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The South Sea Company

The British chartered joint-stock corporation of 1711, created to convert and manage a large tranche of the national debt and holding from 1713 the Spanish Asiento to supply enslaved Africans to Spanish America, whose shares drove the South Sea Bubble of 1720; a slave-trading and Atlantic commercial interest of the pirate years rather than an organ of piracy suppression.

From1711Tothe 1850sAlso writtenSouth Sea Company; SSC; The Governor and Company of the Merchants of Great Britain trading to the South Seas and other parts of America; The Governor and Company of the Merchants of Great Britain trading to the South Seas and other parts of America and for the Encouragement of the Fishery

The South Sea Company was a chartered joint-stock corporation of the City of London, created by an Act of the 1710 to 1711 session which received the royal assent from Queen Anne on 12 June 1711. Its formal style was the Governor and Company of the Merchants of Great Britain trading to the South Seas and other parts of America and for the Encouragement of the Fishery. Despite the name, the Act that made it joined the public finances to a trading monopoly, providing for the making good of deficiencies and the satisfying of the public debts as well as for a corporation to carry on a trade to the South Seas; and by the Asiento signed by the King of Spain at Madrid in March 1713 the subjects of Great Britain obtained the contract to import enslaved Africans into Spanish America.1

It is here as context, not as jurisdiction. It did not try, pardon or police pirates as a vice-admiralty court or a colonial governor did. It belonged to the Atlantic slave-trading world pirates preyed upon.2

The 1711 charter

The enabling legislation was an Act of the 1710 to 1711 session entitled "An Act for making good Deficiencies, and satisfying the Public Debts; and for erecting a Corporation to carry on a Trade to The South Seas; and for the Encouragement of the Fishery; and for Liberty to trade in unwrought Iron with the Subjects of Spain; and to repeal the Acts for registering Seamen", which received the royal assent from Queen Anne on Tuesday 12 June 1711. Unsecured government debt was converted into company stock: holders became shareholders, the company drew interest from the Exchequer, and it took a monopoly of British trade to the South Seas. The Journal of the House of Lords gives no chapter number for it. The monopoly was speculative, since Spain admitted no general foreign commerce in its American ports.3

Who ran it

The company was governed by a Sub-Governor, a Deputy-Governor and a body of Directors, served by a Deputy-Cashier and an Accomptant. Membership was shareholding, and the company's house of business in the City of London was known as the South Sea House. The number of the directors, and the standing of any governorship above them, are not established here.4

The Asiento and the annual ship

The settlement that ended the War of the Spanish Succession brought Britain the Asiento in 1713. By the contract signed by the King of Spain at Madrid in March of that year the undertakers bound themselves to bring into the Spanish West Indies 144,000 enslaved Africans, described as piezas de India of both sexes and all ages, in thirty years commencing on 1 May 1713 and determining in 1743, at the rate of 4,800 a year; Cartagena, Portobello, Panama and Buenos Ayres are among the ports the contract names. Spain further allowed one ship of five hundred tons a year to trade to the Indies through those thirty years, the annual ship, contested continually. Hostilities with Spain in 1718 and 1719 interrupted both trades. The contract does not name the company, and the supply from the Royal African Company is not established here.5

The Bubble

In 1720 the company offered to absorb a still larger share of the national debt, and its shares became the object of a speculative mania. In June Parliament passed the Act commonly called the Bubble Act, entitled "An Act for better securing certain Powers and Privileges, intended to be granted by His Majesty by Two Charters, for Assurance of Ships and Merchandizes at Sea, and for lending Money upon Bottomry; and for restraining several extravagant and unwarrantable Practices therein mentioned", which received the royal assent on Saturday 11 June 1720. In 1721 Parliament required the late Sub-Governor, Deputy-Governor and Directors of the company, with its Deputy-Cashier and Accomptant, to deliver on oath full particulars and inventories of their estates as they stood on 1 June 1720 and of everything they had since disposed of, and these were printed. The peak and the fall of the share price, the findings of fraud and insider dealing, and Robert Walpole's part in the restructuring, rest on later accounts and are not established here.6

Where it touches piracy

The company's slaving voyages ran on the sea lanes pirates worked, the West African coast and the Caribbean approaches to the Spanish Main, and slave ships were prized takings for their captives, goods and specie. Scholarship on piracy and the slave trade on that coast between 1718 and 1723 documents the overlap. The tie to the Royal African Company put it inside the fortified-factory system that Bartholomew Roberts assaulted along the Guinea coast in 1721 and 1722.

