ABSTRACT
Early-modern people constantly put their trust in others and in nature. Anyone who was involved in Atlantic enterprises necessarily had to trust people all around the ocean, many of whom he or she had never met and never would meet. Cargoes would be sold, and new cargoes acquired, at many ports of call. 1 Some large merchants might actually have resident agents in major ports, but even large merchants’ ships would often fetch up in ports where those agents were lacking. Adverse weather could destroy crops, and many ships were lost because they were caught in storms at sea. It was a dangerous and unpredictable world.
