Prince (1787 ship)
British slave ship

Prince was launched at Bristol in 1785 as Alexander and then made two complete voyages as a slave ship in the triangular trade in enslaved people. Her owners changed her name to Prince in 1787. As Prince, she made six more complete voyages as an enslaving ship. She sailed on enslaving voyages for owners in Bristol, Liverpool, and London. She foundered in 1800 as she was returning to England from her ninth, having delivered captives to Jamaica.
Career
Alexander first appeared Lloyd's Register (LR) in 1786, there being no online issue for 1785.
By then Alexander had already made one voyage as a slave ship.
1st voyage transporting enslaved people (1785–1786): Captain John McTaggart sailed from Bristol on 28 April 1785.
Alexander acquired captives at Bonny and sailed from Africa on 15 September. She arrived at Grenada on 14 September with 307 captives.
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This entry incorporates text from “Prince (1787 ship)” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.