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A Bitter Pill
An assessment of the significance of the meeting between Thomas Jefferson and Duncan Campbell of the British Creditors in London, 23 April, 1786.
By Dan Byrnes
Thomas Jefferson: [Author's Note: This article is set within
the
timeframe of that excellent movie, Jefferson in Paris]
http://grid.let.rug.nl/~welling/usa/jefferson.html/
A
Bitter Pill has 35,667 total words, 78 total pages and two
sets
of Endnotes. Some 1-148 Endnotes apply to the text, and Endnotes
149-191 apply also to the material forming the appendix.
* * * *
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"A bitter pill he and his friends could never swallow"
(Note 1)
WHEN Thomas Jefferson visited London in March-April 1786, Mincing Lane in the City became a focus of interest. Close to the Tower of London, running onto Great Tower Street, Mincing Lane was the address of Jefferson's pro-American friends the Vaughans, West India merchants, Samuel and his son Benjamin. At No. 5 it was also the address of a sometime chairman of the British Creditors, Duncan Campbell (1726-1803). No. 6 was the address of Francis Baring, the banker who would in time gain the official account of the United States government. (Note 2)
Little attention has been given to Jefferson's London visit, or to his meeting with the British Creditors, and so the question arises: does Mincing Lane become a useful focus for the historian tracing Jefferson's activities when in London? If it is a distinction, Campbell was probably the only Britisher who'd been a large loser by the Revolution, who actually met Thomas Jefferson.
At the time, Britain and the US were arguing over the West Indian carrying trade, and it was not ties of friendship alone which led Jefferson to visit the Vaughans. Campbell was a former American merchant, but he also remained a West Indian merchant. He is better-known to history as the overseer of the much-loathed Thames prison hulks, or as an uncle-in-law of William Bligh, than as a chairman of the British Creditors. Campbell shortly after he met Jefferson left Mincing Lane for an address in a newer and more prestigious precinct, No. 3 Robert Street, the Adelphi, where, despite German bombing during World War Two, the original building still stands. The Adelphi, of course, built by the celebrated Scots architects, the Adam Brothers.
The other sometime chairmen of the British Creditors were a former Virginia/Maryland tobacco merchant, William Molleson (1732-1804) and John Nutt, a Carolina merchant. Relatively little material has been published on any of the chairmen of the British Creditors, and due to lack of information, no chronology of the activities of the most influential Creditors has been compiled. (Note 3) Information which has been produced has not yet been correlated. When it is correlated, a new picture develops. The lobby group's unwieldy official name was, "The Merchants Having Traded to North America prior to 1776". (Note 4)
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Since Duncan Campbell was a skilled survivor, his roles in life can be seen as catalysts. He seems symbolic, as a kind of pivot seen shuddering as British traders adjusted during and after the American Revolution. His situation reflected the generational changes forced on mercantile life by the American War. What had affected Campbell as a trader affected many others as well. This however was during an era when a tightening of the British penal code was an expression of a harshly revised ideology. Given that Campbell accepted a role as overseer of the prison hulks during this era, information on his career becomes useful. Before 1775, Campbell had been a conservative member of the London merchants trading mostly to the tobacco colonies of North America. But he was the only one of them who was also involved in West India trade. Those connections were due to his happy marriage to Rebecca Campbell of Jamaica in 1753.
Between 1773 and 1775, the American radical in London, William Lee, and others using Wilkesite tactics had succeeded in splitting the political unity of London's American merchants. The historian of these machinations is Alison Olson, who has traced the political outlook of London's merchants trading to the tobacco colonies, from say, 1720, earlier than the eclipse of the career of Micajah Perry. (Note 5) Olson terms the most influential Londoners, the "core group". Campbell became one of them.
By 1778, Olson writes: (Note 6)
"Gradually the North American mercantile lobby came under the leadership of Duncan Campbell... who had abandoned the camp when it momentarily fell under Wilkesite leadership in 1775. Of a total of seventeen, Campbell was one of six Virginia signers of a petition to Parliament in 1778 requesting that, if negotiations for peace were begun, the Americans would be required to pay their debts in full, and another of 1782 requesting the same of the Earl of Shelburne. Legal mechanisms in the US for addressing the Creditors' debt matters did not exist till July 1790, and from the Creditors' points of view were slow to adjust to use."
Olson seems mystified as to why Campbell dropped out of London-American merchant politics during a crucial period, late 1774, and apparently ignored his fellow merchants? The reason was that his first wife, Rebecca, had died, 7 December, 1774, leaving him with a motherless new-born, "Little Duncan", and other young children. Campbell was also probably physically ill, apart from being emotionally devastated by grief. (He was an emotional man). By 25 January, 1775, Duncan's brother Neil was sitting as amanuensis by Duncan's sickbed as they wrote to Rebecca's brother John on Jamaica... "the expected stop on remittances from America would make it difficult to pay [Duncan and John's] creditors in London..." Duncan wished John and Duncan's own daughter Henrietta, who was then visiting Jamaica, to come to London to assist following Rebecca's death. (Note 7)
Campbell had been a contractor to government for transporting felons from London to Virginia and Maryland, His business was severely disrupted by the outbreak of the American Revolution. He became overseer of the Thames prison hulks from mid-1776, in which year he remarried, to Mary Mumford of Kent. (Note 8) Campbell was also obliged to keep up his usual trade to Jamaica, which usually required turning over a capital of over 15,000 pounds.
Olson presumes that Campbell was on a committee selected by a merchants' meeting in August 1782 to discuss American debts with Shelburne. By the end of 1782, Campbell, William Molleson and John Nutt had become a triumvirate of mercantile leaders. (Note 9) Here, it should be pointed out that Campbell was one of an older generation of traders to America, with attitudes outdated by 1782. A problem for the historian is that little work has been done on the new generation, in London, of Anglo-American traders, so comparisons are difficult. It is evident from the literature of debt repudiation that many of the post-1783 Americans who opposed debt repayments were a new generation of traders who had no empathy with situations existing before 1775. (Jefferson, of course, and quite properly, retained empathy with the situation existing before 1775).
* * * *
A rare discussion of the Creditors by an English historian is provided in a neglected article (1974) by Katherine Kellock. (Note 10) A model genealogical treatment of two sometime chairmen of the British Creditors, James Russell and William Molleson, is contained in a 1977 article by Jacob Price. (Note 11) If continuity of biographical information is of value to the historian interested in assessing the status of distinct issues, then any assessment of the significance of the 1786 meeting between Jefferson and Campbell offers unique potential. Thomas Jefferson is well-known. Duncan Campbell is not, and problems of interpretation can arise when one is freshly inserting a biography into contexts earlier regarded as complete.
This present assessment utilises many genealogical findings. It also uses findings from a variety of maritime histories as a way to present a body of unified information which can illustrate some of the status of world trade as Jefferson attempted to revive the trade of the United States. (Some methodological problems provided by the difficulties of genealogical research on the Creditors are referred to in the appendix).
The Creditors were a group formed by individual commercial operators who had been scattered, violently and successfully. Additional biographical information on many of them is difficult to find, and this may be one reason historians have tended to ignore them. By comparison, information and commentary on the elite and heavily-intermarried Virginian families, particularly between 1750-1800, is freely available. (Note 12). Campbell's own family history remains a special case, even for Campbell genealogists, since the identity of his paternal grandfather remains unknown.
One matter remaining clear is that Jefferson and many of his colleagues feared that British merchants, including some of the Creditors, might redeploy their capital and regain influence over the economy of the "new nation" which had repudiated British political control. What an examination of maritime history reveals here is that historians have been deflected by the terms of the debate between Jeffersonians and Hamiltonians from perceiving how this fear abated. (Note 13) Alexander Hamilton was a Northerner architect of the American political system deemed to possess too great a respect for British political systems. Hamilton, as Jefferson thought, had too little desire to create a system repudiating the corruptions, and also the potential for corruption, illustrated in the history of nations with well-entrenched aristocracies. Hamilton presents two problems for the historian choosing to use a genealogical approach. He was a self-made man, and little is known about his West Indian antecedents. (Note 14) The other is that his writings, although highly intelligent, are quite bloodless, and it is difficult to assess his personality and relationships.
A conclusion to be drawn from genealogical evidence available in Australia is that the Creditors were scattered so successfully, most have been little discussed. It should also be noted, some Creditors came to out-of-court settlements - on which there is no evidence - with their American Creditors. By 1811, various Londoners, including Campbell, received reimbursements of 44 per cent following a British-American intergovernmental agreement made after the 1794 Jay Treaty. (Note 15) Ironically, Britain and America were soon at war again, in 1812.
As a perusal of his letterbooks reveals, Campbell from 1782 ardently wished to resolve his American debts. There is every indication he would have preferred to trade in tobacco as usual after 1783, but there are no indications he ever resumed re-exporting tobacco, although he may have done so from 1792. (Note 16)
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Once Jefferson's meeting with Campbell of the British Creditors is noticed, a certain tension gathers itself, born of biographical details. It is said that colonial Americans resented receiving British convicts. Campbell between 1758 and 1775 had annually shipped to Virginia and Maryland up to 900 convicts from London and the Home Counties - yet his career has not yet been traced to a meeting with Jefferson. Which is to say that American historians have neglected two tracks leading to the Campbell-Jefferson meeting - earlier resentment about receiving British convicts, and what is termed, the debt repudiation question. It does seem, that various topic boundaries typically observed by historians in North America, England and Australia, have served an undue role in obscuring various information which surfaces, almost automatically, when the biographies of various persons are amplified.
One major factor becoming evident from maritime histories is that detailed treatments are lacking on the mischievous effects after 1783 (at least in Jefferson's view) of the international trading of "the financier of the American Revolution", Robert Morris, who dealt extensively in tobacco. (Note 17) Neither Price nor Kellock probed Campbell's long career as a contractor, also a tobacco trader, delivering convict servants to Virginia and Maryland. Campbell's career relates also to the transportation of convicts to Australia from 1786, and so his career can be seen as a pivot of the administration of convict transportation, across decades as well as across oceanic space. (Note 18). Given his 60 years of age in 1786, Campbell can also be viewed as an old-style Anglo-American merchant whose preferred methods of operation were eclipsed by the Revolution. (Note 19)
Other topics tending to remain bereft of useful detailed information are the revival of the US-London tobacco trade, which before 1775 had been mostly a re-export trade to Europe, and the first US trade with India, South East Asia, and China. Of all relevant questions, the most sensitive appears to be what American historians term "the debt repudiation question". We also notice that American historians seem never to have been deliberately provoked by English historians to produce a resolution of this question.
Repeatedly, questions have been raised and probed by American historians, who appear to suffer a "mea culpa complex". Each time American historians are visited by new trends in historiography, they find themselves freshly obliged to rake over "the debt repudiation question". Given this, any assessment of the significance of the Jefferson-Campbell meeting would be most useful if it could contribute an opinion on the appropriateness of this long-standing American sensitivity. (Note 20) American historians have meanwhile taken pains to rebut claims that debt avoidance was a motive for the American Revolution. Here, the most convincing rebuttal has been delivered by Emory Evans. (Note 21)
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Curiously, London merchant groups and their political machinations prior to the outbreak of the American Revolution have received sustained attention by Alison Olson and other US historians. The post-1783 lobbying of many of the British merchants treated by these historians has received far less attention. This trans-Atlantic situation is difficult to explain, but it presents opportunities, particularly for any Australian historian interested in the long-held proposition that... The "founding" of Australia as a British convict colony was an aftermath of the American Revolution, because after the Revolution, Britain obliged itself to find a new location to dump its despised convicts. In this Australian context, the overseer of the Thames hulks is never seen as possessing the prestige enabling him to meet and argue with Jefferson. (Note 22)
There are also remarks about the future of the unfortunate American Loyalists to be considered. As well, there was the matter alluded to when Jefferson met Campbell, a matter on which all American diplomats had strong feelings because it represented a non-compliance with the 1783 Treaty of Paris. Britain should have returned the remainder of some 30,000 slaves taken away by Cornwallis to Canada, Nova Scotia, or Britain, some of whom were shipped to Sierra Leone just as convicts were first shipped to New South Wales. (Note 23) Meanwhile, if Ritcheson (Note 24) can be believed, the lobbying of the Creditors influenced the policy of the British Government on the American Loyalists' future. Ritcheson however has not related this claim to the views of Australian historians, who are constrained to discuss Loyalist situations due to James Matra's strong lobbying of Lord Sydney. Matra had suggested that Loyalists settle Norfolk Island, or, what became New South Wales (Australasia). (Note 25) Sydney quickly tacked ideas of creating a new convict colony to Matra's suggestions,
Here again, amplification of biographical information stresses the topologies of historians' topic boundaries. Campbell himself had a niece (a sister-in-law of William Bligh), Harriet Colden, nee Betham, a widowed and distressed Loyalist who finally resettled her two sons in Edinburgh. Campbell's Letterbooks reveal that he several times appealed to government officials on his niece's behalf. There are ironies of family life here, as Ritcheson has attributed the continuing parlous situation of the Loyalists to the way the British Creditors in 1786-1794 worked against any policy which would have jeopardised their chances of recovering their debts. This is probably why Campbell was as assiduous as he was in looking after Mrs Colden's interests, for he genuinely tried to help her several times. Historians have never ventured on opinion, however, on the irony of Campbell, who delivered convicts to ships bound for Australia, by virtue of his influence with the Creditors, having had some part in the British government deciding not to encourage Loyalists to settle in Australasia.
Most Australian historians would find it novel to hear suggestions that in any capacity as chairman of the Creditors, the hulks overseer had any influence at all on the possibility that Loyalists might have been settled in Australasia? More so since he had a Loyalist niece related by marriage to Governor Bligh! This is one of many questions arising unexpectedly when biographies are amplified in pursuit of any assessment of the significance of Jefferson's meeting with Campbell. (Some additional information is contained in the appendix).
During his diplomatic terms in Paris and London, Jefferson faced problems associated with marketing American tobacco, and with redeveloping American whaling. A global industry, whaling from 1786 was subjected to international rivalry in unfamiliar waters. The Brazils whaling grounds were becoming depleted. From Cook's explorations alone, it was suspected, if not known, that the Pacific Ocean offered fresh whaling grounds. As an added twist, the fact that whalers were unaware of whale migrating patterns in the Pacific made their whale-seeking physically anarchic and unpredictable over oceans. (Note 26) Rivalry over whaling is just one broad industrial theme requiring assessment in a context of the world trade of the day when Jefferson's meeting with the Creditors is considered.
* * * *
In 1784, Jefferson had replaced Benjamin Franklin as Minister Plenipotentiary attached to the Court of Versailles. In 1784 in England, new material was published on Cook's last voyage into the Pacific, when Cook had sought and failed to find the long-fabled North-West Passage. (Note 27) One result was the formation of the [English] King George's Sound Company, which was intended to establish a North Pacific fur trade from Canada to China. With this, the East India Company seemed willing to admit that it might countenance Pacific whaling and sealing, albeit under restricted licences. (Note 28) Bligh had been on Cook's third voyage. Another crewman on that voyage, Ledyard, identified himself as an American. Later, Ledyard helped promote American interest in North Pacific seal fur. Jefferson thus wrote Ledyard a letter of introduction in 1786. (Note 29)
William Bligh was commanding Campbell's merchant ship Lynx at Green Island, Jamaica, 22 April, 1786. Bligh had written to Campbell on the 13 March last... the crops had fallen off, Bligh was uncertain but hoped for 500 Casks... and he mentioned a vessel Brittania [sic], while Bligh's good friend, Dugald (Duncan's eldest son), was now at St Elizabeth's, "expected back beginning of next week". Planters were inclined to "pray their Debts"... Bligh had heard from his wife Elizabeth that Campbell had received Bligh's part of the profits of the recent publication of Cook's voyage. (Note 30) So it was that about the time Jefferson was helping promote Ledyard's schemes, which were to include, obtaining furs from the area once thought to be an entrance to the fabled North-West Passage, that Campbell was keeping Bligh's royalties from a publication on Cook's third voyage.
In considerations of the race for profit from Canton from the sale of seal fur, it has generally been forgotten that the British vied also with Americans, whose exploitation of resources has been little measured. What should not be forgotten is that whaling and sealing were often undertaken by the same operators. It is here that sealing and whaling history, and much else, can be collapsed together, as an outlook on maritime history emerges with reference to the increase of US trade, which was one of Jefferson's prime concerns when he was in London. The point is that with maritime history, discussing personnel generates information related to much that historians have not yet assimilated in their overviews of the aftermath of the American Revolution.
One British Creditor appearing (genealogically) in this whaling context is Mary Wilkes, sister of John Wilkes, the radical London alderman whose pronouncements on liberty had helped fuel the development of the American Revolution. Mary's second husband was London alderman George Hayley, who to 1775 had corresponded with the Boston patriot merchant, John Hancock. (Note 31) Inheriting Hayley's estate, Mary became a British Creditor, finally claiming 79,600 pounds from Americans. (Note 32) Here, as Creditors, Mary Wilkes/Hayley and Duncan Campbell can provoke new ways of looking at the post-revolutionary era, since both provoke the historian to re-examine maritime history.
Mary Wilkes' case presents difficulties when attempts are made to recompile information, since from 1784 the American whaler, Francis Rotch, became her business associate, if not her paramour as well. (Note 33) Rotch maintained a close association with the Nantucket whaling community, that is, with the American whaling industry - an industry the United States lost chiefly because the Nantucket whalers adopted a highly disapproving attitude to what they termed "debt repudiation".
Rotch expended considerable effort trying to obtain permission for the Nantucket whalers to emigrate to England en masse, as an integrated community. He was rebuffed, so he later settled his whalers at Dunkirk. The still-unwritten biography of Mary Wilkes/Hayley is part of this story, for rivalry developed between Britain, the United States and France over whaling, just as the Pacific Ocean was being newly opened up to European shipping, a large component of which included British vessels carrying convicts to New South Wales. (Note 34). When that rivalry is considered, historians usually shy from considering the battle occurring in London between the South Whale Fishery and the East India Company about use of Pacific waters. What remains unknown is whether Mary Hayley invested any significant sum in either American or French whaling, if that might have mattered?
* * * *
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The Creditors have been neglected for so long, information on them has remained so scattered, that, contextually, using various findings from maritime history to treat both their business and family linkages has become the only reliable way to solve evident methodological problems, gaps in historiography; and even theoretical issues such as discussion of the tension in the US Congress between the Hamiltonians and the Jeffersonians. Given the London battle between the whalers and the East India Company, the theoretical validity of Harlow's views on Britain's "swing to the East" following the American Revolution can be questioned, (Note 35) since Harlow cannot adequately explain convict shipping sailing to Australia. (That topic is best considered as a unique sector of maritime history). But neither British nor American historians have surveyed the US' "swing to the east" undertaken from 1784.
Robert Morris had resigned his position with the US Treasury on 28 May, 1784. From 1784, Morris and his old partner, Thomas Willing, became involved respectively with the first US shipping to China and India. (Note 37). Morris' tobacco sales to France, meantime, posed many problems for Jefferson in Paris from 1785. (Note 38). Any bald claim that "US trade" with Asia began from a given set of dates will overlook the interest becoming available when Morris' remarkable career is re-examined. There is no escape from Morris' long commercial shadow. (Note 39) Within 15 years, US merchants had an extraordinary number of ships coursing the Indian Ocean, the South China Sea, around South East Asia.
By March, 1782, Campbell had resurfaced in London and again began to play a role in American merchant politics. The American Revolution had cost him perhaps 35,000 pounds. He desired reimbursement. Before 1775, Campbell had been investing in land in Maryland. From 1784 his plan in England was to buy land in Kent, down toward the village of Kingsdown. He would have been glad if the return of his American debt monies could have aided that project. His letterbooks in fact reveal he went through bouts of desire to regain his money. Unless some of his claims were settled out of court, it appears that Campbell never personally received reimbursement, although his estate did receive some compensation by 1811. (Note 40)
By June 1785, Campbell was referred to by members of the Glasgow Chamber of Commerce (begun by Patrick Colquhuon) as "Chairman of the American Merchants' Committee". (Note 41) John Adams thus spoke of Campbell as "the principal man amongst them". And in April, 1786, Jefferson likewise identified Campbell as "Chairman of the Committee of American Merchants, who is also Chairman of the whole body of British merchants". (Campbell was also referred to as chairman of the "Committee of merchants trading to Maryland, Virginia, and North Carolina."). Olson comments:
"...under Campbell's leadership the merchants took a significant step toward establishing a national lobby including representatives of the outports as well as London."
This new committee was regularly consulted by ministers such as Shelburne, Pitt, Carmarthen, Dundas. Olson says they succeeded in prevailing on Pitt's ministry to drop proposed legislation limiting American ability to collect debts from Loyalists in Britain; pressured the government to consult them before proposing a tobacco excise Bill, and kept an initially reluctant ministry from abandoning American forts until some arrangement was made for collecting merchants' debts. (Note 42)
Jefferson's official dealings with the Creditors before and after 1786 in London remain however a minor sub-plot in Merrill Peterson's biography of Jefferson, although Jefferson's pre-revolution debts remained a personal difficulty to be mentioned. In Doron Ben-Atar's recent book, The Origin of Jeffersonian Commercial Policy and Diplomacy, Jefferson's London visit is scarcely noted, although issues relating to the Creditors remained a sub-plot for Ben-Atar. It is not Jefferson's personal address of the pre-revolution debts which concerns American historians, so much as protecting the reputation of Founding Fathers from the implications of "the debt repudiation question". Into this gap in historiography fall some stories still not fully told. (Note 43) (Note 44)
US sensitivities about debt repudiation have existed since 1804 or before. Schlesinger, in Colonial Merchants, cites Oliver Wolcott writing:
"It is a firmly established opinion of men well-versed in the history of our revolution, that the whiggism of Virginia was chiefly owing to the debts of the planters." (Note 45)
Further, Schlesinger writes:
"It will be recalled that the question of payment of the pre-Revolutionary private debts to British merchants occupied the attention of the British and American governments in the treaties of 1783 and 1794 and in the convention of 1802. The claims presented against the commercial provinces amounted to 218,000 pounds, those against the plantation provinces, 3,869,000 pounds. The former figure consisted, in large part, of claims on behalf of American loyalists for compensation, while this is not true in the latter case."
