More has been written about smugglers than merchants in eighteenth century Cornwall. Yet Cornish merchants led and organised CornwallÕs eighteenth century trade including smuggling. This book places CornwallÕs merchants in the context of their social and family relationships, commerce and credit, politics, communications, know-how, culture, and faiths. It is a story of women as well as men. It looks at CornwallÕs participation in transatlantic trade including the eighteenth century slave trade.