transmittitur, ideoque lllius terrae barbariei accomodus. Hujus indigenae
cum caeteris ex Anglia cause mercimontii saepae in Hiberniam annavigant.
Homines enim ex omni Anglia coemptos majoris spe quaestus in Hiberniam
distrahebant. (Anglia Sacra II, p. 258.)
4 Facinus execrandum, dedecus miserabile, nee belluini affectus memores
homines, necessitudines suas, ipsum postremo sanguinem suam servituti addicere.
(Anglia Sacra II, p. 258.)
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