What became of it

War from 1739, the War of Jenkins' Ear and then the War of the Austrian Succession, is reported to have ended the Asiento slaving in practice, the rights being formally relinquished by treaty later. It lasted over a century as a manager of government debt, wound up in the 1850s, reported as 1853. Its slaving record is now put at some 34,000 people embarked across about 96 voyages, a secondary estimate, not a count.

What the sources cannot yet give is the company's own paper. The chapter number of the founding Act, the slaving totals and any capture of a company ship by a golden-age pirate are not established, and want the High Court of Admiralty records, the state papers and the surviving company archive. The royal charter of 10 September 1711, the part of Robert Harley and of John Blunt, and the amount of debt converted are likewise not established. The terms of the Asiento come from the printed contract of 1713, and the Bubble year, the statute passed in June 1720 and the parliamentary reckoning that followed from the Journal of the House of Lords and the printed particulars and inventories of the directors' estates; the printed Acts themselves and the Commons papers have not been consulted.

What the evidence does not settle

South Sea Company's founding instruments

  • Whether the founding Act is 9 Anne chapter 21Confirmed
  • Whether the royal charter was dated 10 September 1711

South Sea Company ship taken by a pirate

  • Whether any named Company ship was captured by piratesUnverified

South Sea Company slave trade totals

  • About 34,000 people embarked across some 96 voyages

Each line is one question with its own grade, taken from the register where a claim carries it. Nothing here is graded as a whole.

Sources for this record

Every statement above that rests on a checked claim carries a small number; the numbers lead here. Each entry gives what is claimed, how far the record supports it, and where it comes from.

