The aim of this chapter will be to lay the groundwork for the analysis of various aspects of language in Liverpool that will be the central concern of this book. To do this, it will be helpful to begin by outlining how early observers made sense of the enormous economic, social and cultural changes that took place in Liverpool in the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. Needless to say, the intention is not to render an exhaustive account of the history itself (an impossibility given the space constraints), but to present a sketch of responses to the alterations brought about by the development of the town as a major site of national and global trade and commerce. Of course certain aspects of Liverpool's history are familiar; even the most rudimentary account will draw attention to the town's role in the slave trade and its function as one of the most important centres of immigration and emigration. Less well-known, however, are the ways in which contemporary historians and commentators interpreted and evaluated the results of the change in the town's long-standing status from relatively minor backwater (except in times of war) to its role as a international port that trafficked the oceans.