For more than 19 years, Alexander Jessop worked the docks of Bristol, England loading and unloading cargo from seagoing vessels. Considered by many to be a card-carrying member of the dregs of society, Jessop was a lonely, introverted man who had learned to get through each day by going through the motions. Yet, even though the work was grueling and the wages were poor, it was–at its core–honest employment.
But everyman has his price and Alexander Jessop was no exception.
Tired and beaten down from years of toiling on the docks, Jessop in a moment of weakness joined forces with men of nefarious character for the purposes of trafficking slaves to the Americas. Despite this willful turning away from the moral high ground, Jessop did indeed profit handsomely from his newfound profession.
But for his turpitude, Jessop’s decision cost him his soul.
Severely haunted by his behavior, Jessop sought refuge at Bristol Abbey where he spent years silently seeking forgiveness for his vile deeds. Despite his penitence, Jessop’s past would not dematerialize.
In December of 1749, more than 11 years after his arrival at Bristol Abbey, Abbott John Peter was informed by the town’s officials that he was harboring a known slave-trader by the name of Alexander Jessop. Disheartened by the news, he sequestered himself in hopes of coming to a right and proper decision. After days of prayer and fasting, Abbott John Peter turned Jessop out of the Abbey.
With no possibility of re-assimilating into society, Jessop took up residence in a small neighboring village where he died alone in 1752.
During the height of the slave trade from 1700 to 1807 more than 2,000 slaving ships were fitted out at Bristol, carrying an estimated half a million people from Africa to the Americas. Like the hundreds of thousands of men and women who were transported in the hulls of those ships, Alexander Jessop never did find peace.
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