William Gregson (slave trader)

Gregson embarked over half of his enslaved people from the Bight of Biafra, which is today part of the Gulf of Guinea.

[8] The decision was overturned on appeal, the judge at the trial, Lord Mansfield, insisted that the "Case of Slaves was the same as if Horses had been thrown overboard".

The massacre became "an emblematic way of highlighting the callous rapacity of slave-traders, and the calculated murder of innocent enslaved Africans".

[11] In 1787, the Liverpool Council became concerned with the growth of the slave trade abolition movement and they petitioned Parliament against its regulation.

In 1788, the Liverpool Council stated to Parliament "that the trade had been legally and uninterruptedly carried on for centuries past by many of [H]is Majesty's subjects, with advantages to the country, both important and extensive; but had lately been unjustly reprobated as impolitic and inhuman.

[14][15] A contemporary account says: "Mr Gregson fancied the public road outside his property came too near the front of his house.

The overseer of highways, willing to oblige so magnificent a personage, consented to alter it so as to give adequate space in front of the mansion.