Zong was installed at Black River, Jamaica. Zong Zong was originally named Zorg (meaning "Care" in Dutch) by its owners, the Middelburgsche Commercie Compagnie. It operated as a slave ship based in Middelburg, Netherlands, and made a voyage in 1777, delivering kidnapped Africans to the Dutch colony of Surinam in South America. Zong was a "square stern ship" of 110 tons burthen. The British 16-gun brig captured her (as part of the Fourth Anglo-Dutch War) on 10 February 1781. On 26 February, Alert and Zong arrived at Cape Coast Castle, in what is now Ghana. Cape Coast Castle was maintained and staffed, along with other forts and castles, by the Royal African Company (RAC), which used the Castle as its regional headquarters. In early March 1781, the master of William purchased Zong on behalf of a syndicate of Liverpool merchants, which included Edward Wilson, George Case, James Aspinall and William, James and John Gregson. William Gregson had an interest in 50 slaving voyages between 1747 and 1780; he also served as mayor of Liverpool in 1762. By the end of his life, vessels in which Gregson had a financial stake had carried 58,000 Africans to slavery in the Americas. Zong was paid for with bills of exchange and the 244 slaves already on board were part of the transaction. The ship was not insured until after it started its voyage. The insurers, another syndicate from Liverpool, underwrote the ship and its slaves for up to £8,000, approximately half the slaves's potential market value. The remaining risk was borne by the owners. Crew Zong was the first command of Luke Collingwood, formerly the surgeon on the William. While Collingwood lacked experience in navigation and command, ship's surgeons were typically involved in selecting captured Africans for purchase, so their medical expertise supported the determination of "commodity value" for a captive. If the surgeon rejected a captive, that individual suffered "commercial death", being of no value and was liable to be killed by the African traders. Sometimes these killings happened in the presence of the surgeon. It is therefore likely that Collingwood had already witnessed the mass killing of slaves. Historian Jeremy Krikler commented that this may have prepared him psychologically to condone the massacre that later took place on the Zong. Zong first mate was James Kelsall, who had also served on the William. The vessel's only passenger, Robert Stubbs, was a