  1. The South Sea Company was created by an Act of the 1710 to 1711 session which received the royal assent from Queen Anne on 12 June 1711, and the Act's own title joins the public finances to a trading monopoly: an Act for making good deficiencies and satisfying the public debts, and for erecting a corporation to carry on a trade to the South Seas, and for the encouragement of the fishery. Separately, by the Asiento signed by the King of Spain at Madrid in March 1713, the subjects of Great Britain obtained the contract to import enslaved Africans into Spanish America. Confirmed Directly supported by the record. Parliamentary journal and printed treaty: Journal of the House of Lords, volume 19, sitting of Tuesday 12 June 1711 (pp. 321 to 323), read at British History Online, recording the titles read by the Clerk of the Crown of the bills to which the royal assent was pronounced, the first being "An Act for making good Deficiencies, and satisfying the Public Debts; and for erecting a Corporation to carry on a Trade to The South Seas; and for the Encouragement of the Fishery; and for Liberty to trade in unwrought Iron with the Subjects of Spain; and to repeal the Acts for registering Seamen"; and The Assiento, or Contract for Allowing to the Subjects of Great Britain the Liberty of Importing Negroes into the Spanish America, "Sign'd by the Catholick King at Madrid" in March 1713 and printed in London under royal licence given at Kensington 20 June 1713, read in the copy digitised by the Internet Archive (item cihm_28677). Neither document carries the chapter citation 9 Ann. c. 21, the royal charter of 10 September 1711, the promotion of the scheme by Harley and Blunt, the description of the company as an instrument of Tory financial policy, or the statement that the company itself worked the Asiento; those remain unverified. The text was read in a digitised scan; the long s and other letterforms are imperfectly rendered by the scan's optical text, and the quotations above reproduce that reading rather than a fresh transcription of the original type.
  2. The company's relevance to golden-age piracy is contextual rather than institutional: it was a leading node of the Atlantic slave-trading and commercial world that pirates preyed upon, and it did not try, pardon or police pirates as a vice-admiralty court or a colonial governor did. Unverified Reported, not yet checked against the record. Secondary sources: Black People under the Black Flag: Piracy and the Slave Trade on the West Coast of Africa, 1718 to 1723, in Slavery and Abolition, vol. 29, no. 4, 2008; the archive's research brief and cautions for this record
  3. The enabling legislation for the South Sea Company was an Act of the 1710 to 1711 session entitled "An Act for making good Deficiencies, and satisfying the Public Debts; and for erecting a Corporation to carry on a Trade to The South Seas; and for the Encouragement of the Fishery; and for Liberty to trade in unwrought Iron with the Subjects of Spain; and to repeal the Acts for registering Seamen", which received the royal assent from Queen Anne on Tuesday 12 June 1711. Confirmed Directly supported by the record. Parliamentary journal: Journal of the House of Lords, volume 19, "DIE Martis, 12 Junii" 1711 (pp. 321 to 323), read at British History Online: the Queen being seated on the throne, the Speaker delivered the money bills and "the Clerk of the Crown read the Titles of them, as also the Titles of the other Bills to be passed", the first being the Act quoted, to which "the Clerk of the Parliaments pronounced the Royal Assent". The Journal does not give a chapter number, so the citation 9 Ann. c. 21 is not verified here; nor are the promotion of the scheme by Robert Harley, the part of John Blunt, the figure of nine to ten million pounds of debt converted, or the royal charter dated 10 September 1711.
  4. The South Sea Company was governed by a Sub-Governor, a Deputy-Governor and a body of Directors, served by a Deputy-Cashier and an Accomptant, and its house of business in the City of London was known as the South Sea House. Confirmed Directly supported by the record. Printed parliamentary papers: The Particulars and Inventories of the Estates of the Late Sub-Governor, Deputy-Governor and Directors of the South-Sea Company; and of Robert Surman late Deputy-Cashier, and of John Grigsby late Accomptant of the said Company, volume I (London, printed for Jacob Tonson, Bernard Lintot and William Taylor, 1721), read in the copy digitised by the Internet Archive: each deponent swears as "one of the late Directors of the South Sea Company", and Surman's inventory covers his household goods "As they stood in his Apartment at the South-Sea House". The volume does not state the number of directors, does not say that the governorship was honorary or held by the monarch, and does not place the South Sea House in Threadneedle Street; those points remain unverified.
  5. By the Asiento signed by the King of Spain at Madrid in March 1713 the subjects of Great Britain undertook to bring into the Spanish West Indies 144,000 enslaved Africans, described as piezas de India of both sexes and all ages, in the space of thirty years commencing on 1 May 1713 and determining in 1743, at the rate of 4,800 a year, and Spain further allowed one ship of five hundred tons a year through those thirty years to trade to the Indies; Cartagena, Portobello, Panama and Buenos Ayres are among the ports named in the contract. Confirmed Directly supported by the record. Printed treaty: The Assiento, or Contract for Allowing to the Subjects of Great Britain the Liberty of Importing Negroes into the Spanish America, signed by the Catholick King at Madrid in March 1713, printed in London under royal licence given at Kensington 20 June 1713 and countersigned Dartmouth; read in the copy digitised by the Internet Archive (item cihm_28677). Article I binds the undertakers to bring in "One hundred and forty four thoufand Negroes, Piezas de India, of both Sexes, and of all Ages, at the Rate of Four thoufand and eight hundred Negroes, Piezas de India, in each of the faid Thirty years", the term "to Commence on the Firft Day of May, One thoufand feven hundred and thirteen"; the annual ship article allows "a Ship of Five hundred Tons Yearly" (Spanish: "vn Navio de quinientas toneladas, en cada vn ano"). The contract does not name the South Sea Company, does not mention the Royal African Company as supplier, and does not list Caracas, Havana or Veracruz as factory ports; those points remain unverified. The text was read in a digitised scan; the long s and other letterforms are imperfectly rendered by the scan's optical text, and the quotations above reproduce that reading rather than a fresh transcription of the original type.
  6. In June 1720, at the height of the South Sea affair, Parliament passed the Act commonly called the Bubble Act, entitled "An Act for better securing certain Powers and Privileges, intended to be granted by His Majesty by Two Charters, for Assurance of Ships and Merchandizes at Sea, and for lending Money upon Bottomry; and for restraining several extravagant and unwarrantable Practices therein mentioned", which received the royal assent on Saturday 11 June 1720; and in 1721 Parliament required the late Sub-Governor, Deputy-Governor and Directors of the company, with its Deputy-Cashier and Accomptant, to deliver on oath full particulars and inventories of their estates as they stood on 1 June 1720 and of everything they had since disposed of, and these were printed. Confirmed Directly supported by the record. Parliamentary journal and printed parliamentary papers: Journal of the House of Lords, volume 21, "DIE Sabbati, 11 o Junii" 1720 (pp. 342 to 360), read at British History Online, listing the bills passed and the words of the royal assent; and The Particulars and Inventories of the Estates of the Late Sub-Governor, Deputy-Governor and Directors of the South-Sea Company, volume I (London, 1721), read in the copy digitised by the Internet Archive, where Sir Theodore Janssen closes his return by saying he has delivered his particulars and accounts "in Purfuance of the Act of Parliament lately pafs'd in that Behalf". Neither document gives the chapter citation 6 Geo. 1 c. 18, the reported share price of about 1,000 pounds in early August or the fall toward 100 pounds in the autumn, the findings of fraud and insider dealing, or the part of Robert Walpole; those remain unverified.