But on balance, it is fanciful to imagine that any such form of Virginian "whiggism" could have tipped a revolutionary balance very far across thirteen colonies. It is even more doubtful that Wolcott had a balanced overview of the history of the revolution. (Schlesinger in various writings seems almost drolly amused by these commercial matters). Amongst Americans, the most severely moral attitude about "debt repudiation" was adopted by the Nantucket whaling community led by Francis Rotch, as discussed in Stackpole's indispensable treatment, Whales And Destiny. (Note 46)
In 1775 these whalers, "recognised by Thomas Jefferson himself as a race apart" from other Americans, sold more of their oil and candles to Englishmen - notably George Hayley, Champions, Dickason - than they did to mainland colonial Americans. (Here, the name Hayley remains important). (Note 47) Many of these whalers remained Loyalists, but much of their emigration after 1783 was motivated by a sense of the injustice dealt when the American mainlanders repudiated their debts to English merchants who had invested heavily in the American colonies. Stackpole (p. 23), writes:
"Much of the attitude of Nantucket whaling merchants was affected by the repudiation of debts owed to their British merchant friends by colleagues on the American mainland. This loss of confidence in the Congress [by 1786] and its ability to govern had much to do with deciding many of the Nantucket leaders, as well as the whalemen, to seek places outside the country where they could again make whaling a paying trade."
If the emigration of a well-knit whaling industry represented any problem, this has not been made part of any US rebuttals about "debt repudiation". This seems to be symptomatic of a seemingly typical American recoil at considering the world trade of the era. Over decades, this recoil has had a stultifying effect on US maritime history, which is revealed when any survey is made of the first two decades of US shipping to Asia. No overview of that shipping, much of it sent by Bostonians, Philadelphians and New Yorkers, has yet been produced.
American historians remain preoccupied by various sensitivities over "whiggishness", and so-called debt-avoidance, as well as reiterations of anxieties expressed after the Revolution - anxieties about the corrupting influences of commerce, anxieties about the dread possibility of the failure of the ideals of the Revolution. (Note 48) But oddly enough, whether or not commerce might have been corrupting, even if avarice might have reigned in American economic life after 1783, there seems to have been little room in the early American republic for a view that corrupting tendencies might have been ameliorated by a pertinent system of taxation. (Note 50) These issues infected the tension between the Jeffersonians and the Hamiltonians with much vituperation.
Here (as in Ben-Atar's overview), Jefferson is sometimes depicted as a rather commercially-naive, utopian agrarian, overly influenced by French Physiocrats. Jefferson however seems to have been more willing to embrace compromise over trade than many historians have believed, as is shown by his correspondence between 1785-1787. (Note 50) If Furber's statistics on US trade about India, South East Asia and Mauritius are broadly correct, then it is difficult to conclude that Jefferson was as ignorant of the difficulties of managing foreign trade as some historians have reported. Here, lack of information on Robert Morris and his trading partners after 1783, and their "unfathomable dealings", as it is mostly put, remain a stumbling block. Jefferson seems more careful of some issues than some historians imply, and if Jefferson distrusted the Hamiltonians, few United States historians have been tempted to assess the actual trading activities of the northern maritime colonies. (Jefferson perhaps did err when he applied his trade embargo in 1807, but judgement here depends on whether we see an attempt to avoid war as an act of civic virtue or not). (Note 51)
As Ben-Atar indicates, there were contradictions in Jefferson's views, his ideas and even his personal tastes. Jefferson deplored public "luxury", but enjoyed luxury privately. If he was an agrarian utopian, he also enjoyed experimenting with new mechanical gadgets. Historians would be better off viewing these contradictions as creative forces for, and in society, instead of offences to logic. (Note 52)
Ben-Atar's survey is harsh on Jefferson's achievements respecting commercial matters. He sees in Jefferson's views a kind of bankruptcy in ideology, diplomacy and policy, none of which was made more useful by Jefferson's Anglophobia. Ben-Atar, unfortunately, is more interested in analysing ideological shadows than in any commercial realities applying to the new United States. The historian responding to the tensions arising between Jeffersonians and the Hamiltonians regarding economics, trade, foreign and commercial policies will be finally obliged to enter the rather mysterious world of high finance that so many historians distrust so much, they refuse to discuss it. (Note 53) Given the commercial situation of the "new nation" from 1783, and aware of the commercial risks it ran, that American states or their citizenry might become entrapped again by British capital, one might well claim that the Hamiltonians were more realistic than the Jeffersonians.
It is well to recognize that the character of the American Constitution had not yet formed, nor had its character begun to be interpreted in the light of clashes between principle versus the necessities of commerce. American historians view the issues in a parochial way. (Note 54) Simultaneously, discussion meets a dark underside whenever Robert Morris is mentioned. Here, a chronology-in-reverse is illustrative.
Morris was still marketing American tobacco in 1786 when Jefferson visited London. (Note 55) After 1784, much initial US foreign trade was organised by merchants north of Virginia, and certainly non-agrarians, men using financial techniques disapproved by the agrarian-minded Jefferson. Among them was the ubiquitous Robert Morris. (Note 56) The never-fully-analysed activities of these traders involved whaling, sealing, trading to China and India, selling vast tracts of western lands, financial speculation in what Jefferson contemptuously called "paper" and much else. (Note 57) It is remarkable to compare the calm creation of the Bank of England in the 1690s, with the squabbles erupting over the creation of American banks in the 1780s. These squabbles cannot be discussed without reference to correspondence between Hamilton and Robert Morris. Out of such debates came the first fiscal and monetary policies of the US Congress.
In early 1786, Jefferson's hopes about "redesigning" Mercantilism had scarcely amused the British, particularly in respect of West India trade. Jefferson's mostly agrarian views on trade could scarcely cope with actualities, which were remarkably complex, and also, as the historian finds, heavily crowded with names which ought to be researched, such as those of Jefferson's friends, the Vaughans, mentioned above. Factors such as the financial dealings involved, the style of competition between New England and New York merchants, the import of non-necessities, that are noticeable with the US' first trading with China and India, were the kind Jefferson disapproved. Reflected here were tensions between agrarians and the financially sophisticated New Englanders that persisted in the US till after the Civil War.
Many themes could be developed here, including those pertinent to the almost chnothic emergence of the great American contradiction, Isolationism versus Manifest Destiny. (Note 58) Just one still-unwritten maritime history is the revelation of just how Morris and his associates financed the American Revolution, and managed the maritime resources required. That story, told fully or not, stands rather apart from the usual terms cast for several contexts, including the debt repudiation question.
* * * *
Duncan Campbell between 1758-1775 had managed the London-based shipping carrying convict servants to Virginia and Maryland, a matter which no US historian has ever closely analysed, Abbot Emerson Smith and Ekirch excepted. One reason that Campbell in 1786 was chosen by his Creditor-colleagues to speak with Jefferson was probably because he knew a great deal about West Indian trade, in which he'd been involved since 1753. (Note 59)
In
1786, Jefferson was
particularly interested in resolving British-US argument about West
Indian trade. Here, the British position disturbed the "new
nation", as intended. (Note 60) William Knox had helped draft
the British viewpoint on West Indian trade to the detriment of the
US, as expressed in an Order-of-Council of 2 July, 1783. Knox felt he
had:
"saved the navigation and maritime importance of this
country and strangled in the birth that of the United States."
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This may contain elements of hyperbole, but any extent to which it was true meant Jefferson's diplomatic missions would remain difficult. Given Ben-Atar's analysis of Jefferson's address of the international trading situation of the US, more so given Jefferson's disapproving outlook on financiers and commerce, it is necessary to contrast Jefferson's utopian-agrarian preferences with the actualities in the financial world inhabited by men such as Morris and his often sneered-at associates. Men such as Francis Baring in London (by 1792 the governor of the East India Company); or a British dealer in Hamburg, John Parish, who had met Morris in Hamburg during the Revolution and retained contact with him during the later phases of land-speculation that brought Morris undone. (Note 61)
To mention such financiers and the institutions they used is, apparently, to mention information and realities of finance-handling and world trade which American historians, so far, have not related to Jefferson's view of "high finance". There has been a dysjunction between analyses of policy versus actualities. But where that world of contemporary high finance needs to be considered, the career of Morris inevitably needs to be reviewed.
From Philadelphia, operating separately, apparently, Morris sent the first US ship to China, Empress of China. His partner Thomas Willing helped send the first ship to India, United States. (It seems no historian has yet asked if the two men's efforts were related, and lack of evidence prevents a decision, yes or no). (Note 62) The way the US initiated its Far Eastern and Asian trades after 1783 has still not been entered by American historians into a useful discussion of commercial realities facing the US, and therefore facing the Jeffersonians. But by 1800, or later, US merchants seem to have developed such a volume of eastern trade, that British merchants in the East, either East India Company men or country traders, had developed an ambivalent attitude, resentful of a competitor but also enjoying any related increases in trade volume that came their way. The operational style of Willing and Morris would have implicitly made them lean to a Hamiltonian position. Morris of course later bankrupted, but not before 1789, by when he presumably had horrified Jeffersonians after he and others had seriously considered attempting to purchase the American domestic debt, with a view to selling it to Dutch or Swiss financiers. (Note 63)
Morris from 1757 had been a partner of the Philadelphia tobacco dealers, Willing and Morris. By 1776, Morris was perceived as one of the few colonial merchants who could provide service by deriving commercial profits aiding the military prosecution of the American Revolution. (Note 64) Very soon, Morris used the commercial services of the Virginian, Carter Braxton, in handling tobacco. (Braxton later opposed repaying debts to the British). (Note 65)
How did Morris
accomplish the financing of the
revolution? The information allowing one to illustrate this clearly
has not yet been published. From 1776, the financial techniques used
by Morris and his associates remained controversial. Christie in
Crisis of Empire writes that Morris used:
"the
most
sophisticated credit techniques with an acumen that would dazzle a
contemporary international banker". (Note 66)
It may be for this very reason, along with the loss of his papers, that Morris's achievements have so far eluded close inspection? What is evident is that some of Morris' revolutionary associates initiated US trade with Asia. But it remains unclear, to the point of murkiness, how far ignorance about the financing of the revolution can be linked to neglect of the history of US-Asian trade since 1783. (Note 67)
American historians seem to have quarantined these controversies from their discussions of "debt repudiation", and from their treatments of the post-1783 contest between the Jeffersonians and the Hamiltonians. My contention here is that the Jeffersonian Physiocratic approach could not have coped with the commercial realities of the day, as those realities were perceived by international traders and financiers such as Morris and others in Philadelphia. Or, by Francis Baring in London, by the financiers of Hamburg, Amsterdam, Paris, Lisbon and Madrid. Proper discussion of such financiers will finally involve one in discussion of world bullion flows, the difficulties of supplying bullion silver to India and China, topics the Physiocrats of France and the US were incompetent to address, topics which relate to any discussion of the Old World Mercantilism Jefferson wished to supersede. The Jeffersonian view is that the traders of the northern US maritime colonies engaged in an irresponsible splurge of financial speculation. Curiously enough, what has not been examined specifically here - is any responsible speculation, that was also successful, engaged in by the Northerners.
* * * * *
Much as English historians have refrained from raking over the coals of claims about any "debt repudiation" matters, American historians have mostly refrained from mentioning another strange matter... the last expression visited on America of that strange British preoccupation, convict transportation, a preoccupation that has so much affected Australian history.
From 1783 arose a story peculiar in the annals of British statecraft. Britain's government in 1783-1784 was prepared to countenance the landing of British convicts ("servants") on US territory, as a virtual undercover operation. These efforts were unsupervised, except by the hapless English merchant, George Moore, who dealt with an American Whig, George Salmon. (Note 68) It should be noted here that as a former London convict contractor, Duncan Campbell had nothing to do with those efforts, although he performed his hulks overseer's duty in delivering transportable convicts to the ships arranged for by Moore. (Note 69) What gives these undiplomatic debacles extra interest is that Moore's efforts were stopped partly by the agency of Matthew Ridley, a minor diplomat of the American Revolution to Europe. Between 1770 and 1775, Ridley had been an agent in Baltimore for John Stewart and Duncan Campbell (otherwise denoted as JS&C). (Note 70) So Ridley's career is yet another pathway to observation of Jefferson's meeting with Campbell.
JS&C as contractors to government shipped convicts "servants" to Virginia and Maryland. Campbell had joined Stewart in 1758. Genealogical information fails to arise on Stewart, who died in 1772, but he was possibly related to Stewarts of the Annapolis firm, Stewart and Dick. (Note 71) Schmidt, treating the usage of convict labour in North America, mentions planter-buyers of convict labour such as John Tayloe, Charles Carter, Landon Carter, George Washington, Willoughby Newton, Col. Henry Willis, William Woodford, Thomas Randolph. (Note 72) On 25 July, 1768 when the ship Hero arrived with 57 "servants", George Washington rode from his Potomac plantation to Alexandria to seek a bricklayer. Washington in 1766 had bought two servants from Tom Hodge, who was the Virginia agent for JS&C. (Note 73) Given references by American historians in the contexts of the pre-1775 tobacco trade to convict transportation to Virginia and Maryland, of mercantile matters prior to the Revolution, it remains curious indeed that Campbell has escaped attention for so long. (Note 74) It would seem that Americans were less resentful of receiving convict servants than has been thought?
Meanwhile, Campbell's experience as a London importer of American tobacco is illustrative. His senior partner Stewart died in 1772, only a few months before the City of London was assailed by the financial bust resulting from the misdeeds of the speculator in East India Company stock, Alexander Fordyce. (Note 75) Seriously disorganised as business houses fell around him, although surviving, Campbell took on most of Stewart's former correspondents. (That is, he probably took on their debts). But by 1776, Campbell ended probably with a feeling of betrayal, since most of his clients and agents in Virginia/Maryland became revolutionaries. Matthew Ridley, born in England in 1749, well educated, once accompanied Robert Morris' sons to Europe. (Note 76) (Note 77) Before, during and after the Revolution, Ridley took to American life with a passion. He ended in modestly assisting politicians such as Benjamin Franklin, John Adams and John Jay. In 1775, Ridley went to England to marry Ann Richardson. While there he assisted the American prisoners of war, one of his compatriots in that work being Benjamin Vaughan, son of Samuel Vaughan mentioned above. (There is no record in Campbell's papers that Ridley saw Campbell on that trip). (Note 78)
Ridley entered a new phase when in March, 1781 he was appointed agent for Maryland, and asked to obtain a loan for the state in Europe. (It was then he took Morris' two sons, Robert and Thomas, to Europe). Ridley went to France in November, 1781. (Ridley at times also dealt with Robert Morris' loyal friend, Gouvenour Morris, no family relation to Robert Morris). Ridley obtained no loan in France, but after discussion with John Adams in Holland he obtained a loan from Nicolas and Jacob van Staphorst of Amsterdam. (Note 79) Ridley was back in France in August, 1782 and there became friends with John Jay.
Few secrets were kept from Ridley, and about September-October, 1782, when Britain and the US were negotiating, the terms of Jay's draft of a treaty were learned in London, by 8 October, 1782. Ridley knew of the animosity between Jay and Franklin, and from time to time he commented on the high-level power plays between France, Spain and Britain which threatened to swamp US interests. (Note 80) On 31 August, 1782, Ridley was seeing Jay and discussing matters such as Robert Morris' dealings with the French financier, Ferdinand Grand.
All of which suggests that by 1783, as sometime chairman of the Creditors, Campbell had probably heard occasional news of Ridley's activities in promoting the American Revolution. (Note 81) In this context, Campbell's usual courtesy expressed as he wrote to his American creditors, and on an occasion, to Ridley himself, spoke of his capacities for mercantile diplomacy. Such is the man Jefferson met in 1786.
* * * * *
The debt monies claimed by the British Creditors have been totalled at between 2.5 and 5 million pounds sterling, or even more, depending on how the count was taken, and if interest for the duration of the revolution is included. The Creditors were formed from April, 1782. (Note 82) (Note 83) An initiator of the group was a former tobacco trader, Nathaniel Polhill MP, who wrote first to Campbell. Presumably, respect for Campbell's organisational abilities had lasted since 1775, when he had faded from merchant London politics. Polhill evidently opted out of proceedings, for soon Campbell "sorely missed" Polhill's guidance and advice. (Note 84) Over time, using a modern style of lobbying, the Creditors made overtures to government about their cause, but they remained generally frustrated. As Pitt himself observed, one great stumbling block was the US' lack of any mechanisms for taking legal action for the satisfaction of claimed debt matters. (Note 85) Pitt also gauged that the different states of the US had to be distinguished, which, in effect, meant the British government could take no direct action, since the Federated US had still not crystallised. (Note 86)
* * *
Was Jefferson's meeting with the British Creditors significant? Yes, since Jefferson forwarded information to Congress which helped guide Jay's construction of the terms of his 1794 Treaty. That treaty implicitly and explicitly took cognisance of debt matters, but once again, the debate between the Hamiltonians and Jeffersonians needs to be reviewed, since most commentators see Hamilton's hand in the construction of Jay's Treaty. Finally, however, both Hamilton and Jefferson found the Jay Treaty "execrable". (Note 87)
Before he met Campbell, Jefferson had been pondering his personal indebtedness in a candid way. Jefferson (and/or his tobacco-producing family) owed money chiefly to Alexander McCaul, an aged tobacco merchant of Glasgow, and to [Richard] Jones of Bristol. (Note 88) It was McCaul who recommended that Jefferson see a representative of the Creditors (that is, Campbell). (Note 89) Jefferson in his letters was as candid about his debts as he was about his inability to repay quickly. Jefferson's family debt situation mirrored in miniature the national situation of the new United States of America. (Note 90)
In March 1786, John Adams asked Jefferson to visit London on a trip destined to bear mixed diplomatic fruit. Naturally, Jefferson consulted often with Franklin and John Adams. (Note 91) The US Congress intended that Jefferson should conclude commercial treaties with up to sixteen European powers, including the Barbary States. (Note 92) Few prospects existed that such a treaty would be concluded with Britain, since the former enemy had determined to harass the new US' commercial maritime endeavour. After Jefferson made his treaty with the Barbary states, Britain withdrew her naval resources from the western Mediterranean, knowing Barbary pirates would harass US shipping. It was known in London that the US would have to pay hefty bribes to the Barbary states, up to three hundred thousand guineas, to buy off piracy. For this reason, London merchants cruelly joked that "if there were no Algiers it would be worth England's while to build one." (Note 93)
By 1786, Jefferson had devised "an incredibly ambitious undertaking", to Americanize world trade. That is, to realign trade with the democratic principles of the American Revolution. It amounted to a revision of Mercantilism. This was fresh and challenging; more so it was excessively ambitious - but it was where Jefferson chose to begin. (The remark of T. S. Eliot, "Between the dream and the reality falls the shadow", is more appropriate than the harshness of Ben-Atar's comments on the outcome). (Note 94)
As Peterson writes, by 30 April, 1784, Jefferson had wanted Congress to endorse regulations resembling the British Navigation Laws, but the states would not co-operate. He also wanted each partner in trade to use their own bottoms, tantamount to another major revision of Mercantilism. (Note 95) But a pressure point in the US was New England, where business interests particularly wanted to renew trade with Britain. Jefferson remained opposed to any partial (regional) resumptions of trade - in his view the United States had to stand united.
It is fair to say, Jefferson had not had time to explore all the implications of his views on how the US might conduct trade. (Note 96) He arrived in London on 11 March, 1786, and was presented at the Court of St James on 17 March, 1786, when he was snubbed by George III, as has often been noted. (Note 97) (Note 98) When Jefferson and Campbell spoke, two men loomed large in shadows behind them. Behind Campbell was George III, who had incorrectly believed that Britain's superior economic power would tell on the American rebellion, then crush it. Shifting worryingly behind the agrarian-minded Jefferson was the figure who had helped prove George III wrong, Robert Morris.
By 1786, Jefferson was increasingly unhappy about Morris' monopolistic handling of the American tobacco crop, and with the now-untrustworthy French buyers, the Farmers-General. (Note 99) After July 1783, Morris had been virtually forced to sell Virginian tobacco to offset a Dutch loan, also to stimulate taxation by stimulating the market, also to meet regional criticisms that his policy was draining certain regions of specie. As Campbell probably knew, Morris by 1786 was still selling American tobacco at forward-contract prices to the Farmers-General, largely, and also understandably, as a result of understandings made earlier, from 1776. Also understandably by 1786, these arrangements had less flexibility than the "new nation", and Jefferson himself, felt would be appropriate. (Note 100) The time had come for a renegotiation about tobacco marketing. The problem was: what to do about Robert Morris?
On 24 January, 1786 from Paris, Jefferson wrote to Governor Henry of Virginia since proposals had been received from Messrs Ross, Pleasants and Co. for sending US tobacco to the Farmers-General. Morris in the meantime had obtained the contract. (Note 101) Jefferson feared the situation here was a double monopoly, a baneful influence on commerce. Regrettably, "the interests involved" (Morris and the Farmers-General) could not be opposed "even by the country". Here, Jefferson and Jay both agreed, Morris should not have enjoyed such influence. The tobacco trade was "in an agony"... the price had gone down from 40 shillings to 22 shillings and 6d. per lawful weight. (Note 102)
Jefferson could convey copies of documents, but he did not want any tobacco merchants in London seeing such copies. Sumner asks, what really happened here? Gouvenour Morris thought that Morris' tobacco contract was the only way to destroy the monopoly the much-resented Scots factors had earlier possessed. (Note 103) (Recently arising information might suggest that this contemporary fear was based on information about the activities of the noted Scots buyer of American tobacco for the French Farmers-General, to 1775, Sir Robert Herries [also the "inventor" of the traveller's cheque]. It is only lately been known, that while Herries was based in London, one of his suppliers in Scotland of American tobacco was a cousin of Jefferson's enemy, Alexander Hamilton (1755-1804). (However, there seems no reason to believe that Alexander Hamilton was in touch with any such cousin by 1786). From Sumner's summation, it seems Morris was working a kind of futures market in tobacco, using "attempts to control the exchange", a tactic stemming from the financier's hubris Morris had begun to entertain after his period with the US treasury had ended in 1784. (Note 104)
Earlier, by 19 January, 1786, Adams said he looked to Thomas Boylston alone to prevent the death of the whaling trade and a depopulation of Nantucket. (Note 105) As Cappon writes, Boylston of Boston traded US whale oil to France. (Boylston was a frequent Jefferson correspondent to May, 1786). Another American interested in whale oil was Nathaniel Barrett; another, an associate of Morris, Daniel Parker, who was lately a contractor to the US army, and a cheating co-investor with Morris in the Empress of China, the first US ship sent to China. (Note 106) There were few major commercial developments to which Morris' hand had not stretched.
