James Irving's career in Liverpool in the late eighteenth century developed against the backdrop of the debate on the morality and sustainability of the slave trade. Although Irving stated in a letter of December 1786 that he was ‘nearly Wearied of this Unnatural Accursed trade’ and was considering ‘adopting some other mode of Life’, this still does not give a clear indication of how he viewed the slaves or the institution of slavery. At first sight, Irving's comment might be interpreted as a rejection or condemnation of the trade in slaves. After all, Olaudah Equiano, a former slave, used the phrase ‘this accursed trade’ in his Interesting Narrative published in 1789. Such a change of outlook by Irving was not beyond the bounds of possibility. The careers of Alexander Falconbridge, John Newton and Edward Rushton illustrate how a number of former slave traders revised their attitudes towards the trade in the late eighteenth century. Giving evidence before a Select Committee of the House of Commons in 1790, Falconbridge explained that in his first and second voyages as a surgeon he thought little about the ‘justice or injustice of the trade’. In his fourth voyage, though, he explained how he thought more about the trade and became convinced that it was ‘an unnatural, iniquitous, and villainous trade’ which he could no longer reconcile with his conscience.

The context of Irving's statement, however, indicates that he was more concerned with his own conditions of work and the remuneration of his ‘station’ than with the plight of the slaves. Lemprière's summary of Irving's career lends support to this view, as he records that Irving found his position as surgeon ‘a disadvantageous employment’ and that he ‘subsequently obtained command of a small vessel in the same trade’. If Irving had any moral qualms, they were not sufficiently strong to prevent his continued involvement in the trade as, on his return to Liverpool, he took up a potentially more lucrative position on the Princess Royal.

Far more revealing is a comment contained in the same letter from Tobago in which he informed his wife that ‘I think I'll desist [writing] as our Black Cattle are intolerably Noisy5 and I'm almost Melted in the Midst of five or six Hundred of them’ (Letter 4).