This advertisement in the Liverpool Advertiser may not be quite what one might expect a major slave merchant to insert in the local paper, but it is in fact a fair reflection of the wide range of activities, other than slave trading, in which William Earle participated. Some of these were quite closely related to the slave trade, but others had nothing whatever to do with it. William was described as ‘merchant and ironmonger’ in 1766 in the first local Directory and, although this was still short of the whole truth, it is a lot more accurate than simply labelling him ‘slave merchant’.

A good idea of the range of his non-slaving merchant activities can be gained by an analysis of the ships owned or part-owned by him in the Liverpool shipping database. This confirms that William was an important slave merchant, with a share in the ownership of 41 ships, which made between them 97 voyages. But it also shows that he was part-owner of another eight non-slaving ships, which made between them 30 voyages. Two brigs accounted for over half of these, the 70-ton Neptune, which was sent out on four voyages from 1764 to 1767, and the 100-ton Stanley, bought new in 1765, which made 12 voyages in the years to 1776. Both ships had exactly the same ownership, William Earle, John Woodhouse and Joseph Carter, who was master for 12 of the 16 voyages made by the two ships. Neither of William's partners had anything to do with slaving, but they both played a prominent part in the fishing voyages, which are well documented in the letter book and will be discussed later. Woodhouse was one of William's closest business associates and the partnership of Earle & Woodhouse often appears in the shipping news reported in the local paper, nearly always as importers of fish from the North Fishery or the Isle of Man, or of butter from Belfast.