Debt matters caused continual comment as Americans monitored developments. Mr Voss of Virginia had recently called on Adams with a statement of Virginia's [state] debts. Voss was aware of trade in pelts, grain and tobacco, and he or Adams fancied that US trade with India would go well in respect of the reception given to Pitt's Bill. Regarding the British Creditors, Voss thought the debts could not be sued for in US courts till the Treaty was complied with, respecting the British evacuation of posts and payment for Negroes taken. (Note 107) Lord Carmarthen, secretary of state for foreign affairs, had lately been compiling information on British Debts, and the Creditors had been complaining to the Ministry of late. Adams hoped to find out what is "broiling in their Hearts" (that is, in the Creditors' hearts). (Note 108) Jefferson wrote to Adams from Paris on 27 November, 1785, the US must pay its debts to Great Britain before US trade returns could be its own. (Note 109)
Jefferson by 11 March,
1786 already had in mind a
"very summary" treaty, proposing an exchange of citizenship
for our [US] citizens, our ships, and our productions generally.
(Note 110) On 20-23 March, 1786 the American banker, Thomas Barclay,
wrote from Madrid to Jefferson on matters relating to the treaty
Jefferson was writing with the Barbary States. On 30 March, 1786
Alexander McCaul wrote to Jefferson from Glasgow, replied to on 19
April, 1786 when Jefferson noted,
"settling those conditions
which are essential to the continuance of a commerce between them
[the two nations, Britain and the US]... the subject has not been
deemed worthy [by Britain] of a conference..." (Note 111)
Jefferson remarked, it was difficult to foresee how nations would pursue their own measures. The US remained disturbed about the insufficient evacuation of British troops, and many slaves been taken away contrary to stipulations. (Note 112) It had been said in London that the Americans had thrown restrictions in the way of recovery of debts due to the British merchants. Jefferson's view was that the debt could not physically be paid... "it is impossible". The debt was [about two millions]... but only ten per cent of such an amount was in circulation in the US, both debtors and creditors would be ruined, the London merchants wanted also their interest.
The Americans would repay, Jefferson honestly believed... "it is now time that they [the American debtors] should begin the paiment [sic] of their old debts." And here, Jefferson outlined (at what cost of personal embarrassment?) to McCaul the arrangements he was making to ensure that his own creditors would be paid. Finally, Jefferson relied on McCaul's sense of justice. (Note 113) Jefferson remained obliged to McCaul and Jones of Bristol (Farrell and Jones). (He had owed them both [or still owed?] about 4200 pounds - it is unclear if both debtors were owed such a sum. The total was probably 4200 pounds). Jefferson explained, his own estate was partially ruined, the British merchants might risk losing the interest [on monies owed], but the US people did not gain it either. In the circumstances of 1786, the US deemed Britain to be the aggressors.
That Jefferson made little headway with London's commercial community is evident from lists of the persons he saw, and more so, those he did not see. (Note 114) During March, 1786 some of those he visited included Carmarthen, whom Jefferson found vague and evasive. (Note 115) Sir John Sinclair of Whitehall. Mr Paradise of 2 Charles Street,, Cavendish Square. Mr Pierrepoint. Mr Bridgen of Paternoster Row. B[enjamin?]. Vaughan of Jeffries Square, W. Vaughan of Mincing Lane. Mr Chew at 35 Norfolk Street, Strand. Mr Rucker at No 6, John Street, The Adelphi. Welch at 14 Finchurst Buildings, Finchurst Street. (Note 116)
By 19 April, 1786, disconcerted captains of American ships at L'Orient, who had expected to enjoy the [fixed] prices and conditions for tobacco sales as arranged by Morris, were complaining to Jefferson. Perhaps unethically, the French Farmers-General had lowered their offering price; the American tobacco cargoes remained unsold. Jefferson was requested to negotiate with Vergennes and other French. The captains complained of unjust proceedings "tending to annihilate our Trade with France". They complained also of having to pay extra interest on money advanced by correspondents till satisfaction could be arranged.
By 21 April, 1786, both American and French merchants at L'Orient were complaining to Jefferson about their unhappy situation, and mentioning a contract between Morris and the Farmers-General which had distinguished different prices for different qualities of tobaccos; instead of applying an average price, which if nothing else made for a delay of time for a sale, "in this crisis". A list was given of 4,078 hogsheads carried on 15 ships. The captains daily expected the arrival of another seven ships, to make a total of 6,408 hogsheads. The ruin of many was foreseen. The merchants understood that a committee had been formed by the French king to remove inconveniences inconsistent with government's best interests. (Note 117)
On 22 April, 1786
Jefferson informed Richard Henry
Lee regarding a planned dinner with Sir John Sinclair et al.
(Note 118) This dinner was unofficial, enjoyed with men who were
seemingly genuine friends of America. (Sinclair was a noted improver
of British agriculture, and probably he and Jefferson had similar
views on improving agriculture). Jefferson dined with his host and a
"Ministerial party". (Note 119) Talk revolved on American
affairs. Jefferson was informed that if Americans were to
"petition
Parliament to be again received on their former footing, the petition
would be very generally rejected. He was serious in this, and I think
it was the sentiment of the company, and is the sentiment perhaps of
the nation. In this they are wise, but for a foolish reason."
(Note 120)
Jefferson found Benjamin
Vaughan Jnr. sympathetic to
the US' attitude. The Marquis of Landsdowne was sympathetic to the US
view, and thought the British view was folly, but Jefferson found no
one would speak on these matters in public. And so on Sunday, 23
April, 1786, annoyed no British official would meet with him,
Jefferson wrote Jay, "But their silence is invincible".
Then, as Jefferson wrote later to Jay... Campbell called at an
appointed hour, a man...
"formerly much concerned in the
American trade"... "we entered on the subject of the
non-execution of the late treaty of peace alledged [sic] on both
sides". (Note 121)
When Jefferson and Campbell met they were polite about peripheral details, but disagreement rapidly set in about the 40 per cent of three million pounds sterling the Britons thought they were owed. Jefferson later observed of Campbell, the interest from 1775 to 1786 "was his only topic". Campbell said he found the renunciation of the interest "a bitter pill he and his friends could never swallow." (Note 122) They then spoke about the 1782-1783 treaty, but Campbell informed that he was not authorised to speak on future commerce. (Campbell had come to Jefferson, and one wonders if the Vaughans' address in Mincing Lane was the venue?) On departing, Campbell told Jefferson he would discuss the matter with Lord Carmarthen, but only in the context of stipulations his friends had already made about the payment of old debts. One wonders if Campbell had not sought from Jefferson news of Campbell's highly-placed former colonial correspondents, the Tayloes, Fitzhughs, Thorntons, Coldens? (Note 123) One suspects, not.
In his letter to John
Jay of 23 April, 1786, in which
Jefferson named Campbell, Jefferson noted that Campbell had insisted
that US legislatures had thrown obstacles in the way of debt
recovery, and wrote:
"We observed to him that the great
amount of debt from America to Great Britain, and the little
circulating coin in the former country, rendered immediate paiment
impossible, that time was necessary;..."
Campbell, reasonably, acknowledged the impossibility of immediate payment, but, and as all commentators have noted, Campbell found the renunciation of interest on debts for the duration of the war a bitter pill, which he and his committee could never swallow. (Note 124) Jefferson later wrote to Jay again, saying Campbell nor any one else got back in touch with him about such matters. "Congress will judge how far these conversations should influence their future proceedings, or those of the states". So if nothing else, the Creditors' pressures became one force impelling the development of the US Federal legal system.
Later, Campbell saw his merchant committee. Personally, he again contacted Matthew Ridley, and he even intended to send an agent, Frank Mackett, a son of an old acquaintance, to Virginia to search the prospects for recovery of debts. In vain. Young Mackett died of fever at Gravesend. Campbell gave up his efforts. (Note 125)
What Jefferson did not say, and may not have known, unless Vaughans informed him, was that Campbell was also long-involved in West India trade. Campbell in his capacity as hulks overseer often spoke with government officials, and so was perhaps better-connected than Jefferson realised. In 1786, in view of the British-US dispute over West Indian trade, if government, or the British Creditors, or both, had wanted Jefferson to speak with a London merchant experienced with both West India and North American trade, Campbell may well have been an ideal choice. Otherwise, preoccupied with debt recovery, London's merchants seem to have closed ranks against Jefferson and his mission, with a high degree of unanimity. At least, it seems plausible to infer that whether or not Jefferson knew that Campbell was familiar with West Indian trade, it would have taken Campbell little time to assess any shifts in Jefferson's attitudes regarding West India trade.
Much hinged on perceptions of the indispensability of West India trade. By 1785, Jefferson had decided that further US-West Indian trade was indispensable. John Adams agreed. (Note 126) Jefferson noted that Britain wanted trade with the US to be free and unrestricted, subject to no discriminations. The US adopted the position that US trade with the West Indies would be free. Britain disagreed. (Note 127) Later, some issues respecting US-West India trade were embodied in Jay's Treaty of 1794, the proposal being that US-West India trade might remain on a pre-revolutionary basis. (Note 128)
Peterson (Note 129),
writes that the US had been
dealt "a crippling blow" in July 1783, when Britain had
excluded American ships from the lucrative West Indies trade.
Doubtless, the US in the West Indies would have been intending to
deal with both French and British sugar islands, a prospect which
could not have pleased Britain. As Peterson has it, Britain was
determined to hold the US in economic vassalage, as adumbrated by the
Earl of Sheffield in his 1783 Observations on the Commerce of the
United States. Lester Cappon writes,
"The stubborn stand of
the British embittered both ministers [Adams and Jefferson], for it
challenged the political independence of the United States by means
of economic pressure." (Note 130)
Jefferson wrote on 4 May, 1786 to his old friend John Page, "That nation [Britain] hates us, their ministers hate us, and their king more than all other men..." ...they wanted our [American] carrying trade as all their own, our ideas "have been treated with derision". Jefferson thought the present British hostility to the US more deeply rooted than during the war, and he even wondered if Britain was willing to go to war again? (Note 131)
Given Jefferson's correspondence with John Page, we might note that Page had earlier dealt with Campbell, but the connections there were formal and apparently innocuous. On 14 June, 1773, Page wrote to Duncan Campbell, presumably on matters later defined as debt matters, since a historian's citation comes from apparently bundled documentation - Notorial Copies of Letters to Duncan Campbell. (Note 132)
* * * * *
Any juxtaposition of Jefferson's concerns when he was in London with concerns registered in Campbell's correspondence about managing hulks prisoners is revealing, and enables creation of a focus to be made which has long been missing from the historiography of "the founding of Australia". There are twists of irony. When Campbell first managed the Thames River prison hulks in 1776, the prisoners were kept at work improving the Proof Butts at the Woolwich Arsenal, that is, the artillery ground for proving the effectiveness of equipment to be used by the British army against the fractious Americans. (Note 133)
Meanwhile, from Campbell's biography arises a query. Why did Campbell bother to become superintendent of the Thames prison hulks in 1775-1776? The answer is, that with his remittances stopped from America, he had no other way to preserve his usual trade to Jamaica. One of his major roles in life was to regularly supply his Jamaica relatives. If he had not taken the hulks contracts, his relatives' lives as well as his own life may well have been ruined, for some merchant would have had to buy their debts, and all of them would have gone into that merchant's pocket. That was the way the British commercial system worked. That, along with many concomitant political considerations, was precisely one reason the American Revolution was being fought!
After meeting Campbell, Jefferson provided reports of varying length on their talks. (Note 134) Surprisingly, Campbell left no useful report in his Letterbooks, although a copy survives of a printed memorial from the Creditors to the principal secretary of state for foreign affairs, Lord Carmarthen. (Note 135)
* * * * *
It should be noted, that except for his letters to clients on Jamaica, Campbell's correspondence after 1775 was much less that of a trader than formerly. Much of his time was preoccupied with hulks management. Campbell in early 1786 wrote to...
... Robert Campbell, a brother of Colin Campbell, collector of excise at Glasgow, who had written from Loch ? House on the death of Mrs C of Kil?ry...[illegible] (Note 136)
On 12 January, 1786, Campbell made an oath regarding the veracity of a usual quarterly return on his hulks prisoners. By 13 January he made that return to Lord Sydney, for the hulk Ceres, from 12 October the year previous.
On 14 January, 1786 Campbell wrote to John Pownal Esq., a commissioner of the Customs Board, regarding a memorial from Campbell's brother-in-law, the father-in-law of William Bligh, Richard Betham (died 1789), receiver-general of the Isle of Man. Betham's Memorial to the Board had been referred to Customs from Treasury. (Note 137)
On 6 February, 1786, Campbell wrote to General William Robertson, Upper Harley Street, about the continuation of Treasury's bounty to the education of Alexander and Cadwallader, the sons of Mrs Harriet Colden. a Loyalist of New York, Campbell's "poor kinswoman." (She was his niece, Richard Betham's eldest daughter; Betham had married Campbell's older sister, Mary). (Note 138)
Probably before 4 March, 1786, but possibly in April, Campbell as chairman of the Creditors had printed a Memorial to Lord Carmarthen. Campbell informed government that the Creditors by 1775 had had "a very deep stake in America". Their debts and investment losses in real estate and other property equalled more than three million pounds sterling. Some points emphasised in the Memorial were that (1) the merchants had been deprived of their property for ten years (2) they were deprived of eight years' interest, equal to 40 per cent. (Note 139) Campbell's other correspondence about mid-1786 is mostly preoccupied with the business of hulks management, including suppressing convict mutinies, matters usually seen as part of the prelude to convict transportation to Australia.
* * * * *
CONCLUSIONS:
The significances of the meeting between Campbell and Jefferson are many. Most importantly, none of the information arising from a detailed examination of Jefferson's meeting with the British Creditors contradicts any responsible remark made by any US historian about post-1783 debt matters. Anyone seeking any such contradiction will encounter various mysteries and gaps in information, but the finding here is that the American purview so far adopted of Jefferson and his most respected colleagues is reliable, whether or not Anglo-Australian historians remain uninterested.
Some significances of the meeting are of two orders: some practical and relating to commerce; others, more literary. The fact that so many of Campbell's colonial associates dedicated themselves to the revolutionary cause, especially Matthew Ridley, while Campbell was reduced to the role of an overseer of hulks prisoners, made his case as a Creditor conspicuous, and, in the literary sense, worthy of reconsideration by historians of convict transportation and related matters.
Awareness of the Jefferson-Campbell meeting provides a new and different culmination to the narrative of convict transportation to North America. It also provides a background which shows more starkly how moods of negativity, depression, backward-lookingness and helplessness prevailed as Britain decided to send convicts to Australia. (Note 140) After 1786, Jefferson would help write the American Constitution and provide inspiration to humanity. Campbell would remain an oddity in the unhappy history of criminology, a hulks overseer who, when he died, was quickly pilloried - his obituary in The Gentleman's Magazine accused him of greed and graspingness. (Note 141) Not even two centuries of industrious curiosity about William Bligh has been able to help exhume Campbell's story, which in turn, in its own way, becomes an offence to Jamaican history.
New impressions provided here could easily be used as a guide to further analysis of London merchants interested in the early Australian colony. When maritime history is pursued, new questions are raised about the first US shipping arriving at Sydney, or, trading or whaling about the Indian and Pacific oceans. In other domains, the ubiquity of Robert Morris, including his links with Ridley, reveal that Morris wielded dangerously excessive commercial power. This in turn reveals the frailties of the US' commercial situation, frailties remaining inadequately described by reference to the conflict between Hamiltonians and Jeffersonians. The "new nation" needed to create banking and taxation systems, to expand its settlements, and even (if Ben-Atar's recent analysis can be viewed as reliable) to resolve the contradictions residing in Jefferson's own outlook.
The protocols of maritime history tend to work against any retention of parochial views. The British Creditors by 1783-1786 may well have been successfully scattered, but the uncertainties of US commerce lingered painfully. To date, these uncertainties have been inadequately surveyed, as is revealed by gaps in the narrative of the relevant maritime histories, of whaling, of carrying tobacco, of US trade to India and Asia. In all this, the "mea culpa complex" of US historians concerning questions of debt repudiation has worked against the development of a more straightforward economic history.
More importantly, it seems useful, and justifiable, to redefine "debt repudiation" as the calling of a debt moratorium. As Emory Evans argues, debt repudiation was negligible as a political motive for the conduct of the American Revolution. It would provide embarrassments if this present assessment found Jefferson's personal or public attitudes to debt matters to suffer from bad faith. (Note 142) Jefferson's attitude, and those of many of his associates remained respectable, animated by good faith, but vitiated by practical problems. It is those practical problems which have not yet been faced fully by historians. (Note 143)
With this, the continued silence of historians on the revival of US-London tobacco trade remains problematical. It is not accidental that information on the career of the formerly-unknown Campbell is of assistance in identifying gaps in narratives. Any historian researching Campbell's period as a London tobacco trader (or, indeed, any London tobacco re-exporter) will, by 1776, inevitably have to explain how Robert Morris and his associates intervened in marketing American tobacco. Inadequate information about Morris' career continues as a stumbling block for the researcher.
It is possible that further research on other British Creditors would provide useful data, but apart from Mary Hayley, and Lane, Son and Fraser, one would hesitate to suggest which particular Creditors' situations would provide this, with the exception of Duncan Campbell. What is clear is that after 1783, the Jeffersonian anxiety about US enterprise becoming newly entrapped in the coils of British capital was justified. The meaning of the problems with US maritime history, referred to above, is that it remains unclear how much genuine success Jefferson enjoyed as he strove to free the US of this anxiety. Here, Robert Morris' scheme to sell the US domestic debt to foreign financiers should remain a matter for attention.
* * * * *
The view taken here of the American Revolution is of a new nation "freeing itself from constitutional or economic bonds" or, "a colonial struggle for independence". In view of "debt repudiation" I propose that the term "debt moratorium" would be more appropriate to the actual moral and practical circumstances of the situation. (Note 144) The American colonists from 1773 called an angry moratorium on the application by British merchants of policies of debt entrapment... entrapment which, in the American view, unnaturally, unnecessarily, and unjustly strangled the growing economies of the American colonies. (Note 145) "Debt repudiation" is too blunt a term, fits the facts inadequately, and does not take into adequate account the long history of English commercial policies applied to pre-1775 colonies.
I term these policies, "debt entrapment policies". Accompanied by credit extension by individual British and Scottish merchant houses, such policies were routinely applied to West Indian colonies, to North America, and were also a feature of English commercial dealings in the East, firstly with Indian merchants in Surat, Bombay, Calcutta, Madras, later at Canton after about 1775. (Note 146) "Debt entrapment" can be noticed in North America as early as the 1720s, during the period of the career of the London tobacco merchant, Micajah Perry, if not earlier. (Note 147)
Those becoming interested in the history of the transportation of British convicts will find that from 1695, one of the first, prominent merchant names they will encounter in London-Virginia trade in that context will be, Micajah Perry. (Note 148) Perry was involved in trade in coerced labour. Campbell was one of the inheritors of that tradition. Trade in slaves from Africa and the transportation of British convicts were different wings of trade in coerced labour. It is widely accepted that from 1783, the United States' failure to free slaves continued a tragedy for humanity. Consideration of Jefferson's meeting with the British Creditors sheds more light on this as well. The American Declaration of Independence provoked change in many political attitudes. But if research on trade in coerced labour is pressed back to Micajah Perry's time, a wider perspective is generated on attitudes to slavery - attitudes which the American Revolution failed to change, and this is also a component of the bitter pill swallowed when Duncan Campbell met Thomas Jefferson.
A Bitter Pill - Finis
Begins the Endnotes
to A
Bitter Pill
(The Appendix below has its own separately numbered set of Endnotes at the bottom of that section, after which a bibliography is listed)
Note 1: Thomas Jefferson to John Jay, 23 April, 1786, in Julian P. Boyd, (Ed.), The Papers of Thomas Jefferson. Vol. 9. (November 1, 1785 to 22 June, 1786). Princeton, NJ, Princeton University Press, 1954., p. 403. On the same matter, Jefferson to James Madison, 25 April, 1786, p. 433. [Boyd's ninth volume of The Papers of Thomas Jefferson is hereafter cited as Boyd, Vol. 9, and no other volume of that series is referred to unless so indicated]. Meanwhile, a great deal of reliance has been placed on Doron C. Ben-Atar, The Origin of Jeffersonian Commercial Policy and Diplomacy. Hampshire, England, Macmillan, 1993. Making a new survey of Jefferson's trade policies, Ben-Atar however pays little attention to his visit to London in March-April, 1786.
Note 2: On pro-Americans in Britain see John Sainsbury, 'The Pro-Americans of London, 1769 to 1782', William and Mary Quarterly, Series 3, Vol. XXXV, January, 1978., pp. 423-454. On Francis Baring, see appendix material below.
Note 3: At least, as far as one knows. See Alison Olson, 'The London Mercantile Lobby and the Coming of the American Revolution', Journal Of American History, Vol. 69, June, 1982., pp. 21-41; here, p. 41, Note 75. Further information is contained in the appendix.
Note 4: The Creditors as chiefly residents in England, if not London, are treated most extensively in Katharine A. Kellock, 'London Merchants and the pre-1776 American Debts', Guildhall Studies in London History, Vol. 1, No. 3, October, 1974., pp. 109-149. After 1782, the Creditor's pronouncements as a lobby group included the views of Scottish merchants, who used Patrick Colquhuon in Glasgow as one of their chief spokesmen. The early careers of many creditors are referred to variously, though not so informatively, in Jack M. Sosin, Agents and Merchants: British Colonial Policy and the Origins of the American Revolution, 1763-1775. Lincoln, University of Nebraska Press, 1965.
Note 5: Olson, 'London Mercantile Lobby', pp. 40-41.
Note 6: Charles F. Hobson, 'The Recovery of British debts in the Federal Circuit Court of Virginia, 1790-1797', Virginia Magazine of History and Biography, 1984, 92, 2., pp. 176-200.
Note 7: Campbell, still ill. Duncan Campbell Letterbooks, ML A3235m p. 367, letter of 25 January, 1775.
Note 8: Mary Mumford was of a noted Kentish family; Zena Bamping, West Kingsdown: The Story of Three Villages in Kent. (Second edition). London, Tyger Press, 1991., contains some genealogical references to Campbell and Mumfords. In 1784 Campbell bought nearly 2400 acres of Kingsdown, Kent, from Thomas William Coke ("Coke of Norfolk"), which required sanction of an Act of Parliament. There were probably helpful family connections. The father of Thomas William Coke (1754-1842), MP of Norfolk, the Whig Edward Coke (1719-1753), Earl Leicester, had married Mary Campbell (1726-1811) (the letter-writer), co-heir of John Campbell (1680-1743), second Duke of Argyll and Greenwich.
Note 9: Olson, 'London Mercantile Lobby', pp. 21-41. Alison Olson, 'The Virginia Merchants of London: A study in Eighteenth Century Interest Group Politics', William and Mary Quarterly, Series 3, XL, July, 1983., pp. 363-388; here, p. 386.
Note 10: Kellock, ibid. Of related interest is Edward Countryman, 'The Uses of Capital in Revolutionary America: The Case of the New York Loyalist Merchants', William and Mary Quarterly, Series 3, Vol. 49, No. 1, January, 1992., pp. 3-28.
Note 11: Molleson's career and various issues treated here are outlined in a masterly treatment, Jacob M. Price, 'One Family's Empire: The Russell-Lee-Clerk Connection in Maryland, Britain and India, 1707-1857', Maryland Historical Magazine, Vol. 72. 1977., pp. 165-225. I am grateful to Dr Alan Atkinson for drawing my attention to this model of genealogical research. Molleson was partner with the tobacco merchant, James Russell. Price however was apparently unaware of the many connections which can be noted in Duncan Campbell's career, especially connections to government officials, which he had due to his role as hulks overseer.
Note 12: Stella Pickett Hardy, Colonial Families of the Southern States of America: A History and Genealogy of Colonial Families who Settled in the Colonies prior to the Revolution. (Second edition, revised). Baltimore, Genealogical Publishing Co., 1968.
Note 13: Ben-Atar (cited above, Note 1) notes the lingering fear of the influence of British capital, pp. 21ff. Meanwhile (p. 33) the French remained wary of American indebtedness to Britain, which in turn posed a separate-but-related set of problems for American traders.
Note 14: See Rosane Rocher and Michael E. Scorgie, 'A Family Empire: the Alexander Hamilton cousins, 1750-1830', The Journal of Imperial and Commonwealth History, Vol. 23, No. 2, 1994., pp. 189-210.
Note 15: Price, 'One Family', p. 213. Kellock, pp. 109-115. Scots finally received less reimbursement than Londoners. Also on efforts to recover American debts and the Jay Treaty of 1794, see Joseph Charles, 'The Jay Treaty: The Origins Of The American Party System', William and Mary Quarterly, Series 3, Vol. 12, No. 4, October, 1955.
Note 16: One suspects Campbell did resume re-export, since in 1792, bearing a letter of introduction from their old neighbour in Mincing Lane, Francis Baring, made out to connections at Marseille, Campbell's two eldest sons, Dugald and John, made a tour of Europe. Campbell the elder to Dugald Campbell at Marseilles, 10 January, 1792. Duncan Campbell Letterbooks, Vol. 6, ML A3230, pp. 298-339. There seems no reason why the sons could not have formed or reformed business connections on the trip. Their itinerary is given in the appendix.
Note 17: As Bowers has observed, it was not Morris who financed the American Revolution, it was the Revolution which financed Morris.
Note 18: A. E. Smith, Colonists in Bondage: White Servitude and Convict Labour in America, 1607-1776. University of Carolina Press, 1947. Gloucester, Mass, Peter Smith, 1965. Some debt to Smith is owed by Wilfrid Oldham, Britain's Convicts To The Colonies. Sydney, Library of Australian History, 1990.
Note 19: Alison Olson, 'The London Mercantile Lobby and the Coming of the American Revolution', Journal Of American History, 69, June, 1982., pp. 109-149. Alison Olson, Making The Empire Work: London and American Interest Groups, 1690-1790. London, Harvard University Press, 1992., p. 179. As early as 1783, there were in London two different committees of merchants trading to America, an old pre-1776 and a new, post 1783, and there was little overlap in memberships. In 1786 was signed a London petition regarding appointment of a consul to New England, and of 23 firms signing, only ten had been pre-war traders. Campbell's career as a supplier of convict labour has never been illustrated in any article in the specialist journal of regional colonial history, William and Mary Quarterly.
Note 20: Gordon S. Wood, 'Rhetoric and Reality in the American Revolution', William and Mary Quarterly, Series 3, January, 1966., pp. 27-32; here, p. 29, denying that the Revolution stemmed from "any crude avoidance of British debts".
Note 21: Some of the most useful work in this context is by Emory G. Evans, 'Planter Indebtedness and the Coming of the Revolution in Virginia', William and Mary Quarterly, Series 3, Vol. 19, October, 1962., pp. 511-533. Also, Emory G. Evans, 'Private Indebtedness and the Revolution in Virginia, 1776 to 1796', William and Mary Quarterly, Series 3, Vol. 38, July, 1971., pp. 349-374. On the American Revolution broadly, see Ian R. Christie, Stress and Stability in Late Eighteenth Century Britain: Reflections on the British Avoidance of Revolution. OUP, 1984., Ch. 1, especially pp. 10-14.
Note 22: Boyd failed to delve into biographies of British Creditors. Unlike Boyd, Rutland et al, the editors of the papers of Thomas Madison did identify Campbell usefully; see Jefferson to Madison, London, 25 April, 1786, in Vol. 9, pp. 26ff of Robert A. Rutland, William M. F. Rachal, Barbara D. Ripel and Frederika J. Teute, (Eds.), The Papers of Thomas Madison. Chicago, University of Chicago Press, 1973.
Note 23: Claude G. Bowers, Jefferson and Hamilton: The Struggle for Democracy in America. New York, Houghton Mifflin, 1953., pp. 281-282, The death rate was horrifying: Cornwallis had taken 30,000 slaves, of whom about 27,000 died of smallpox and fever.
Note 24: See Charles R. Ritcheson, `"Loyalist Influence" on British Policy towards the United States after the American Revolution', Eighteenth Century Studies, Vol. 7, 1973-1974., pp. 1-17; here, p. 13. Given Ritcheson's remarks, one is led to wonder, if the Creditors' actions against the Loyalists did not mitigate against any ministerial support for the possibility that some of them might have been resettled at New Holland or Norfolk Island?
Note 25: James Matra's role in promoting the settlement of Loyalists in Australasia is discussed in several articles in Ged Martin, (Ed.), The Founding of Australia: The Argument about Australia's Origins. Sydney, Hale And Iremonger, 1978.
Note 26: Whaling and sealing were activities difficult for any nation to police. It is difficult to suggest how much this might have been a factor slowing discussion by Australian historians of Pacific whaling, added to which are the difficulties of discussing conflict between the London-based South Whale Fishery and the East India Company, also London-based. Unpredictable outcomes of sealing surfaced with the "Nootka crisis" of 1789-1791. See David Mackay, In the Wake of Cook: Exploration, Science and Empire, 1780-1801. Wellington, Victoria University Press, 1985., pp. 57-120, treating the crisis from the British point of view; and Eduoard A. Stackpole, Whales And Destiny: The Rivalry Between America, France, and Britain For Control Of The Southern Whale Fishery, 1785-1825. University of Massachusetts Press, 1972., p. 152. The locations to be mentioned in discussion of this crisis include London, Mexico, Canton in China, Madras in India, California; even Sydney, Australia.
Note 27: Gordon Jackson, The British Whaling Trade. London, Adam and Charles Black, 1978., p. 101. William Bligh, who had been on Cook's third voyage, was owed various royalty monies on this publication. Bligh's London associate handling those monies was Duncan Campbell: George Mackaness, The Life of Vice-Admiral William Bligh, RN, FRS. Two Vols. Sydney, Angus and Robertson, 1931., Vol. 1, p. 35.
Note 28: Margaret Steven, Trade, Tactics and Territory: Britain in the Pacific, 1783-1823. Melbourne, Melbourne University Press, 1983., pp. 39-40. A clear view of American interest in furs is conveyed in Anthony Dickinson, 'Some Aspects of the Origin and Implementation of the Eighteenth-Century Falkland Islands Sealing Industry', International Journal of Maritime History, Vol. 1, No. 2, 1990., pp. 33-68.
Note 29: On Ledyard's travels with Cook, and plans to gather furs, see Boyd, Vol. 9, p. 273. Jefferson to Lafayette, Paris, 9 February, 1786. Jefferson provided a reference for Ledyard, a citizen of Connecticut, who wanted to go through northern parts of Asia and America. On Ledyard, see also, Dickinson, cited above, 'Eighteenth-Century Falklands Islands Sealing', p. 54. A view on Nootka Sound fur dealing from Bengal is given in Michael Greenberg, British Trade and the Opening of China, 1800-1842. Cambridge University Press, 1951., p. 24. Ledyard's career however took a strange turn. He became involved with the English Africa Association (with which Sir Joseph Banks was concerned) and agreed to go west from the Nile to search the Niger River and research Saharan or sub-Saharan trade. He died in Cairo in 1789. Alan Frost, The Precarious Life of James Mario Matra: Voyager with Cook, American Loyalist, Servant of Empire. Melbourne, The Miegunyah Press, 1995., p. 135.
Note 30: On Bligh, 22 April, 1786: From manuscripts in the Mitchell Library, Sydney, ML, CY Reel 178, William Bligh Letters, 1782-1805, pp. 270ff. The most respected title on Bligh is Gavin Kennedy, Bligh. London, Duckworth, 1978., although Kennedy is mistaken when he terms Campbell "a navy broker", which the hulks overseer never was.
Note 31: Dan Byrnes, 'The Blackheath Connection: London Local History and the Settlement at New South Wales, 1786-1806', The Push: A Journal of Early Australian Social History, No. 28, 1990., pp. 50-98; with respect to Hayley and the Boston Tea Party, pp. 71-75.
Note 32: Kellock, p. 129. The names are taken from List of Debts due by the Citizens of the United States of America to the Merchants and Traders of Great Britain contracted previous to the Year 1776 with Interest on the same to the 1st January 1790. [Marked, copy transmitted to Lord Grenville in Letter of 3rd Jany 1792]. Photocopied from the original in the Melville Papers, William Clements Library, University of Michigan. I am grateful to Dr Alan Atkinson, History Dept., University of New England, for forwarding me a copy of this original document.
Note 33: Stackpole, Whales and Destiny, variously.
Note 34: Dan Byrnes, `"Emptying the hulks": Duncan Campbell and the first three fleets to Australia', The Push From The Bush: A Bulletin of Social History, April, 1987., pp. 2-23. Also, Dan Byrnes, `Outlooks for the English South Whale Fishery, 1782-1800, and "the great Botany Bay debate"', The Great Circle, Vol. 10, No. 2, October, 1998., pp. 79-102.
Note 35: On Hamilton, see Milton Cantor, (Ed.), Hamilton. Englewood Cliffs, NJ, Prentice-Hall Inc., 1971., with essays by Richard B. Morris, `Alexander Hamilton after Two Centuries', pp. 128-134; Broadus Mitchell, 'Continentalist', pp. 135-156; Cecilia M. Kenyon, 'Alexander Hamilton, Rousseau of the Right', pp., 163-176; and Cantor's Afterword. Vincent T. Harlow, The Founding of the Second British Empire, 1763-1793. Vol. 2. (New Continents and Changing Values). Longmans, London, 1964.
Note 36: Holden Furber, 'The Beginnings of American Trade with India, 1784-1812', The New England Quarterly, June, 1938., pp. 235-265. Here, p. 256. Furber writes, that US merchants had 300 ships calling annually at Mauritius by 1806, and cites other astonishing statistics. One finds it difficult to believe that 300 US ships were calling anywhere about the Indian Ocean by then. Nevertheless, Furber has it that a case was made that the English East India Company should open a depot at Gibraltar to compete there with Americans engaged in the Barbary trades, while it was also suggested the British would seek revision of Article XIII of Jay's Treaty of 1794. Here, Furber, pp. 243-244, finds it extraordinary that as the 1794 Jay Treaty was drafted, the British did not exercise greater care about the possibility of US trade with India.
Note 37: G. Bhagat, 'Americans and American Trade in India, 1784-1814', American Neptune, 46, 1, 1986., pp. 6-15. Holden Furber, 'The Beginnings of American Trade with India', pp. 235-265; p. 243. Philip Chadwick Foster Smith, 'The Empress of China's Voyage, 1784-1785', American Neptune, 46, 1, 1986., pp. 25-33.
Note 38: On the problems posed to Jefferson by Morris from 1785, see Boyd, Vol. 9, pp. 386ff, p. 442, pp. 472ff; and on the role of Simon Berard especially, pp. 457ff. On Robert Morris, see also William Graham Sumner, The Financier and the Finances of the American Revolution. Two Vols. Vol. 2. 1891. [Here, the reader is directed to the appendix, where information is included on the way Robert Morris put the Scot, (Sir) Robert Herries, the London-based buyer of American for the French Farmers-General, out of the tobacco trade from 1775, and after 1785, kept Herries and other Londoners out of trade, matters which in early 1786 came to Jefferson's attention in Paris].
Note 39: Price lists this in 'One Family', p. 213. For London-Maryland matters, Campbell's estate claimed 6731 pounds principal and 13,677 pounds interest, a total of 20,407 pounds, was allowed 4000 pounds and was paid 1857 pounds 14/6d.
Note 40: Olson, 'Virginia Merchants of London', p. 386.
Note 41: A document cited here for 24 June, 1789, is Hansard, The Parliamentary History of England from the Earliest Period to the Year 1803. XXVIII (London, 1816), p. 180. On 25 June, 1789, Campbell wrote to Mr Smith [secretary to Pitt] requesting Mr Pitt would meet a committee of the British Creditors; see the bibliography, Duncan Campbell Letterbooks, for the volume containing Campbell's letters around this date.
Note 42: On Jefferson's own debts: Merrill D. Peterson, Thomas Jefferson and the New Nation: A Biography. London, Oxford University Press, 1970., p. 345. Jefferson to pay his own debts was obliged to sell land and slaves, and to rent out plantations.
Note 43: Ben-Atar, The Origin of Jeffersonian Commercial Policy and Diplomacy, cited above, Note 1.
Note 44: Arthur M. Schlesinger, The Colonial Merchants and the American Revolution, 1763-1776. New York, F. Ungar Pub. Co., 1957., citing p. 39, Note 1, British influence on the Affairs of the United States Proved and Explained. Boston, 1804., quoted by C. A. Beard, Economic Origins of Jeffersonian Democracy. New York, 1915., pp. 297-298.
Note 45: Arthur M. Schlesinger, 'The Uprising Against The East India Company', Political Science Quarterly, Vol. 32, March, 1917., pp. 60-79. Richard Sheridan, 'The British Credit Crisis of 1772 and the American Colonies', The Journal of Economic History, 20, June, 1960., pp. 161-182.
Note 46: Stackpole, Whales and Destiny, pp. 8-9, pp. 22-23.
Note 47: William I. Roberts, III, 'Samuel Storke: An Eighteenth Century London Merchant Trading to the American Colonies', Business History Review, Vol. 34, Summer, 1965., pp. 147-170.
Note 48: Lester H. Cohen, 'Explaining the Revolution: Ideology and Ethics in Mercy Otis Warren's Historical Theory', William and Mary Quarterly, Series 3, Vol. 37, 1980, pp. 200-218. Also, Gordon S. Wood, 'Rhetoric', earlier cited.
Note 49: On Jefferson's views see Sidney Fine, Laissez Faire and the General Welfare State: A Study of Conflict in American Thought, 1865-1901. Ann Arbor, University of Michigan Press, 1965-1965. Here, Fine surveys what might be termed the hangovers in American economic life stemming from the earlier conflict between the Jeffersonians and Hamiltonians. Hamilton (Fine, p. 15) was opposed to taxes on profits or capital as contrary to "the genius of liberty".
Note 50: On the incompatibility of the views of Mercantilists versus the Physiocrats, see Lally Weymouth, Thomas Jefferson, The Man His World His Influence. London, Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1973., pp. 47ff.
Note 51: Ben-Atar, pp. 165ff.
Note 52: Typical ambivalence about the issues creating the tensions between Jeffersonians and Hamiltonians is traced in Leonard D. White, The Jeffersonians: A Study in Administrative History, 1801-1829. New York, Macmillan, 1959.
Note 53: On Jefferson's views about public gambling on government paper in 1790-1791, as he wrestled with Hamilton, see Ben-Atar, p. 101. On Hamiltonians versus Jeffersonians, also, Ben-Atar p. 90, p. 97, pp. 100-101; Merrill Peterson, New Nation, pp. 458-459.
Note 54: Here I rely on Ben-Atar's summary of the origins of Jefferson's commercial policy and diplomacy.
Note 55: Merrill Peterson, New Nation, p. 319, treats Morris' interventions in marketing American tobacco after 1783.
Note 56: On what Jefferson sourly defined as mere "paper", see Ben-Atar, pp. 90-97. On Robert Morris, see Ben-Atar, pp. 32, 48-49, 77.
Note 57: Thomas Perkins Abernethy, Western Lands and the American Revolution. New York, D. Appleton-Century Co., (University of Virginia, Institute for Research into the Social Sciences), 1937; p. 142 for Robert Morris' dealings in land from 1775.
Note 58: Marc Egnal, A Mighty Empire: The Origins of the American Revolution. London, Cornell University Press, 1988. Egnal in his appendices attempts to trace specific pre-Revolutionary factions expressing these contradictory traits of political character, in terms of expansionism versus non-expansionism.
Note 59: One of Duncan Campbell's young relatives, Noble, in November 1770 was intending to open a store in Philadelphia, but he later decided to become partner with Frank Somerville (died Jamaica in 1785) in a store in Jamaica.
Note 60: Relevant information is contained in Royal Historical Manuscripts Commission's Reports, Various Collections, 6, 199. [Unfortunately I have mislaid the title from which this note was made].
Note 61: Ernest Samhaber, Merchants Make History: How Trade has Influenced the Course of History throughout the World. London, Harrap, 1963. Containing a chapter on John Parish, a British merchant of Hamburg. Parish and Morris had become acquainted in Hamburg whilst Morris was visiting Europe, striving to find financial backing for the American revolution.
Note 62: Daniel Parker cheated his partners, as related in P. C. F. Smith, 'The Empress of China's Voyage', pp. 29ff. The appendix contains further information relevant here.
Note 63: In November, 1784, [See E. James Ferguson, The Power of the Purse: A History of American Public Finance, 1776-1790. Williamsburg, Virginia, Institute of Early American History and Culture, Chapel Hill, 1961., p. 139], Robert Morris had quit his official capacity with the US Treasury, leaving it with a balance of only $22,0000. On Morris' plan to buy the US domestic debt, see Ferguson, Purse, pp. 264-270. On Morris generally, and apart from Oberholtzer cited below, see Howard Swiggett, The Forgotten Leaders of the Revolution. New York, Doubleday, 1955; Thomas Fleming, 1776: Year of Illusions. New York, W. W. Norton and Co., 1975; Clarence L. Ver Steeg, Robert Morris: Revolutionary Financier (with an analysis of his earlier career). New York, Octagon, 1972.; William Graham Sumner, The Financier and the Finances of the American Revolution. 1891; Ernest Samhaber, Merchants Make History, cited above, where Robert Morris is mentioned in a section on a British merchant/financier at Hamburg, John Parish. By early 1789, Morris' affairs were badly deteriorated; Gouvenour Morris was trying to help him, and developed an idea to organise matters in Europe so that he and his friends could buy (re-finance) the entire domestic debt of the US, so he linked with Daniel Parker [Ferguson, Purse, p. 261]. As long as Jefferson was in France, he was determined to discourage the transfer of US domestic securities to foreigners, and in this he confronted Morris' associates who were dealing with Dutch speculators, but Jefferson failed with this policy.
Note 64: Ellis P. Oberholtzer, Robert Morris, Patriot and Financier. 1903.
Note 65: The entry for Carter Braxton in the Dictionary of American Biography does not mention his activity in marketing tobacco for Morris. See Ferguson, Purse, p. 80.
Note 66: See I. R. Christie, Crisis of Empire. New York, 1966., p. 110. Fleming, 1776: Year of Illusions, cited above, also has some scattered information on dealings helping financially in the prosecution of the revolution.
Note 67: This is plain after inspection of Morris' revolutionary career, then perusal of Clarence Ver Steeg, 'Financing and Outfitting the First United States Ship to China', Pacific Historical Review, Vol. 22, pp. 1-12. Here, Ver Steeg, p. 8, also notes the oft-mentioned business connections between Matthew Ridley and John Holker.
Note 68: I mention this matter particularly as Duncan Campbell was not directly involved in these strange events. See Roger A. Ekirch, 'Great Britain's Secret Convict Trade to America, 1783-1785', American Historical Review, Vol. 89, No. 5, December, 1984., pp. 1285-1291. Also, Kenneth Morgan, 'The Organisation of the Convict Trade to Maryland: Stevenson, Randolph and Cheston, 1768-1775', William and Mary Quarterly, Vol. 42, No. 2, April, 1985., pp. 201-227.
Note 69: On the hulks, see W. T. Vincent, The Records of the Woolwich District. Two Vols. London, nd. Fulmination about Campbell and the hulks is contained in Douglas Parode Capper, Moat Defensive: A History of the Waters of the Nore Command 55BC to 1961. London, A. Baker Ltd., 1963. W. Branch-Johnson, The English Prison Hulks. London and Chichester, Phillimore, 1957. A more balanced view, criminologically speaking, is available in Charles Campbell, The Intolerable Hulks: British Shipboard Confinement, 1776-1857. Bowie, Maryland, Heritage Books, 1994.
Note 70: I have never read if Jefferson knew enough about these strange events to have ever had an opinion! See Herbert E. Klingelhofer, 'Matthew Ridley's Diary during the Peace Negotiations of 1782', William and Mary Quarterly, Series 3, Vol. 20, January, 1963., pp. 95-133. Ridley kept regular diaries; his writings are now with the Massachusetts Historical Society. He may have been from the Ridley family of Northern England bankers, but this has not been ascertained.
Note 71: Operating before 1775, Stewart and Dick dealt often with John Buchanan of London: Tommy R. Thompson, 'Personal Indebtedness and the American Revolution in Maryland', Maryland Historical Magazine, Vol. 73, 1978., pp. 13-29; here, pp. 23-24; Price, 'One Family', p. 192, notes that after the stoppage of John Buchanan and Son in 1773, the Annapolis firm of Stewart and Dick transferred most of their business to James Russell in London.
Note 72: F. H. Schmidt, 'Sold and Driven: Assignment of Convicts in Eighteenth-Century Virginia', The Push From The Bush, No. 23, 1986. History Dept., University of New England., p. 10.
Note 73: See Marc Egnal, 'The Origins of the Revolution in Virginia: A Re-interpretation', William and Mary Quarterly, Series 3, 37, July, 1980., pp. 401-428. Egnal, p. 408, Note 10, mentions [the matter was innocuous] that George Washington wrote to Stewart and Campbell, 4 September, 1766, about a misunderstanding over a purchase of a convict servant Washington had not bought; as is cited in John C. Fitzpatrick, (Ed), The Writings of George Washington, from the Original Manuscript Sources, 1745-1799. Vol. 1, 1745-1756. Washington DC, US Government Printing Office, 1931-1944, II,. p. 422.
Note 74: Campbell is mentioned without follow-up in Jack P. Greene, The Diary of Colonel Landon Carter of Sabine Hall. Two Vols. Virginia Historical Society, University Press of Virginia, 1965. After the Boston Tea Party, May 1773, London's America merchants were skilfully divided politically by William Lee. [Olson, 'London Mercantile Lobby', p. 38]. See also, Sainsbury, 'The Pro-Americans of London', pp. 433ff. Olson notes [pp. 383-387, 'Virginia Merchants of London', that between December 1773 and 1775, Duncan Campbell represented the more conservative London-American merchants. John Norton and Samuel Athawes were moderates.
Note 75: On Fordyce absconding from London: see J. Steven Watson, The Reign of George III, 1760-1815. Oxford at the Clarendon Press, 1960., p. 62. Tommy R. Thompson, 'Personal Indebtedness' p. 22; Sheridan, 'British Credit Crisis', variously.
Note 76: On Ridley: Klingelhofer, 'Matthew Ridley's Diary'. Price in 1977, in 'One Family', was unaware of Campbell as convict contractor, yet was aware Ridley was an agent for one Duncan Campbell. Sumner, on Robert Morris, Vol. 2, p. 221. In 1781, Robert Morris sent his two sons, Robert, twelve, and Thomas, ten, to Europe for their education, in the care of Ridley, who was then the commercial agent for Maryland. The Morris boys were at Geneva and Leipsic till 1788 when they came home. On 3 August, 1783, Ridley wrote that Molleson in London, (later sometime chairman of the British Creditors) was pushing Ridley hard; but Ridley did not explain the circumstances.
Note 77: On correspondence, see Ridley from Baltimore to John Stewart and Campbell, 5 January, 1771, to Campbell, cited in Klingelhofer, 'Matthew Ridley's Diary', p. 95. See Oldham, Britain's Convicts, p. 27. Ridley by 1775 and by March 1781 had been appointed agent for Maryland in France.
Note 78: For further information on Ridley, see the notes appended to this article.
Note 79: Jefferson had correspondence with Staphorsts in 1786; Boyd, Vol. 9, variously.
Note 80: Klingelhofer, 'Matthew Ridley's Diary', pp. 101-103.
Note 81: Olson, Making the Empire Work, p. 182. In Maryland, William Molleson's business was taken away by the firm of Wallace, Johnson and Muir, who were partners of Robert Morris.
Note 82: Olson, Making the Empire Work, p. 179. It might be stressed that Campbell was one of the few individual merchants trading to America who had membership in both the old, pre-1776 committee and the new, post-1783 grouping. In 1786 was signed [Kellock, p. 113] a London petition seeking appointment of a British consul to New England, (Thomas McDonough); of 23 firms signing, only ten had been pre-war traders. But here, unaware of Campbell's career, Olson cannot explain how it was that Campbell, ostensibly from the pre-war camp, came to meet Jefferson in 1786. Emory Evans, cited above in 'Private Indebtedness', points out (p. 374) that Patrick Henry was an active promoter of debt repudiation by 1784, but that his backers "were for the most part not those who led Virginia to revolt a decade before". This points to the emergence of a new generation of dealers in Virginia which was matched by the emergence of a new generation of traders in both London, and at New England ports.
Note 83: A letter dated 1 April, 1782 is the earliest I have found in Duncan Campbell's Letterbooks on British Creditors' activities. It was written by Campbell to Nathaniel Polhill on moves being made by increasing numbers of British merchants to recover their American debts. See Campbell to Nathaniel Polhill, 1 April, 1782, ML A3228, p. 7; Olson, Making the Empire Work, p. 148. Also, Kellock, variously.
Note 84: Campbell to Nathaniel Polhill, 1 April, 1782, ML A3228, p. 7. Olson, Making the Empire Work, p. 148. Further information on Polhill is contained in the appendix.
Note 85: From London on 7 March, 1792 [Duncan Campbell Letterbooks, ML A3230, p. 312], Campbell advised John Rose of Leedstown, Virginia, that he was no longer chairman, but still a member of the Creditors; a suit had been initiated in the US Federal Court by a British Creditor, the court had declined to give a verdict till they "further deliberate on a point of such magnitude"...
Note 86: On Polhill, see Alan Valentine, The British Establishment, 1760-1784: An Eighteenth Century Biographical Dictionary. University of Oklahoma Press, 1970; and the appendix to this article.
Note 87: See also Samuel Flagg Bemis, Jay's Treaty: A Study in Commerce and Diplomacy. New York, Macmillan, 1923 [Bemis also advances views on the threat of the Nootka Crisis, which seem exaggerated]. Harold C. Syrett and Jacob E. Cooke, (Eds.), The Papers of Alexander Hamilton, 1782-1786. Vol. 3. New York, Columbia University Press, 1962; Thomas Perkins Abernethy, Western Lands, ibid.
Note 88: Boyd, Vol. 9, p. 437. I have been unable to discover information on Jones. He may have been William Jones of Farrell and Jones of Bristol, who by 1790 were owed up to 80,000 pounds in Virginia. Kenneth Morgan, Bristol and the Atlantic Trade in the Eighteenth Century. Cambridge University Press, 1993., p. 164. Boyd, Papers of Thomas Jefferson, for March-November, 1789, pp. 642-677. Evans in 'Private Indebtedness', p. 355 conveys that Jefferson's debt, of 2666 pounds, had arisen due to his marriage to Martha Wayles Skelton. See Marc Egnal, 'The Origins of the Revolution in Virginia: A Re-interpretation', ibid.
Note 89: It also appears, McCaul had found Campbell's name and address on the era's equivalent of a lobby group newsletter. On 4 December, 1789, after a meeting of the Committee some time previously, Campbell sent information from the minutes to Daltera, Jones, Dixon and Ritchie (who were probably all in Bristol). Whether this is the Jones to whom Jefferson was indebted in 1786 would be difficult to discover.
Note 90: Olson, Making the Empire Work, p. 148, pp. 175-183. Also, Charles F. Hobson, 'The Recovery of British Debts', pp. 176-200; Merrill Peterson, New Nation, pp. 452ff.
Note 91: Boyd, Vol. 9, variously, by date. See also Lester J. Cappon, (Ed), The Adams-Jefferson Letters, 1777-1804. Vol. 1. Chapel Hill, University North Carolina Press, 1959., p. 125.
Note 92: Merrill D. Peterson, 'Thomas Jefferson and Commercial Policy, 1783-1793', William and Mary Quarterly, Series 3, Vol. 22, October, 1965., pp. 584-610.
Note 93: See Rutland et al, Madison Papers, Vol. 9, p. 28, Notes 1-5. Ben-Atar refers to Barbary piracy, pp. 106ff; Merrill Peterson, New Nation, pp. 310ff.
Note 94: Merrill Peterson, New Nation, p. 292. As Ben-Atar sees it, p. 67, this effort failed. On other of Jefferson's failures, see Ben-Atar, p, 170; and regarding sales of whale oil to France, Merrill Peterson, New Nation, pp. 324ff. On the psychological complexities of Jefferson's outlook, see Ben-Atar, p. 149.
Note 95: Merrill Peterson, New Nation, pp. 292ff; [later] Congress had authorized commercial treaties with 16 European states including the Barbary powers, as the new US spread its commercial wings. New England men wanted precedence for a commercial treaty with England, but Jefferson opposed any proposal for a merely partial connection with Britain.
Note 96: Jefferson probably sensed, as "Thomas Carlyle said of the commerce of Spanish America after the Wars of Independence: `Trade everywhere, in spite of multiplex confusions, has increased, is increasing; the days of somnolent monopoly and the old Acapulco ships are gone, quite over the horizon.'"; (This quote is taken from William Lytle Schurz, The Manila Galleon. New York, Dutton and Co., 1939., p. 397). But Jefferson also distrusted paper currency. Ben-Atar notes p. 184, Note 27, that "Jefferson's primitive attachment to hard currency originated with the colonial experience with credit".
Note 97: See Lester J. Cappon, (Ed), The Adams-Jefferson Letters, Vol. 1, p. 75 and pp. 125ff on the debt matters discussed here. Jefferson's notes for the Treaty with Portugal are in Boyd, Vol. 9, pp. 410ff.
Note 98: Cappon, ibid, p. 75.
Note 99: The Scot (Sir) Robert Herries (1730-1815) was a major buyer of American tobacco for the French. See John Booker, Traveller's Money. London, Alan Sutton Publishing Ltd., 1994.
Note 100: On the views of the merchants of L'Orient, Boyd, Vol. 9, pp. 390ff, p. 442. Little information exists on the downturn from 1775 of the London tobacco market. Kenneth Morgan has treated the Bristol experience in his Bristol and the Atlantic Trade in the Eighteenth Century. Cambridge University Press, 1993. However, the entire oddity of what happened to the London tobacco market from 1775 is reflected in the fact that in a table on "British Tobacco imports at the five principal centres [including London, 1722-1800"], Morgan does not provide any figures at all for any of these centres for the years 1774-1782 (Morgan, p. 155). He writes, p. 154, "less tobacco reached Britain and Europe in the period 1776-1782 than during any single year before the war"; and, pp. 156-157, about 70 per cent of the tobacco reaching London had usually been re-exported. The lack of statistics reflects the lack of information on London's tobacco merchants generally after 1775. On the same theme of lack of information on London tobacco trading, see Jacob M. Price, 'The Economic Growth of the Chesapeake and the European Market, 1697-1775', The Journal of Economic History, Vol. 24, No. 4, 1964., pp. 496-516. On p. 499, Note 3, Price writes, "It is virtually impossible to compile a good, long term series of London tobacco prices."
Note 101: Sumner on Robert Morris, Vol. 2, pp. 171-173.
Note 102: Bowers, The Young Jefferson, pp. 387ff records Morris' resentment of Jefferson's later successful attack on the tobacco monopoly, a deal involving 60,000 hogsheads of tobacco, which the French king could have discontinued at any time, and did.
Note 103: It might be pointed out that in the tobacco trade, Campbell, a Scot, had operated as a Londoner, that is, using the less-resented consignment system to North America. The Scots had used the factorage system, which involved a more skilful use of retailing techniques, which the traders of the American tobacco colonies regarded as being more virulent.
Note 104: This may have been, Capt. William Hamilton of Hamilton and Co, Greenock, an American trader. See Rosane Rocher and Michael E. Scorgie, `A Family Empire: The Alexander Hamilton Cousins, 1750-1830', p. 192. To an extent, Morris' success as financial superintendent had turned his head. He seemed to suffer a growing fiscal megalomania. When he retired from his official position in May, 1784, Morris behaved as though his personal credit, which was extensive, had become indistinguishable from that of the "new nation". He over-extended himself particularly with land speculations, later spent time in a debtors' prison, and died almost unknown in 1806. Historians generally regard Morris and his dealings as unfathomable. I have not yet seen a treatment devoted to any useful number of Morris' associates.
Note 105: On the American merchant Boylston and whaling, see Boyd, Vol. 9: Jefferson's report on a conversation with Vergennes, pp. 139ff; and John Adams to Jefferson, 19 January, 1786, pp. 181ff.
Note 106: It has only recently been verified that the profitability of the voyage of Empress of China had been spoiled by Parker, who defrauded the ship's specie before she sailed, and told nobody. As a result, the ship had less specie with which to trade at Canton. When it was found that he had cheated John Holker, Parker repaired to Europe. P. C. F. Smith's article cited above is full of perplexity at neglect of the first US-China voyages, and also expresses hopes that one day a cache of Robert Morris' papers will be found to help solve many mysteries. One would imagine any such papers would also assist in analysis of the financing of the American Revolution.
Note 107: Boyd, Vol. 9, p. 609.
Note 108: Boyd, Vol. 9, pp. 181-184.
Note 109: Boyd, Vol. 9, p. 63.
Note 110: Boyd, Vol. 9, p. 375.
Note 111: Boyd, Vol. 9, p. 365 and p. 388. Boyd's index lists McCaul, but not Duncan Campbell.
Note 112: Robin Blackburn, The Overthrow of Colonial Slavery, 1776-1848. London, Verso, 1988. [With Jefferson's views on slavery, pp. 126ff]. At this chronological point, early 1786, Rutland et al placed a formal editorial note on debt matters: 'On Resolutions on Private Debts owed to British Merchants'; see The Madison Papers, Vol. 8, pp. 58ff.
Note 113: Jefferson to Alexander McCaul, Boyd, Vol. 9, pp. 388ff.
Note 114: The English visitants only are listed, although Jefferson saw many Europeans.
Note 115: By 4 April, 1786, the American Commissioners [Jefferson and John Adams] had written to Carmarthen, having spoken to a Mr Fraser, regarding an enclosed project of "A Treaty of Commerce... for the consideration of HM Ministers, regarding matters commercial and otherwise". Boyd, Vol. 9, p. 375.
Note 116: No. 3 Robert Street, The Adelphi became Duncan Campbell's address from mid-1786. One presumes this was Welch of Cary and Welch. Boyd, Vol. 9, p. 363; p. 397 [on Jefferson's own debts to Welch]. On p. 593. Boyd notes Jefferson owed 128 pounds 13/4d to Welch, a surviving partner of Carey, Morey and Welch [Kellock, p. 149]. Jefferson found he did not in conscience feel obliged to pay interest for the duration of the American War.
Note 117: One of the signatories was H. Champion, who remains untraced. I remain unaware if he was any relation to the whalers Champion in London, associated with the South Whale Fishery there. Or, to the Bristol family of Champions?
Note 118: Boyd, Vol. 9, p. 397.
Note 119: See Sinclair's entry in the DNB. It does not however seem significant, respecting agriculture, that Duncan Campbell had been buying land from Coke, Earl Leicester, between Blackheath, near Greenwich, down towards the Kent village, Kingsdown.
Note 120: Boyd, Vol. 9, pp. 397ff.
Note 121: Boyd, Vol. 9, ibid, pp. 403-405. A contemporary view was that of Joseph Hadfield (cited by Stackpole, Whales and Destiny, p. 22) who noted that "The British merchants had great claims on the Americans whose Government, during the War, confiscated the Loyalist property and invited the American debtors to pay the balance they owed into the Public Treasury - when a receipt was given which exonerated them from future obligations. The unprincipled took advantage of this, which, I am sorry to say, was universal, except with the Quakers and truly conscientious men..."
Note 122: Bowers, The Young Jefferson, pp. 391ff mentions Jefferson's dealings with Campbell, and/or a committee of the British Creditors, representatives who were willing to allow American debtors a reasonable time for payment.
Note 123: The appendix contains notes on Campbell's colonial correspondents of interest here.
Note 124: Boyd, Vol. 9, pp. 402-405
Note 125: For information on Mackett, see the appendix.
Note 126: Further on debt matters, see Cappon, (Ed), The Adams-Jefferson Letters, Vol. 1., pp. 125ff; James Bishop Peabody, The Founding Fathers: John Adams, A Biography In His Own Words. Newsweek, New York, 1973., pp. 318, 321-324. Adams reached no resolution of problems until late 1794.
Note 127: Eric Williams, From Columbus to Castro: The History of the Caribbean, 1492-1969. London, Andre Deutsch, 1970., pp. 231-232.
Note 128: From 1780, the West Indies, Jamaica particularly, had been struck with a series of hurricanes which among other devastations hampered local food production, making for reliance on imports. It was precisely the food shortages on Jamaica which prompted efforts to obtain breadfruit, and it is no accident that Campbell's captain, Bligh, was chosen to command that voyage. See Byrnes, 'The Blackheath Connection', pp. 63-66.
Note 129: Merrill Peterson, New Nation, p. 290.
Note 130: Cappon, (Ed.), The Adams-Jefferson Letters, pp. 74-75; and pp. 125ff on debt repudiation matters. Boyd, Vol. 9, pp. 441ff.
Note 131: On Jefferson's gloom in 1786 about economic conditions in the US; Boyd, Vol. 9, pp. 469-472. Jefferson wrote to John Page, later governor of Virginia, on 4 May, 1786; Boyd, Vol. 9, p. 444.
Note 132: See Evans, 'Planter Indebtedness', p. 524, Note 42; American Loyalist Claims, T.79/12. This material would appear to be a repository of letters to Campbell, which Campbell gathered in his capacity as chairman of the Creditors. I am unaware from Campbell's Letterbooks of any of Campbell's own correspondence (and none of a nature which might warrant further investigation) which might have entered such a file, except material relating to Campbell's Loyalist niece, Harriet Colden nee Betham.
Note 133: Charles Campbell, The Intolerable Hulks, p. 28.
Note 134: Noted in Boyd, Vol. 9, Some of Jefferson's correspondents here included John Jay, John Page, James Madison, David Ramsay, C. W. F. Dumas, Henry Skipwith, Elbridge Gerry. It need not be surprising that Campbell left no surviving report, as reports are that many of his papers were burned in a fire in a furniture store. It seems however that any papers left by Molleson or Nutt have not survived. On Campbell's Australian descendant, William Dugald Campbell, who kept his letterbooks, see the appendix.
Note 135: Carmarthen departed his position as principal secretary of state for the foreign department in 1789. Olson, Making the Empire Work, p. 248, Note 45, mentions a Petition of London Merchants to Lord Carmarthen, 23 September, 1786, PRO 30/8/220, ff.134-135. This document may be the same memorial that Campbell had had printed earlier in 1786? Carmarthen being asked to assist Scottish merchants on debt recovery matters and a 1785 meeting with John Adams is dealt with in Thomas M. Devine, The Tobacco Lords: A Study of the Tobacco Merchants of Glasgow and their Trading Activities, 1740-1790. Edinburgh, Donald, 1975., p. 157 and elsewhere.
Note 136: From ML A3232. The word almost illegible in the original is probably Kilberry, in Scotland, where descendants of this line of Campbells remain still. Additional information on Campbell genealogy is contained in the appendix.
Note 137: From Campbell's Business Letterbooks, Vol. 5, ML A3229.
Note 138: Mrs Harriet [or, Henrietta] Colden is noted in G. Palmer, Biographical Sketches of Loyalists of the American Revolution. London, Meckler, 1984., p. 165, citing AO12/101/186. She was in England in 1784 and 1785, and estimated the value of her husband's New York estate at 21,790 pounds sterling. I am lately informed by a researcher in London, Mollie Gillen, that her son Cadwallader Colden sailed with Bligh on HMS Berwick in late 1781; Colden was later on HMS Cambridge by March, 1782. Adm. 36/9985, No. 2578. Mollie Gillen, pers comm, 17 July, 1994.
Note 139: Per Duncan Campbell? A printed Memorial from the Merchants Trading to Lord Carmarthen, dated probably 4 March, 1786 [This document - two copies - is held as part of Duncan Campbell's Letterbooks, but filed as ML A3232, which is a collection of miscellania including a descendant's notes on family history]. Although the precise date of the Memorial is uncertain and could have been April, 1786. On the descendant, see the appendix.
Note 140: As a literary matter, there is an amusing but invalid portrait of Campbell in Michael Talbot's novel on the First Fleet: Michael Talbot, To the Ends of the Earth. Glasgow, Fontana/Collins, 1988 [in paperback]. This novel was first published in 1987 to exploit the coming observance of the bicentenary of the European settlement of Australia. Charles Campbell's book, The Intolerable Hulks, is perhaps the first treatment of Campbell possessing criminological common sense in abundance.
Note 141: The Gentleman's Magazine, January-June 1803, p. 286. The obituary notice is given in the appendix.
Note 142: As Jefferson once wrote to Madison, if the US debtors did not pay their debts, "our character [will be] stained with infamy among all nations and all times" whether Britain complied with the 1783 Treaty of Paris or not: Bowers, The Young Jefferson, p. 394.
Note 143: However, a fresh survey of US commercial maritime history 1783-1812 might be required to verify this remark.
Note 144: Emory G. Evans, 'Private Indebtedness', pp. 374ff. I agree with Evans' analysis here. An active (and, almost by definition, immoral) attempt to repudiate debts was not an overt or covert personal or group motive of the more notable patriots of the American Revolution. I suggest however, that a wish to avoid any future effects of the usual debt entrapment tactics of British merchants, and providers of credit to American colonists, did become part of the Americans' revolutionary political agenda.
Note 145: Olson, 'Virginia Merchants of London', p. 371.
Note 146: See for example, Anthony Chen, Kuo-tung, The Insolvency of the Chinese Hong Merchants, 1760-1843. Ph.D thesis, Yale University. May 1990, UMI Dissertation Services. [Copy, Economic History Dept. Library, UNE]. I am grateful to Mr Colin Disley for drawing my attention to this thesis.
Note 147: Further notes on Micajah Perry are contained in the appendix. One might observe that once information on Campbell's earlier career is assimilated, associated information arises which could easily be used for a review of the history of convict transportation to North America, 1717-1775.
Note 148: The Virginia planter Robert Carter dealt with Messrs Perry, June 2, 1721. Peter Linebaugh (in The London Hanged: Crime and Civil Society in the Eighteenth Century. London, Allen Lane, The Penguin Press, 1991), p. 181, reports that by 1732, Micajah Perry had 6418 pounds outstanding to pay to customs for his tobacco, and Jonathan Forward, a London-based convict contractor, had 9561 pounds similarly outstanding. Perry was one of two London contractors delivering slaves to North America; Carters of Virginia were one of his customers. See Linebaugh, Ch. 5, variously. The Virginia colonial agents John Povey and Nehemiah Blakiston to 1721 used Micajah Perry as their banker. See William and Mary Quarterly, Vol. 1. 1892-1893; Reprint, 1966. p. 223, William Beverley of Virginia used Micajah Perry of London, 12 July, 1737; Perry was partner then with Thomas Lane; Peter Perry was Micajah's brother in Virginia. Virginian records reveal a refusal from Micajah Perry to take 50 women convicts to Virginia; they were sent instead to the Leeward Islands: Olson, 'Virginia Merchants of London', p. 373, citing William and Mary Quarterly, Vol. 8, 1899-1900, (Reprint, 1966), Sainsbury Mss, 1697., p. 223, p. 273. Information on convict contractors active after Perry's day can be found in Oldham, Britain's Convicts, cited above. See also, Ralph Davis, The Rise of the English Shipping Industry in the 17th and 18th Centuries. London, Macmillan, 1962., where Davis, pp. 277-278 cites L. B. Wright, (Ed), Letters of Robert Carter, 1720-1727. San Marino, California, 1940.
Finis Endnotes to the text
* * * * *
A Bitter Pill - Appendix
(The Endnotes to this Appendix are numbered 148-191 below)
Note: Except regarding the names of the British Creditors given below en bloc, commentary on persons referred to in this appendix is provided by additional notes numbered as closely as possible to a footnote in an earlier section, relating in turn to a relevant section of the text.
FURTHER BIOGRAPHICAL INFORMATION ON THE BRITISH CREDITORS
A note on forms of citation:
Some information here has been linked so that it can be expanded, via a number relating to a footnote in the text, eg, From Note 16. Kellock researched 72 of the 207 British Creditors listed in the original document cited here. There are several contexts which Kellock ignored when she researched the British Creditors. These contexts include Scottish tobacco traders, British whaling and other non-whaling maritime history, (although she did consider the records of Lloyd's of London), convict transportation to both North America and Australia, and some commercial history of the City of London. With some exceptions, only those firms unlisted by Kellock have been allocated a footnote here, indicating where further information on them might be found. As well, a merchant name is footnoted where Kellock's information can be usefully amplified. Often, these sorts of information are complex to cite. For this reason I have provided keys.
KEYS:
@ = Useful references exist including matters of London commerce generally in other contexts. (Some names can be found in the English Dictionary of National Biography or similar compilations).
# = References can be found in the context of trans-Atlantic slavery
* = References can be found in the context of the tobacco trade
+ = References can be found in the context of convict transportation to Australia from 1786
{} = Any other useful contexts
&& = Extensive genealogy is known to exist and has been explored within commercial contexts by various historians
&&& = Including actual and probable relatives, an individual noted otherwise in Duncan Campbell's Letterbooks, apart from the context of British Creditors' affairs.
The list below has been transcribed from a photocopy of the original in the Melville Papers, William Clements Library, University of Michigan. I am grateful to Dr Alan Atkinson, History Dept., University of New England, for forwarding me a copy of this original document.
List of Debts due by the Citizens of the United States of America to the Merchants and Traders of Great Britain contracted previous to the year 1776 with Interest on the same to the 1st January 1790. [One page is marked, Recd 30th Novemr 1791]
[Merchants are listed in the order given in the original]
(1) The Estate of Anthony Bacon @ - listed in Kellock (2) John Clark and David Milligan && - listed in Kellock
(3) Christopher Court and Co &&& + - listed in Kellock. Regarding the London tobacco market.... Duncan Campbell in 1792 dealt with another British Creditor in London, Christopher Court, regarding renewed dealing in tobacco. And from 1792, little information arises on Campbell's further dealings regarding his own American debts, since Court's brother Joseph, of ? River, Annapolis, Maryland, was given a power of attorney by Campbell to handle further business in America. Campbell, that is, had grown weary of William Russell of Baltimore failing to attend to such business. Russell had been Campbell's agent since April 1768. During 1792, Campbell's two eldest sons toured the Continent, but one can only speculate if they arranged for their father to again re-export tobacco from London. Campbell on 7 March, 1792 advised John Rose of Virginia that he (Campbell) was still a member of the British Creditors, but not chairman any longer; a suit been initiated in the US Federal Court by a British Creditor, and, that court had declined to give a verdict till they "further deliberate on a point of such magnitude"... As he often did with his Creditors' business, Campbell closed on this note of resignation and his Letterbooks then fell silent on such matters. The Court brothers are largely unknown. All these gaps in information, along with lack of information on the London tobacco market, make it impossible to make any firm suggestions that links between Joseph and Christopher Court, Campbell, and any merchants in Europe, contributed to any extra business for tobacco dealers in Virginia or Maryland. While Lane, Son and Fraser remain a notable and rather mysterious exception, relatively few of the British Creditors were able to renew trading links with North America. It remains impossible to know from Campbell's career whether or not he profited from tobacco trading after 1792. Further speculation on that possibility may have to rely on information on the still-unknown career of Joseph Court in Maryland. (Note 149) Campbell in 1792 began talking with London tobacco merchant Christopher Court. [Duncan Campbell Letterbooks, Vol. 6, p. 334]. On 1 July 1792, Campbell wrote to Joseph Court Esqr of [? River near Annoplis {sic} Maryland]: Campbell with a power of attorney was willing to take all his post-revolutionary business from his former agent William Russell who had acted from him till 1775, and put it into the hands of Joseph Court. (Russell of Baltimore was not Russell the sometime chairman of the British Creditors who had been working with Campbell in London). Campbell by 1792 had found the mouths of his former American agents Mr Ridley and Mr Hodge "shut forever", so Campbell was deprived of information relating to debt recovery matters. Some of the debts Campbell was still concerned about had arisen in 1772 if not earlier, since he mentioned the firm defunct from 1772, Stewart and Campbell.
(4) William Clarke - listed in Kellock
(5) Duncan Campbell @+&& * {} - listed in Kellock. Duncan Campbell's career is an example of a London-based merchant who benefited considerably from the "debt-entrapment" policies inherent in the British financial systems of his day. (He may have had a tendency to avarice - he also had to provide for over fifteen children!). From a non-commercial Glasgow family of clergy, Campbell began about 1750 as a humble ex-naval midshipman. His only patrons in trade seem to have been his Campbell relatives on Jamaica, who about 1753 had needed a reliable agent/supplier based in London. (Note 150) Campbell fulfilled that role faithfully and apparently honestly all his life. In the process, competing perhaps with up to eight other sons-in-law, he acquired control of the Jamaica plantation, Saltspring, earlier owned by his first father-in-law, Dugald Campbell. Over the years, Campbell became probably the most financially dominant figure in his entire extended family. This could not have happened if he had not been based in London and able to use the financial resources of the City to aid himself and others. That his relatives did less well than himself goes almost without saying; as does the fact that family members often turned to him for financial and other assistance.
From Note 15 - The itinerary of Duncan Campbell's eldest son Dugald on the Continent was: January 1792, Marseille, then Nice. Florence by 24 February and during March, c/- Messrs Donat Oris & fils and receiving from his father two notes (that is, traveller's cheques available from Sir Robert Herries' bank). Then Genoa, at Rome in April in care of Thomas Jenkins Esq. By mid-May to Venice care of Conrade Martens Esq., then Milan care of Monsr Ami Bonnet, then Venice. Dugald planned to come home via Germany. By 13 July, in Zurich in care of Monsr H. Jn Conte Schulthess. (Dugald's brother John had gone to Turin).
This information is drawn from pp. 298-339 of Campbell's Business Letterbooks, Vol. 6, ML A3230. Duncan Campbell had written to the East India Company on 20 February, 1788, offering them his ship Britannia, which Bligh had earlier sailed. Between 1789-1797, his son John sailed often to Madras in family-owned ships such as Henry Dundas and Britannia. John's address in 1801 was Great Queen Street,, London. Between 1797 to 1801, probably reluctantly, John came ashore to assist his father as deputy-superintendent of the hulks.
William Russell at Piscataway by 1766 was corresponding with Stewart and Campbell of London; after 1782 he became an agent for Duncan Campbell. William Russell had resided in London in 1762. He was probably the Russell of Russell and Hodge importing convict servants to the Potomac in the 1760s. See Price, 'One Family'.
(6) Eddowes Petrie and Co - listed in Kellock
(7) Thomas Eden and Co && @ + &&& - listed in Kellock. (Note 151) Here, relevant names are Thomas, Robert and William Eden. As secretary to Lord North in 1775-1776, William Eden worked with Campbell to develop the hulks system. (Note 152)
(8) Frank and Bickerton @ - listed in Kellock
(9) Samuel Gist @ - listed in Kellock
(10) Graham Johnson and Co - listed in Kellock
(11) Harrison and Ansley - listed in Kellock
(12) William and Robert Molleson @ && {} - listed in Kellock (Note 153)
(13) Byme and Jackson - listed in Kellock (as Prime and Jackson)
(14) The Estate of Thomas Philpott - listed in Kellock
(15) Wakelin Welch @ * {} listed in Kellock. See the text for connection to Thomas Jefferson.
(16) Samuel Waterman - listed in Kellock
(17) Robert and Thomas Wilson - listed in Kellock
(18) Champion and Dickason @ + {} && - listed in Kellock (Note 154)
(19) Amos Hayton @ - listed in Kellock
(20) William Francis - listed in Kellock
(21) The Estate of Thomas Hill - listed in Kellock
(22) Lyonel and Samuel Lyde @ && {} - listed in Kellock
(23) Hanbury and Co @ * {} && - listed in Kellock. [See Fitzpatrick, the editor of Washington's papers, p. 408, p. 485]. Washington dealt with Robert Cary and Co. on 17 May, 1767, and with Capel and Osgood Hanbury, 5 May, 1768. See Maryland Gazette, 3 April, 1766, cited in Price, 'One Family', p. 168.
(24) Mildred and Roberts @ - listed in Kellock
(25) John Blackburn @ - listed in Kellock
(26) John and Gilbert Buchanan @+ - listed in Kellock
(27) Dyson and Rogers - listed in Kellock
(28) Richard Shubrick * # && - listed in Kellock (Note 155)
(29) Bartholomew Pomery - listed in Kellock
(30) Neufville and Rolleston @ - listed in Kellock
(31) John Nutt @ && + # {} - listed in Kellock. (Note 156) From Note 3 - Regarding Nutt and Molleson to Henry Dundas concerning the British Creditors, 31 August, 1791. Duncan Campbell probably knew John Nutt well. John Nutt was probably the brother of Joseph Nutt, who after 1791 was a director of the Bank of England. Joseph was aged 72 in 1797. An indication of the linked complexities of business linkages and genealogy can be provided here. In 1797, Joseph Nutt's company was often sought by alderman George Mackenzie Macaulay (died 1803, listed here as British Creditors, George Abel and Macaulay), who had an interest in the First Fleet ship to Australia, Lady Penrhyn, with a view to sending her to examine prospects for seal fur about Nootka Sound. [See George Mackenzie Macaulay, Occurrences and Observations, Journal 1796-98. Add: 25,038, British Library. Regrettably, Macaulay's surviving diaries cover the period 1796-1797 only]. Research on Nutts and their associates leads one to reconsider slavery and the Carolinas to about 1770, and possibly the career of Henry Laurens, in ways too complex to pursue here. If any mysteries remain here, it is almost certain that solving them would be best assisted by clear information on the maritime history of trans-Atlantic slavery from 1760 to 1800. Marc Egnal's appendices in A Mighty Empire provide helpful lists of commercial names in the Carolinas which could assist in focusing any such research.
(32) Lane, Son and Fraser @ {} && - listed in Kellock. As Furber notes in his article on the first US trade with India, the London firm, Lane, Son and Fraser, by August, 1787 were rumoured to be financing ship-building about Boston for the East India trade, only a few years after American merchants had launched into trade to India and China. At least, John Temple, British consul at Philadelphia, spread such a rumour about Lane and Fraser. (Note 157) Lane, Son and Fraser had a long association with New England prior to the Revolution. (Note 158) Since the debtors of Lane and Fraser were New Englanders, their status as indebted was dissimilar to that of the tobacco planters further south. And here, a broad generalisation needs to be made. American historians seem never to have made a complete survey of the first US shipping sent to China, India, to Java, Mauritius, Manila in the Philippines. Nor of the financial or other results of the trade. This lack of information bears particularly on discussion of the trade policy Jefferson espoused in 1786 and later, and interpretation of the policy. (Note 159) Tantalising clues can arise. A little-known Capt St Barbe brought Jefferson from Boston to Portsmouth in 1785, on a ship Ceres with Mr Tracy the owner aboard. (Note 160) It is not impossible that Tracy was Nathaniel Tracy, who bankrupted. (Note 161) Kellock (pp. 144ff) informs that one Nathaniel Tracy by 1783 had become linked to Lane, Son and Fraser of London. John Lane (whose father had recently died) in 1784 went to Boston from London, as in 1783 his father has unwisely loaned money to Tracy, who was verging on bankruptcy. Lane stayed five years in US, using the assistance of lawyer John Lowell and of Boston's leading banker, Thomas Russell (seemingly no relation to other Russells mentioned herein). Lane's presence in Boston is consistent with information presented by Bhagat about Lane and Fraser's activities. (Note 162) Lane and Fraser on 18 February, 1784 wrote to Elias Hasket Derby, an Asia merchant, possibly about shipbuilding at Boston? By the later 1780s it appeared Lane and Fraser were trying to creep back into trade to the US. (Note 163) According to Bhagat, pp. 7ff, Richard Derby the father of Elias Hasket Derby (died 1799) had traded to the West Indies, Britain, Spain, Portugal, Gibralter, till the American War. Richard's business was largely liquidated on his death. Derby sent a ship to India in 1784, named Grand Turk. He also sent many ships to Mauritius. At times a US-India ship earned profits of 700 per cent. One of Derby's captains was Capt Jonathan Ingersoll, on Grand Turk in 1784; another captain was John Gibaut [sic]. Derby's son was Elias Derby Jnr. who lived in India at Madras by 1790. Other US-India traders were Benjamin and Jacob Crowninshield, by 1792. Gordinier (p. 153) says that due to his immersion in US-India trade, Derby became the United States' first millionaire.
(33) Perkins, Buchanan and Brown * - listed in Kellock
(34) Grafton and Colson
(35) David Strachan and Co.
(36) Nash, Eddowes and Co [Petrie] - listed in Kellock
(37) John Strettel @ - listed in Kellock
(38) Heneage Robinson @ - listed in Kellock
(39) Richard and John Samuel - listed in Kellock
(40) Tappenden, Stanfield and Co. - listed in Kellock
(41) De Berdt and Burkett @ * && - listed in Kellock
(42) Kilby and Syme @ - listed in Kellock
(43) Abel and Macaulay @ {} && + - listed in Kellock (Note 164) That is, George Abel and alderman George Mackenzie Macaulay, underwriters at Lloyd's. By 21 August, 1786, Macaulay was partner with John Turnbull and Thomas Gregory. This partnership on August 21 offered government enough shipping for what would have become the First Fleet to Australia, but their offer was not taken up. So little is known of them, their motives in making the offer are difficult to establish. See the note above for John Nutt.
(44) Greenwood and Higginson @ - listed in Kellock
(45) John Bland @ - listed in Kellock
(46) Robert Smith - listed in Kellock
(47) Powell and Hopton
(48) The Estate of William Neate @ {} + - listed in Kellock (Note 165)
(49) Cooper and Telfair @ * &&& - listed in Kellock. By about 1772, Duncan Campbell was intending to deal in North American lumber for Jamaica, including shingles. One of the names arising in that context was Telfair, but supportive information is lacking.
(50) Edward and Rene Payne @ {} && - listed in Kellock. These are probably of the Payne family connected with the discreet London merchant bank established from 1758, Smith, Payne and Smith. (Note 166)
(51) Thomas and Rowland Hunt @ - listed in Kellock. These are noted below in information on the Carter family of Virginia.
(52) Pigou and Booth @ {} - listed in Kellock
(53) James (Bissell) (Bussell?) Russell - listed in Kellock [if Russell] (Note 167)
(54) Trecothick and Co @ * && - listed in Kellock
(55) The Estate of George Hayley @ && {} + - Listed in Kellock. [Otherwise in Kellock, William Dickinson and Co.]. Hayley's widow Mary Wilkes died intestate in 1816. Her father was a distiller, Isaac Wilkes. She first married a clothier, Samuel II Storke and secondly, George Hayley of the firm Hayley and Hopkins, investors in whaling. Later she had the assistance of Francis Rotch, whaler, and Patrick Jaffrey. Her brother, the radical alderman John Wilkes was born in 1727, at Clerkenwell, London. A member of the Hell-fire Club, he had married Mary Aylesbury Meade. A prime anecdote about Hayley is that about the time of the Boston Tea Party, George III knew that the Boston merchant John Hancock was deeply indebted to Hayley. So the king must have been given City gossip. The historian purveying this anecdote finds it insignificant. I find it highly significant that the king had information on which outspoken Boston merchant might have been indebted in the City, to which City merchant.
The merchant John Storke Senior had died in 1711, married to Miss Dummer of Boston. His son Samuel died of a sudden stroke of the palsy leaving Alexander Champion in charge of the firm. The firm dealt with Americans such as Robert Livingston Jnr. and Henry Cuyler, who had families in the American fur trade. It also from 1723-1724 dealt with James Logan. who had a connection with the Pennsylvania trade of Quaker John Askew, whose son John Askew Jnr. carried on the fur trade till 1730 when he too died. For the next ten years Storke dealt with Logan and Shippen, In 1746 Storke began dealing with Thomas Lawrence. In Philadelphia, Storke dealt with Isaac Norris Snr. and Isaac Norris Jnr., in wheat sent to Spanish and Mediterranean ports. Storke had agents in Jamaica named Tindale, Manning and Co. A Storke son also worked in Hamburg. Storke dealt among others with four large Boston houses, Joshua Cheever, James Bowdoin, Andrew and Peter Oliver, and Bill & Sewall. In the 1730s, Storke dealt with Holbroide and Pearson at Gibralter, Patrick Purcell and Co. at Cadiz, Winder and Ferrand at Barcelona. Samuel Storke Jnr. entered the family firm in 1742 and soon took as a partner, Alexander Champion. His father's firm had been known as Samuel Storke and Co, Storke and Gainsborough, Storke and Son, Storke and Champion, and dealt with Boston, Philadelphia, New York, Lisbon, Cadiz, Gibralter, Jamaica, St Johns, Newfoundland, and major northern European ports. This firm dealt with Andrew Oliver of Boston and Livingstons of New York. Storke died in 1753, so Champion continued to trade, later linked with Lane, Son and Fraser. Samuel Storke II had married Mary Wilkes, who on his death married alderman George Hayley. After Hayley died, Mary consorted with the American whaler, Francis Rotch. An irony here is that since Mary was sister of the radical John Wilkes, who had influenced political thought in America, the business interests of his sister suffered by the American War. The Hayley estate as a British Creditor claimed 79,599 pounds. (Note 168)
(56) Edward and Thomas Hunt @ - listed in Kellock
(57) James Poyas - listed in Kellock
(58) John Masterman - listed in Kellock
(59) George Bague (Bogue?) - listed in Kellock
(60) Dickinson and Lloyd - listed in Kellock
(61) Acton and Eyre - listed in Kellock
(62) Richard Grubb - listed in Kellock (Note 169)
(63) William Dickerson and Co - listed in Kellock
(64) John and Charles Hurst - listed in Kellock
(65) Sandiforth Streatfield @ - listed in Kellock
(66) William Jones @ (Note 170)
(67) Stephenson, Randall and Cheston @ + {} (Note 171)
(68) John Backhouse and Co. @ (Note 172)
(69) William Bolden
(70) Sparking and Bolden
(71) Joseph Daltera @ + (Note 173) - The Daltera family is mentioned briefly in Samuel M. Rosenblatt, 'The Significance of Credit in the Tobacco Consignment Trade: A Study of John Norton and Sons, 1768-1775', William and Mary Quarterly, Series 3, 29, 1962., pp. 383-399.
(72) John Dixon @ &&& (Note 174)
(73) Henry Fleming @ &&&
(74) Fisher and Bragg @ &&&
(75) Samuel Martin @ (Note 175)
(76) John Nixon
(77) John Sargant and Co.
(78) John Hicks
(79) Spedding, Hicks and Co.
(80) Blackburn, Ramsay and Co.
(81) Bogle, Brown and Co. *
(82) Bogle, Jamieson and Co. *
(83) Peter and William Bogle and Co.
(84) Alexander, Brown and Co. *
(85) Buchanan, Brown and Co. * (Note 176) Various Scottish firms with which Buchanans were associated are often mentioned in articles by historians T. M. Devine and Jacob M. Price. Of course, the major Scots tobacco dealers dealt with Sir Robert Herries in London, whose career has never been fully assessed.
(86) Buchanan, Hastie and Co.
(87) Andrew Buchanan
(88) James Campbell
(89) James Carlisle and Co. and James [Jas] White and Co.
(90) James Chalmers and Co.
(91) Cochrane, Donald and Co.
(92) Cumming, Mackenzie and Co.
(93) Dinwiddie, Crawford and Co.
Here, Dinwiddie may be connected with Robert Dinwiddie, the Lt.-Gov of Virginia 1571-1758, who had been a graduate of the College of Glasgow when Duncan Campbell's father Neil was principal of that College. The list of graduates of the College is studded with names found in history to 1810. The name Pitcairn for example became associated with the legend of Bligh and HMAV Bounty. In London in the 1790s, a Dr Pitcairn from the same family attended Duncan Campbell's youngest son by Mary Mumford for hydrocephalus ("water on the head").
(94) Donald, Scott and Co.
(95) James and Robert Donald and Co.
(96) Robert, Thomas and Alexander Donald
(97) Thomas and Alexander Donald and Co.
(98) Dreghorn and Murdoch and Co.
(99) Robert and Thomas Duncan
(100) Dunlop and Cross
(101) Colin Dunlop and Son and Co.
(102) Dunlop and Montgomerie
(103) Dunmore, Blackburn and Co.
(104) William Gray and Co.
(105) John Hamilton and Co.
(106) James Jamieson
(107) Andrew Johnston and Co.
(108) James Johnston and Co.
(109) James Lawson and James Lawson and Co.
(110) Hector Macome
(111) McCall and Donnistown and Co.
(112) McCall and Elliott
(113) McCall, Snellie and Co.
(114) McCall, Wardrop and Co.
(115) George McCall
(116) George McCall and Co.
(117) James McCall
(118) John McCall and Co.
(119) John McGunn and James Moodie
(120) McDowall, Stirling and Co.
(121) John McDowall
(122) Montgomerie, Scott and D. Montgomerie
(123) James Morton and Co.
(124) Muirhead, Hay and Co.
(125) Murdoch, Donald and Co.
(126) George Murdoch and Co.
(127) James Murdoch and Co.
(128) Oswald Donniston and Co.
(129) James Ritchie @ &&&
(130) James and Henry Ritchie
(131) James Smith and Co.
(132) Alexander Spiers and Co. * &&
(133) Ninian Spence
(134) Thomas Snodgrass and Co. @ &&& (?)
(135) Andrew Thomson
(136) Todd, Menzies and Co.
(137) James Wardrop and Son
(138) John Warrand
(139) Hugh Wylie and Co.
(140) George Yuill
(141) Thomas Yuill and J. and G. Murdoch and Co.
(142) John David and John Cross
(143) George Brown
(144) Ramsay, Monteath and Co.
(145) Brown, Scott and Co.
(146) James Brown and Co.
(147) George and Andrew Buchanan *
(148) Colin Dunlop and Co. *
(149) Speir(s), French and Co. * (Note 177)
(150) Charles Reid and Co.
(160) Hugh Jamieson
(161) William Douglas
(162) Archibald Torrance and Co.
(163) George Brown and Co.
(164) Alston, Young and Co.
(165) John Alston and Co.
(166) William Cunningham and Co.
(167) Cunningham, Finlay and Co.
(168) Cunningham, Brown and Co.
(169) William Cunningham
(170) John Glassford and Co. @ &&& (Note 178) At times in Campbell's Letterbooks, a name appears which resembles Glasscock or Glassock.
(171) Glassford and Henderson
(172) Glassford, Gordon, Monteath and Co.
(173) Henderson, McCall and Co.
(174) George Kippen (?) and Co.
(175) Henry Glassford
(176) Henry Riddell for John Riddell
(177) James Alston and Co.
(178) Patrick Telfair and Co. @ {} &&& (Note 179)
(179) Scott Colquhuon and Co.
(180) Patrick Colquhuon @ + * {} (Note 180) Colquhuon at this time was in Glasgow, shortly to come to London to work as a magistrate. As sociologist he worked definitively on "the state of crime" in London.
(181) James and Robert Buchanan
(182) Stephen Scott and Donald
(183) Andrew Sym and Co.
(184) William Caldorhead
(185) James Gammell and Co.
(186) William and James Donald and Co.
(187) John and James Wilson and Sons
(188) Cumberland Wilson
(189) William Wilson - Unknown. This name would be of too-old a generation to be the William Wilson sailing with Duff Capt James Wilson, the first ship sent in 1796 by the London Missionary Society into the Pacific. Aboard Duff was one William Wilson who later by 1807 was London agent for the Sydney merchant, Robert Campbell. There may be some unknown interconnections between Wilson families here. Robert Campbell of Sydney was not related to Duncan Campbell the hulks overseer.
(190) James Wilson and Sons
(191) John Elam and Son
(192) Emmanuel and Samuel Elam
(193) Emanuel Elam
(194) The Assignees of John Ellis
(195) The Executors of Samuel Elam
(196) Clay and Midgley @ &&&
(197) Hugh Parry
(198) Brigden and Waller - listed in Kellock (Note 181)
(199) Newham (?) and Thresher
(200) John Migglesworth
(201) Robert Empson and William Whitelock
(202) Ralph Elliot
(203) William Dighton
(204) Richard Farr and Sons
(205) John Hay and Co. and B(and?) (?) Hay and Co.
(206) Charles Goodwin
(207) William Thomas
(The list of British Creditors ends)
A firm not in the original document cited above, but listed in Kellock (p. 122) is Davis, Strahan and Co. The same applies to Deberdt and Burkitt, regarding Dennys Deberdt, on whom information is available. Perusal of several sets of original documents would probably expand the final list beyond 207 names.
From Note 2 - Francis Baring by 1792-1793 was chairman of the East India Company. The little that is known of his attitude to any trade the US might conduct in Britain's eastern ports is contained in Philip Ziegler, The Sixth Great Power, Barings 1762-1929. London, Collins, London. 1988; and in Holden Furber, 'The Beginnings of American - Trade with India, 1784-1812', The New England Quarterly, June, 1938., pp. 235-265. Ziegler suggests, p. 59, that by 1783, Baring was corresponding with the Philadelphia financier, Robert Morris, and also [Senator] William Bingham, but so little is known about this, one wonders how meaningful it might be? William Bingham had been an early worker for Morris as revolutionary financier, and married a daughter of Morris' partner, Thomas Willing. Bingham's daughter Anne married Alexander Baring, the first Lord Ashburton. These connections may bear further investigation. A useful reference is Ferguson, Purse, pp. 78ff; GEC (Cockayne), (Ed.), The Complete Peerage, p. 26 of the volume with the entry, Bath; see also, Ashburton. See the entry below on Thomas Willing. On Barings, see R. W. Hidy, Bulletin of the Business Historical Society, Vol. 13, No. 6, December, 1939; R. W. Hidy, 'The House of Baring and American Trade', Bulletin of the Business Historical Society, Vol. 9; Ralph W. Hidy, The House of Baring in American Trade and Finance: English Merchant Bankers at Work. Cambridge, Mass, Harvard University Press, 1949. Items in DNB, various.
From Note 15 - On the buyer of tobacco for the French, Sir Robert Herries, born 1731. Herries developed the traveller's cheque. (See Sayers on Lloyd's, pp. 191ff). Also, Sir William Forbes of Pitsligo, Bart, a second edition of Memoirs of a Banking House. Edinburgh, 1860., pp. 28ff.
From Note 22 - When the defeated British quit their former American colonies in 1783 they took with them more than 30,000 ex-slaves, [figures vary] putting them on Nova Scotia, whence many were later sent to Sierra Leone. By 1783 the annual British export of slaves was 34,000 per year (about 2/3rds annually of this number within three years would be dead). In 1787, the population of the British West Indies was 58,353 whites, 7706 free negroes, 461,864 slaves, a total of 527,923 people. Eric Williams, pp. 152-153. See also, James Walvin, Black Ivory: A History of British Slavery. London, Harper Collins, 1992., p. 295.
From Note 27 - Captain James Hanna, employed by John Henry Cox, an East India Company interloper, from the China coast pioneered the English trans-Pacific trip for the fur trade to North America. Cox's backers were essentially "illegal". One of the very few London-based East India Company firms willing to invest in any new Canada-China trade was David Scott (a father-son firm), although some stimulus seems also to have come from Bengal, that, is from men with East India Company connections, but possibly, from the Company point of view, of a renegade tendency. The Scotts' interest in Nootka fur has never been fully explained.
From Notes 34-37 - On Thomas Willing, merchant of Philadelphia and partner of Robert Morris. In October 1793, Sydney, Australia was visited by Capt Rogers in Fairy, an American snow from Boston; Rogers was wanting to sail to Nootka for furs for Canton, By 1802, there are a few US ships off the east African coast meeting London whalers, and probably at times off the West Australian coast: see Rhys Richards, 'The Cruise of the Kingston and the Elligood in 1800 and the Wreck Found on King Island in 1802', The Great Circle, Vol. 13, No. 1. 1991., pp. 35-53. Bhagat (p. 13) cites East India Company officials noting in 1806-1807 that American trade in India in that period exceeded "everything of the kind recorded in the Commercial History of British India". Some 23 US ships visited Madras in 1805. Jefferson's trade embargo of December 1807 largely ruined this extensive trade, and there was some consternation amongst the British at the reduction of business turnover overall. Thomas Willing had a son aboard United States, the first US ship sailing to India, which hauled into Pondicherry, the French base, so naturally the English were suspicious of it. According to P. C. F. Smith's article, Robert Morris' scheme to send Empress of China began to take shape in four-six weeks after May, 1783, after the formation of the Society of the Cincinnati, an elite "brotherhood" drawn from the officers of the Continental army and navy (Daniel Parker the trader was not one of them, but Alexander Hamilton was). Several Cincinatti members were interested financially or otherwise. A catalyst of the China plan was John Ledyard, who had been out with Cook's third voyage, and remained interested in the "North-West Passage", furs, and the China market. Also involved with Empress of China were William Duer of New York, Daniel Parker and his associates, Walter Livingston of New York, John Holker; possibly, Turnbull, Marmie and Co. of Philadelphia. Meanwhile, Bhagat, (p. 8, Note 19), suggests that United States as the first US ship to sail to India was owned by Philip Moore, Mark Bird, James Wilson, Joseph Harrison, James Hood, John Redman (with Thomas Redman a surgeon aboard), and Joshua Humphreys. [With the name Bird, there may be no connection, but before Baring became banker for the US government, a bank named Bird, Savage and Bird had that account. See S. R. Cope, `Bird, Savage and Bird of London, merchants and bankers, 1782 to 1803', Guildhall Studies in London History, 1981, pp. 202-207.]. But we note that Holden Furber in his book, John Company at Work, says she was owned by Thomas Willing, and he is supported there by another writer. Lord Macartney in India thought she was owned by Thomas Willing. Bhagat is not convinced Willing was the only owner, as most Philadelphia ships were jointly owned. A daughter of Thomas Willing married the US Senator William Bingham, a business associate of Robert Morris. Bingham's daughter Anne Louisa married into the Baring family in London, see notes above. Other citations of use here would include: Samuel W. Woodhouse Jr., 'Log and Journal of the ship United States on a Voyage to China in 1784', The Pennsylvania Magazine of History and Biography, Vol. LV, 1931., pp. 226. G. Bhagat, America's Commercial and Consular Relations with India, 1784-1860. Unpublished Ph.D thesis. Yale, 1963.
From Note 37 - Abernethy in Western Lands, p. 184 suggests that by early 1777, Robert Morris "thus held the keys to America's foreign trade". And, pp. 211ff, Richard Neave of London in association with Wharton and Baynton was interested in the Vandalia Land Co. A large shareholder in this company was Thomas Walpole MP. Robert Morris had 1.5 million acres in Virginia and he once sold four million acres of land to the Holland Land Co. Abernethy does not mention Matthew Ridley in his index. Abernethy suggests (p. 228) that Morris outsmarted Jefferson generally regarding the expanded settlement of Virginia. On 20 February, 1781 Morris was elected Superintendent of Finance by Congress, although Washington had preferred an appointment of Alexander Hamilton. Morris died owing the US about 100,000 pounds. Thomas Perkins Abernethy, Western Lands and the American Revolution. New York, D. Appleton-Century Co., (University of Virginia, Institute for Research into the Social Sciences), 1937.
From Note 64 - Carter Braxton was one of the extensive Carter family of Virginia. Braxton worked for Robert Morris in marketing tobacco from about 1776 but his achievements in this work have never been described.
From Note 64 - Inspection of the biographies of many of the British Creditors will also entail inspection of many biographies of colonial families in pre-revolutionary America. Two Creditors listed by 1791 were Thomas and Rowland Hunt, who dealt with the well-known Robert Carter III of "Nomini Hall". A revealing statistic assists further with discussing matters relating to both genealogy and American debt handling. During the American War, Robert Carter of Virginia was obliged to borrow a total of 65,000 pounds from his colonial associates to keep his estates in production. (Note 182) This was a large sum, a sum larger than most of the debts claimed by individual British Creditors. Carter seems to have had little trouble in repaying these monies. Repaying his debts to fellow colonials, Carter of course had to address himself to marketing his tobacco, a question of foreign trade. It was precisely the profitability of such foreign trade which Jefferson had to consider when in Paris and London.
From Note 69 - After the death of his first wife, Matthew Ridley in April 1787 married Catherine Livingstone, daughter of Governor William Livingstone of New Jersey; so he became a brother-in-law to John Jay. Ridley as agent for Maryland sailed to Europe in November, 1781 to later meet John Adams in Holland, and John Jay in France.
From Note 82 - Nathaniel Polhill MP, (1732-1782). His father was William Polhill of Sussex. Polhill became a leading London broker and tobacco merchant, and supported Wilkes. He also supported Gordon's anti-Catholicism that led to the riots of 1780. Duncan Campbell wrote to him in April 1782 on Creditor's business, advising "resignation to God who alone" could support one amid such afflictions. Campbell had called men named by Polhill to a meeting, but they were few. Mr Sainsbury had offered to ask Alderman Newnham to sound the Chancellor of the Exchequer. The group that formed named itself the Committee for British Merchants (of London, Bristol, Liverpool, Whitehaven and Glasgow) Trading to Virginia, Maryland and North Carolina Previous to the Year 1776. A general meeting of the group was held on 19 October, 1785. The committee met again on 22 February, 1790 with Grenville, and with Pitt on 20 March, 1790. Pitt before 3 March, 1790, had desired "that the respective States from which these debts are due might be distinguished". Campbell dreamed of recovering his American money until the late 1790s. See Christopher Hibbert, King Mob: The Story of Lord George Gordon and the Riots of 1780. London, Longmans Green, 1958., p. 56. Early in the riot situation, only six members of Parliament voted with Gordon and Alderman Bull regarding Gordon's motion for the enormous petition for repeal of the Catholic Relief Act, being Sir Philip Jennings Clerke, Sir Michael le Fleming, Sir James Lowther, Sir Joseph Mawley, Mr Polhill and Mr Tollemache. See Valentine, British Establishment, p. 709.
From Note 104 - An American merchant wanting to sell US whale oil to France was Thomas Boylston of Boston. Also interested in whale oil was Nathaniel Barrett. (Note 183) John Adams in 1785 had unsuccessfully attempted to sell American whale products to prime minister Pitt. As he did, America was concentrating her whaling industry and successfully selling whale products to France. (Note 184) A contract had been made for lighting Paris streets with US oil. (Merrill Peterson has conjectured that this flow of capital would have helped check the flight of the Nantucket whalers to either Britain, or France, but assessment here would perhaps depend on which interests in the US were receiving the proceeds?). (Note 185)
From Note 122 - AN INCOMPLETE LIST OF DUNCAN CAMPBELL'S PRE-1776 COLONIAL CORRESPONDENTS.
Duncan Campbell's pre-1775 colonial correspondents of relevance included: (Note 186) members of the Carter family, (Note 187) Allison and Campbell (untraced), Colonel William Brockenbrough and Austin Brockenbrough, Dr John Brockenbrough, Adam Barnes and Johnson (untraced), James Bain (untraced), Rev Mr Beauvoir, James and Robert Buchanan, George Buchanan, Robert Cockerell (untraced), Messrs Campbell and Dickson (untraced), Colin Currie, Stewart Carmichael (untraced), William Dickson, Charles Eyles, Fitzhugh family, Fauntleroy family, Richard Glascock / Glascook / Glassford?, Benjamin and Charles Grimes, Henderson and Glassford, Rhodam Kenner, Abraham Lopez and Son, James Millar Jamaica, Daniel Muse, Hudson Muse, Hugh McLean, Joshua Newall, George Noble, Francis Randall, Major Henry Ridgely, Adam Shipley, William Snydebottom (untraced), Richard Stringer, Alexander Speirs and Co, Speirs, Finch and Co, Dr Sherwin, William and Edward Telfair, the Tayloes of Mount Airy, Virginia, the Thornton family, William Vanderstegan of Cane End (untraced, although a London merchant of the period, Vanderstegan, can be traced in Burke's Extinct Baronetcies) and Charles Worthington (untraced). (Confusingly, some of these traders, or their family members, appear to have been colonials, such as Telfair, but some seem to have identified themselves as non-revolutionary, and ended back in England). (Note 188)
From Note 124 - Regarding Campbell's own efforts at debt recovery... In May 1789 he intended, after having contacted Matthew Ridley, to send to America Frank Mackett, the son of an old friend, on debt collecting business. Mackett caught fever at Gravesend and died. Mackett was to see Austin Brockenbrough, Leeds Town, Virginia. Mr. Russell of Baltimore, Maryland. And Campbell's old attorney in Maryland, Matthew Ridley. After Mackett's departure, Campbell set about re-contacting his Creditor friends. By 1 July, 1789 Campbell was trying to arrange meetings with prime minister Pitt. On 1 July he wrote to John Rose of Leedstown Virginia a heartfelt missive about his losses, to try to sound out American reaction. The subject engrossed Campbell the rest of the year, and he downplayed his Jamaican engagements for the interim. Then he became caught up in embarkations for the Second Fleet to Australia. The Creditors met on 10 February and decided to ask to meet with Pitt. Campbell contacted Pitt's assistant, Smith, on 18 February. (Then died Campbell's brother of Plumstead, London, Neil, on 23 February, 1790). The Creditors met with Grenville after 27 February, 1790, then met with Pitt early in March. Pitt shrewdly (and in fact echoing Jefferson's attitude in 1786) desired the American states in question to be distinguished from one another. It was a matter of federated versus individual states' rights. That was that. The Creditors met again on 20 March, 1790 (for Campbell, just as Bligh got back to London from his debacle on HMAV Bounty) but they never again had the same force. Pitt remained unhelpful. Campbell continued to fantasize about recovering his American debts into the late 1790s.
From Note 133 - In Sydney, NSW Australia, in 1892 and probably later, there lived a civil engineer at 46 Leinster Street, Paddington, William Dugald Campbell (WDC). This man was descended from Duncan Campbell. WDC kept his ancestor's Letterbooks, which should be regarded as prime historical documents concerning the first transportations of British convicts to Australia, and are now in the Mitchell Library, Sydney, having been acquired as part of the library of Sydney historian George Mackaness. (Mackaness was the first biographer of William Bligh. (Note 189) William Dugald Campbell: born 1848 - died July 26, 1938, buried at Chillagoe Cemetery (34km from Almaden), Mareeba, Queensland. This information has come from Paul Brunton, archivist with the Mitchell Library, and Colin Campbell, secretary of the Clan Campbell Society of Australia. I have been unable to discover any further information on WDC, who had three children.
From Note 135 - An informant on Duncan Campbell's genealogy has been Miss Marion Campbell of Kilberry, Scotland, who is descended from the same family via the line of John Campbell of Black River, Jamaica, from 1700 "the first Campbell on Jamaica". John Campbell of Black River was an uncle of Duncan Campbell's father, Rev. Neil Campbell (1678-1761), principal of the College of Glasgow between 1728-1761. However, no researcher has yet been able to identify the father of Principal Campbell, and the matter remains a bemusing conundrum for Campbell genealogists.
From Notes 138-140 - WDC took copious notes on his family history, held as ML A3232. The present author has lodged with ML a copy of Campbell's will, courtesy Public record Office, PROB/11/1388, kindly forwarded by Mollie Gillen.
From Note 140 - Duncan Campbell's obituary notice: "Died at Wilmington, in Kent, Duncan Campbell Esq. He is succeeded as governor and overseer of the hulks at Woolwich by his deputy, Mr. Stewart Erskine, a gentleman possessed of great humanity, and of the strictest honesty and integrity and who has had the sole management of that concern for him ever since its first establishment in 1775. Mr. C. died possessed of much property, yet, to the surprise of their best friends, has not left any legacy to Mr E for his long and faithful services; though he seemed always to be considered himself much indebted to that gentleman for his great accumulation of fortune."
From Note 142 - See Olson, 'Virginia Merchants of London', p. 371. By 1725 the Virginia mercantile lobby in London included Richard Perry, Thomas Cary, John Norton, John Flowerdewe and George Hatley, most of whom had close relatives among the tobacco planters, both needing and aiding each other. By 1775, one notices much less intermarriage between London merchants and their families, and the more affluent families of Virginia and Maryland. However, I have not extensively examined families from New York, Boston or Philadelphia for levels of intermarriage with families remaining in England. See also Jacob M. Price, 'Who was John Norton? A Note on the Historical Character of some Eighteenth-Century London Virginia Firms', William and Mary Quarterly, Series 3, Vol. 14, 1962., pp. 400-407. Price cites John M. Hemphill, Virginia and the English Commercial System, 1689-1733. London, Garland, 1985. [Facsimile of a 1964 Ph.D thesis, Princeton University].
From Note 144 - Intermarriages in London between English commercial families interested in trading to the West Indies and the American colonies from as early as 1610 are listed in Robert Brenner, Merchants and Revolution: Commercial Change, Political Conflict, and London's Overseas Traders, 1550-1653. CUP, 1993. In particular, Brenner mentions an early surveyor of Virginia, William Claiborne, a promoter of the Kent Island project, whose descendants became notable in Virginia. One descendant, Catherine Claiborne, married John Campbell of Black River, whose brother's sons settled on Jamaica. The descendants of these sons were correspondents of Duncan Campbell in London from 1753. My inspection of Virginian genealogies has not provided any information on further linkages between Claibornes and Campbells on Virginia, and so, since Duncan Campbell's partner from 1758, John Stewart, also remains unknown, I remain unable to speculate on whether these family links from 1700 had anything further to do with Campbell originally entering trade to American tobacco colonies from 1758. Colonel Leonard Claiborne died 1694 at Carlisle Bay, Jamaica. Extensive material exists on the Claibornes of Virginia. Leonard Claiborne, the son of Colonel William Claiborne of Virginia, settled in Jamaica where he was a colonel in the militia of St Elizabeth's; he was killed in a repulse of the French in 1694 at Carlisle Bay. By his wife Martha he is supposed to have had two daughters, Catherine and Elizabeth. Elizabeth remains unknown. Catherine married Capt John Campbell of Inverary, Agyleshire, who was part of the military with the tragic Scottish Darien Company, and on his return to Jamaica was one of the custos of St. Elizabeth's. This John Campbell (Black River) died 29 January 1740/1741 and Katherine died in 1715 aged 34. The published sources available to a Virginian genealogist, John Dorman, do not indicate if Catherine Claiborne/Campbell had any children. John Frederick Dorman, CG, FASG, 175 Hulls Chapel Road, Fredericksburg, Virginia. 22406-5218. USA. Note: I have used a database for organising genealogical information to compile, recompile, link and cross reference a great deal of previously scattered information on merchants, merchant politicians, mariners and their families relating to the period and events under consideration here. The database is: Personal Ancestry File, V 2.2 for MS-DOS computers. Marketed by the Family History Departments of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, Salt Lake City, Utah, USA.
Assistance in compiling and annotating the complex Campbell genealogy and related material has been gratefully received from Rev Richard Borthwick, Perth, Australia. Edward Linn of Sydney. Miss Marion Campbell of Kilberry, Scotland. Mr Alastair Campbell of Airds, Chief Executive, Clan Campbell, Inverary Castle, Inverary, Argyll, PA32 8XF. Scotland. Mr Diarmid A. Campbell, Editor, Journal of the Clan Campbell Society of North America, 284 South Sly, Foxway, Denver, Colorado. 80135, United States of America. also PO Box 4428, Denver, Colorado. 80204 United States of America. Mr Colin Campbell, Secretary, Clan Campbell Society of Australia, 21 Morella Avenue, Sefton, NSW 2162.
* * * * *
Jefferson's career after 1786 is well-documented. Campbell's career is not, despite his role as hulks overseer which ensures he was lodged in the literature of convict transportation to Australia. Oddly enough, and making it difficult for anyone researching Campbell, his name was somehow stripped from relationship to three prime land sites in London and Kent... His London address was 3 Robert Street, the Adelphi. He also resided at The Orchard, a well-known site at Blackheath, London (though it is not entirely certain he resided there). Later, he owned the present site of Brandshatch motor raceway, Kent. At least, Campbell's son John, who had sailed with Bligh, inherited farmland named Brandshatch. (Note 190)
Some mysteries remain, not just about the British Creditors, or the rise and fall of the tobacco market in London between 1775 and 1792. Anyone concerned with the chairmen of the British Creditors will be impressed with Jacob M. Price's masterly genealogical treatment, 'One Family's Empire', but with Campbell, matters are even more complex because of his role as hulks overseer. Certain questions of local history and genealogy can be asked about Blackheath and areas of Kent where Campbell bought land. Descendants remain interested. The biographers of William Bligh have remained unaware that the man who helped put Bligh in command of HMAV Bounty once met Thomas Jefferson. The Campbell genealogy and family connections have a far wider spread across the face of the globe than Price has indicated for the relatives of William Molleson and James Russell; and they were involved in hulks management in ways still not fully explored, let alone commented. (As women of similar age, Bligh's wife Elizabeth Betham was good friends with Campbell's second wife, Mary Mumford).
* * * * *
A SHORT NOTE ON METHOD:
This article has necessarily had to tread both the highways and byways of research because Campbell and so many of the British Creditors have remained unstudied, while Jefferson's career is well-known. The most effective way to approach any problems which might have arisen, or were unexpected, was to juxtapose each formal (or, abstract) topic area with as much genealogical information as seemed necessary to prove that no contradictions existed in information being assessed. A problem may arise here, for example, with the biography of Mary Storke/Hayley (nee Wilkes), and her involvements in whaling endeavours could easily inspire a separate article sorting wheat from chaff. One remains intrigued that relatively little work has been done on the US merchants who between 1783 and 1812 carried on the first trade between the US and India and China, South East Asia. One is more intrigued on realising that some of the connections of those merchants might have been voluble in the debate between the Hamiltonians and the Jeffersonians, but I have avoided that area of inquiry, as it would become a separate topic, and since it was more important to concentrate southward, to assess that until 1792, anyway, no Virginian or Marylander attempted to renew trading links with Duncan Campbell, or any other British Creditor on whom a range of information was available. Here, Lane, Son and Fraser remain interesting in respect of the American maritime colonies.
Apart from genealogical inquiry, I have used straightforward methods which appear to have strengthened some impressions already strong in the literature (such as, from Olson's work, the role Campbell played in London's merchant politics to 1775). However, as is apparent, strengthening that impression only makes it more apparent how little has been done on Campbell, or other creditors, such as George Hayley, or Lane, Son and Fraser, during the American War, or relating to its various aftermaths.
Meanwhile, we find that difficulties arise with the maritime history of convict transportation between 1718 and 1800, for if that history was better-organised, two topics would probably become arranged more clearly: (a) the careers of Campbell as a convict contractor as well as a tobacco trader would no longer be divorced, and (b) if the pre-1775 trans-Atlantic carriers of tobacco were better known, as maritime men, perhaps the fate of the London-American tobacco trade would be easier to describe. One of the few titles available which lists a considerable number of mostly American captains engaged in shipping tobacco before 1775 is Jack P. Greene, The Diary of Colonel Landon Carter of Sabine Hall. Two Vols. Virginia Historical Society, University Press of Virginia, 1965. (Note 191)
One could easily refer at length to other pointers to how various types of data could be arranged around stores of more accurate genealogical information. But once we know that the first Campbell to settle on Jamaica circa 1700 was John Campbell of Black River, we also find it intriguing that in an excellent work - Richard S. Dunn, Sugar and Slaves: The Rise of the Planter Class in the English West Indies, 1624-1730. Chapel Hill, 1972 - there is no mention of people named Campbell. Yet we can remain confident that Dunn's book will help describe the lives of the Jamaican correspondents of Duncan Campbell of London, including, from the mid-1790s, Duncan's eldest son, Dugald.
It is for these sorts of unexpected reasons and situations that the information presented in this appendix is rather scattered. Apart from providing some useful citations, I have confined the information presented to persons, situations or topics which might fruitfully bear further inquiry, but without explanation of why I have made these judgements. Citation became more tortuous as clues become more faint, but even a generalisation such as this could be unexpectedly intersected, as when I found the extraordinarily interesting but only recently arising body of information that Robert Brenner has provided for anyone interested in the origins of the Claiborne family of Virginia, as, methodologically, I had to be, due to a Campbell/Claiborne marriage on Jamaica. (Robert Brenner, Merchants and Revolution: Commercial Change, Political Conflict, and London's Overseas Traders, 1550-1653. CUP, 1993). Brenner makes it clear that British-London traders to the West Indies and the American tobacco colonies can now be traced genealogically, in detail, from about 1600 to well beyond 1800, possibly in a way never before achievable. I am grateful to Tod Moore for pointing out that Brenner's book had become available.
PLEASE NOTE: THAT THE STYLE USED ABOVE FOR PROVIDING INFORMATION ON ENGLISH MERCHANT NAMES HAS BEEN EXPANDED FOR USE IN A LATER-WRITTEN PROJECT (AFTER 1994) WHICH WILL ALSO SOON BECOME AVAILABLE ON DISK (ON THE BUSINESS LIVES OF THE ENGLISH CONVICT CONTRACTORS, 1718-1835). THE TIME-FRAME HAS ALSO BEEN EXPANDED, SO THAT INFORMATION ON ENGLISH MERCHANT NAMES NOW MOVES FROM 1550 TO NEAR 1900. USING THIS INFORMATION, A HISTORIAN COULD EASILY COVER PERIODS FROM THE INITIATION OF ENGLISH EXPANSIONISM TO BEYOND THE TIME OF THE AUSTRALIAN GOLD RUSHES. IF SUCH INFORMATION WAS COMPREHENSIVE, IT OUGHT TO EMBODY INFORMATION ON CONVICT TRANSPORTATION TO BOTH NORTH AMERICA AND AUSTRALIA. IF CONVICT TRANSPORTATION CAN PROPERLY BE SEEN AS A SUB-SET OF SLAVERY, THEN IT OUGHT ALSO BECOME CLEAR HOW AND WHY CONVICT TRANSPORTATION TO AUSTRALIA CAN BE SEEN IN THAT LIGHT. ONE MIGHT OBSERVE, THAT AFTER 1817-1820, MANY MEMBERS OF BRITAIN'S GENERAL SHIPOWNERS' SOCIETY (GSS) CHARTERED THEIR SHIPS FOR CONVICT TRANSPORTATION TO AUSTRALIA. THE FULL FACTS ON SUCH MATTERS ARE NOT, HOWEVER, PRESENTED IN GENERAL BRITISH MARITIME HISTORY OF THE NINETEENTH CENTURY, NOR IN HISTORIES OF CONVICT TRANSPORTATION, NOR IN HISTORIES OF THE GSS ITSELF. WHY NOT? IS INTERESTING TO ASK. WHAT IS FOUND, IS THAT ONE CANNOT GATHER USEFUL BIOGRAPHICAL MATERIAL ON SUCH SHIPOWNERS WITHOUT ALSO GATHERING BIOGRAPHICAL MATERIAL ON LONDON BANKING NAMES. IN THIS CASE, FURTHER RESEARCH OUGHT TO BE FRUITFUL FOR THE DEVELOPMENT OF VARIOUS NEW PERSPECTIVES.
Dan Byrnes, April, 1996- September 1997
Appendix to A Bitter Pill - Finis
Begins the Endnotes to the Appendix to A Bitter Pill
Note 149: Campbell to John Rose, Virginia, London 7 March, 1792, Duncan Campbell Letterbooks, Vol. 6, p. 312. Campbell in London to Joseph Court, Annapolis, Maryland, 1 July, 1792, Duncan Campbell Letterbooks, Vol. 6, p. 334.
Note 150: The first Campbell settling on a Jamaica plantation was Duncan's grand-uncle, Colonel John Campbell of Black River, in 1700. He had been with the ill-fated Scottish Darien Company expeditions, but, probably a Jacobite, he refused to return to a Scotland which might be joined in Union with the Crown of England. John of Black River entreated his Scottish nephews to join him. The sons of John's brother Dugald responded. Their descendants formed Duncan-of-London's kin-based client group about south-west Jamaica. Not long before the American Revolution began, some of these kin were planning from Scotland to begin operations in either Philadelphia or Virginia/Maryland, though they opted for Jamaica. I am unaware however if these pre-1775 plans had anything to do with connections arising from the fact that John Black River had married Catherine Claiborne (died 1735), daughter of Colonel Leonard Claiborne (died 1694) of the noted Virginian family of Claibornes. On ideas of exploiting "Darien sites", or, the area around today's Panama Canal before the 1690s, see Brenner's masterly research in Merchants and Revolution, p. 188 and elsewhere.
Note 151: On Thomas Eden, see Kellock, p. 122. William Eden, later Lord Aukland, was of Beckenham, Kent. (Valentine, British Establishment, p. 284). He was a member of the Board of Trade in 1786. Not long before, his brother Robert (died 1784) had been governor of Maryland (1768-1776) (where Duncan Campbell had been investing in land). See Greene, Diary of Landon Carter, Vol. 2, p. 1031; Tommy Thompson, 'Indebtedness', p. 23.
Note 152: G. C. Bolton, 'William Eden and the Convicts, 1771-1787', Australian Journal of Politics and History, Vol. 26, 1980., pp. 3-44. Also, Wilfrid Oldham, Britain's Convicts to the Colonies. Sydney, Library of Australian History, 1990.
Note 153: See Jacob Price, 'One Family'.
Note 154: Champions as investors in the South Whale Fishery are listed in "The Samuel Enderby Book". (See bibliography).
Note 155: The name Shubrick is noticed in the history of slave-dealing about the Carolinas. Available information is sketchy; see the note below.
Note 156: On James Crockat, who dealt sometimes in slaves. In 1760 the Crockat interest took in Alexander Watson and Richard Grubb. A firm formed at Charles Town, Carolina, commercially linked to Crockat's brother John, and Ebenezer Simmons and Benjamin Smith, that dissolved in 1745; Smith then took one John Palmer as a partner, during the 1759 troubles with the Cherokee Indians. Joseph Nutt was in South Carolina handling military supplies, and in 1760 and 1761, Smith and Nutt imported 600 slaves. Here, Nutt and Crockat also dealt with John Beswicke; there were matters also perhaps with South Carolina merchants Henry Laurens, Benjamin Smith and John McQueen. (See Kellock, pp. 127-138). James for a time was possibly a leading merchant at Charleston, Carolina, and in 1736 is supposed to have been prominent in insurance; in 1739 he returned to London where he traded extensively with America and also Canada. In 1749 he became London agent for South Carolina and remained so for seven years. In 1744 Henry Laurens was sent to London to be trained by Crockatt and Laurens hoped a partnership would eventuate, but this was not so due to misunderstandings or worse. One Charles Crockatt was much less a businessman; some of his transactions went awry and he shot himself. In later years one Henry Crockatt was for a time a partner with J. J. Angerstein, one of the noted leaders of Lloyd's of London whose biography is now being researched by Anthony Twist, of Cambridge, England. Mr Twist conveys details such as that once, Angerstein bought a ship, Blagrow, from Duncan Campbell. Both were residents of the Blackheath area, London.
Note 157: After 1787, (Furber, 'Beginnings of Trade with India', p. 242) the British consuls at Philadelphia, Phineas Bond and John Temple, became concerned about US ships being used to remit fortunes from India back to Europe, and about the illegal introduction of India goods into British territory via the same means. In July, 1787, worry arose that a mere three US ships could supply the usual US demand for India goods, while proof of remittances being made came when Capt. Bell came into Madras in May, 1788 with the ship Commerce, with 50,000 pounds worth of goods, some 30,000 pounds by her owners and 20,000 pounds worth on consignments from various Europeans in Madras. An unnamed London City firm was apparently involved; it was possibly Lane, Son and Fraser.
Note 158: Lane and Fraser are mentioned as British Creditors in Kellock, p. 114, p. 131. Kellock finds Lane and Fraser involved in the tea shipments protested at the Boston Tea Party. I have retraced some of the maritime history of the Boston Tea Party in my article, 'The Blackheath Connection', cited elsewhere.
Note 159: For example, in G. Bhagat, 'Americans and American Trade in India, 1784-1814', American Neptune, 1986, 46, 1, pp. 6-15. Here, p. 9, it is noted that in February 1784, Lane and Fraser in London were corresponding with the Salem merchant Elias Hasket Derby, died 1799, who became the first US millionaire by virtue of his trade to India. Derby sent a ship to India in 1784, Grand Turk; later he also sent many ships to Mauritius. (Bhagat, p. 10). Till the American Revolution, Derby's father Richard had traded to the West Indies, Britain, Spain, Portugal and Gibralter. See also, Glenn S. Gordinier, 'Early American trade with India: taking an observation', American Neptune, 1985. 45, 3., pp. 153-166. A full survey of the correspondence the British Creditors had with Americans after 1783 would be interesting in respect of Jeffersonian fears about a resurgence of the power of British capital in North American affairs.
Note 160: Claude G. Bowers, The Young Jefferson, 1743-1789. Boston, Houghton Mifflin, 1945., p. 347.
Note 161: Kellock, p. 114, Note 13.
Note 162: Bhagat, p. 9, Note 40. See also, Furber on US trade to India.
Note 163: Byrnes, 'The Blackheath Connection', citing Labaree, p. 295.
Note 164: Little new arises on George Abel. Macaulay, a vehement Whig in the 1790s, was London alderman George Macaulay the friend of Joseph Nutt noted elsewhere. I have found no evidence alderman Macaulay was related to the radical, Catherine Macaulay nee Sawbridge, except that Catherine's husband and the alderman both had an uncle named Aulay Macaulay. It is unclear if the uncle is the same man. Aldermen Macaulay and Curtis are pictured in an illustration held at London's Guildhall Library, of "The Administration of the Oath of Allegiance to Ald. Richard Clark in 1782".
Note 165: See the entry for William Neate Chapman, ADB. This young man was one of the few connections of any British Creditor to live in the early Australian colony. His father knew Gov. Arthur Phillip.
Note 166: J. A. S. Leighton-Boyce, Smiths the Bankers. London, National Provincial Bank, 1958.
Note 167: Jacob Price, 'One Family', ibid.
Note 168: See also, Dickinson on Falklands sealing; Stackpole, Whales and Destiny, pp. 102, 145; George Rude, Wilkes and Liberty. Oxford at the Clarendon Press, 1962. Kellock, p. 111, p. 120. Collected citations include D. A. Farnie, 'The Commercial Empire of the Atlantic, 1607-1783', Economic History Review, Series 2, Vol. 15, 1962., pp. 205-218; G. D. Ramsay, English Overseas Trade during the Centuries of Emergence. London, 1957., esp. Ch. 7. William I. Roberts, 'Samuel Storke: An Eighteenth Century London Merchant Trading to the American Colonies', Business History Review, XXXIX, 1965., pp. 147-170.
Note 169: Carolina merchant Richard Grubb died in 1774. He was partner with one Alexander Watson. See notes on James Crockat above. Kellock, p. 127.
Note 170: This Creditor of Bristol was presumably Jefferson's creditor.
Note 171: See Charles F. Hobson, 'The Recovery of British Debts in the Federal Circuit Court of Virginia, 1790-1797', Virginia Magazine of History and Biography, 92, 2, 1984., pp. 176-200.
Note 172: On John Backhouse of Liverpool. See Olson, 'Virginia Merchants in London', p. 383. Also, Robert Polk Thomson, 'The Tobacco Export of the Upper James River Naval District, 1773-1775', William and Mary Quarterly, Series 3, Vol. XVIII, July 1961., p. 405. This dealer received about one third the amount of tobacco imported by Dobson, Daltera and Walker also of Liverpool. See Sheridan, 'British Credit Crisis', p. 175.
Note 173: The Daltera family were Huguenots with a branch in Bristol, See pp. 181-183 in Kenneth Morgan, Bristol and the Atlantic Slave Trade; Evans, 'Planter Indebtedness', p. 524; Fowlers versus Daltera as a debt matter still in 1798.
Note 174: John Dixon (d. 1757). A merchant from Bristol, England, who went to Virginia before 1727 and acquired land and a warehouse at Falmouth, returning to England before he died. See Greene, The Landon Carter Diary, Vol. 1, p. 83.
Note 175: Samuel Martin of Whitehaven. He got his tobacco from Bollint Starke and Greenwood, Ritson and Marsh, who seemed to act as commission agents. See Thomson, 'Upper James River', p. 398.
Note 176: Articles by Devine and Jacob M. Price are helpful here.
Note 177: T. M. Devine, 'A Glasgow Tobacco Merchant during the American War of Independence: Alexander Speirs of Elderslie, 1775 to 1781', William and Mary Quarterly, Series 3, Vol. 33, No. 3, July, 1976., pp. 501-513.
Note 178: A Glasgow merchant, John Glassford dealt in Maryland tobacco. See Jacob Price, 'Rise of Glasgow', p. 188; Tommy Thompson, p. 17.
Note 179: This firm was probably related to Telfair and Cooper referred to above.
Note 180: Relevant information is contained in Peter Linebaugh, The London Hanged: Crime and Civil Society in the Eighteenth Century. London, Allen Lane/Penguin Press, 1991. See also, Lillian M. Penson, The Colonial Agents of the British West Indies: A Study in Colonial Administration Mainly in the Eighteenth Century. [Orig. 1924]. London, Frank Cass and Co., 1971.
Note 181: Olson, 'London Mercantile Lobby', p. 27; Kellock, p. 118. GEC, The Complete Peerage, p. 107, for Bellomont.
Note 182: Louis Morton, Robert Carter of Nomini Hall: A Virginia Tobacco Planter of the Eighteenth Century. Dominion Books, Charlottesville, University Press of Virginia, 1945.
Note 183: Boyd, Papers of Thomas Jefferson, Vol. 9. Notes on Boylston's interests in oil are contained in Stackpole, Whales and Destiny, p. 145.
Note 184: Merrill Peterson, Jefferson and the New Nation, p. 322.
Note 185: Karl Brandt, Whale Oil: An Economic Analysis. Fats and Oils Studies, No. 7, Food Research Institute, Stanford University, California, June 1940. Brandt, p. 49, says London whalers by 1786 were searching for the Southern Right Whale, and that by 1804-1807, an annual average of about 8000 southern right whales were taken [by London's South whalers; but perhaps including American ships?]. Many such whales were taken about Australia.
Note 186: This is a partial list of Duncan Campbell's correspondents drawn from the index to his business letterbook for 1772-1776. In 1772, Campbell's aged partner John Stewart died, leaving Campbell to inherit the entire business, presumably including its debts
Note 187: Some of these colonial families including Carter have members noted in Stella Pickett Hardy, Colonial Families of the Southern States of America, 1968.
Note 188: See Sands' Sydney and Suburban Directory, for 1892. WDC cannot be found in any Sands' Directory earlier than 1892. Information per Paul Brunton, Curator of Manuscripts, Mitchell Library, State Library of New South Wales, Macquarie Street, Sydney, New South Wales, 2000.
Note 189: See Dan Byrnes, 'Commentary', to Wilfrid Oldham, Britain's Convicts to the Colonies. Sydney, Library of Australian History, 1990., a re-editing of a thesis of 1933, written in London and later too-much ignored. See also, A. E. Smith, Colonists in Bondage: White Servitude and Convict Labour in America, 1607-1776. University of Carolina Press, 1947. Gloucester, Mass, Peter Smith, 1965.
Note 190: Duncan Campbell's Will: PRO IR/26/73. The estate duty on his will was 22,684 pounds.
Note 191: On Landon Carter, a useful reference is Leonie J. Archer (Ed), Slavery and Other Forms of Unfree Labour. New York, