Editing Macgregor Laird (section)

=== British and North American Steam Navigation Company ===
Laird was not interested only in Africa. In 1837 he was one of the promoters of a company formed to run steamships between England and [[New York City|New York]], and in 1838 the ''Sirius'', sent out by this company, was the first ship to cross the [[Atlantic Ocean|Atlantic]] from Europe entirely under steam.

Between 1835 and 1841, Laird was involved with the [[British and American Steam Navigation Company]]. The firm launched a vessel, the [[SS British Queen|''British Queen'']], that provided a mail service between England and America, but this venture was unprofitable. It then added another vessel, the [[SS President|''President'']], which disappeared en route to England from New York. The company did not survive the disappearance of the ''President'', and the navigation firm was liquidated in 1841.{{Sfn|Tanner|1978|pp=40–42}}

Despite the unsuccessful expedition, Laird continued to stimulate interest in promoting commercial trade in the hinterland of West Africa, particularly within the settlements closest to the mouth of the Niger. He advised merchants to cultivate trade with coastal middlemen as a primary business objective, and as a secondary objective, to send a steam vessel inland to woo communities in the interior and bypass the coastal middlemen.{{Sfn|Tanner|1978|p=37}}

In 1841, when the British blockade of the coast of West Africa failed to halt the transatlantic slave trade, Laird's belief in legitimate trade as a deterrent to slave trading gave way to the idea that cheap labour through unrestricted emigration to the [[West Indies]] would cripple the demand for slaves while also increasing production of sugar. In 1838, after the [[Emancipation of the British West Indies|apprenticeship system]] in West Indies was eliminated ending slavery, Laird advocated voluntary emigration of Africans to West Indies as a way to curtail slavery and also bring Africans in contact to Europeans and their culture.{{Sfn|Tanner|1978|pp=64–65}} He expressed these views to a parliamentary select committee on the West Coast of Africa in 1842 and to the [[World Anti-Slavery Convention|General Anti-Slavery Convention]] in 1843.{{Sfn|Tanner|1978|pp=76–79}}