>>Virginia was a tobacco growing area and there was a thriving tobacco industry
in Bristol - possibly because that was the nearest port to the Americas.
Bristol also was a centre of the slave trade, and Virginia needed slaves.
Therefore (as already pointed out) ships went to Virginia from Bristol: for
trade purposes, because it was the closest port and because merchant traders
financed the various expeditions. Liverpool was still undeveloped at that time.
I guess that it was cheaper for emigrants, too: the fewer miles you had to go by
ship, the cheaper the passage.<<
London was the other major port trading with the Americas at this time and is
nearer Hertfordshire and Bedfordshire. Bristol was a strong Quaker area - were
the emigrants in the original query Quakers or any other form of non-conformist?
Regards,
Peter Park. Walton on Thames, Surrey, UK.
... to know something of our ancestors, has always appeared to have been a
desirable thing to me, and if any records had been handed down to me, I should
have considered it as a Vallueable treasure.
Benjamin Shaw, 1826.
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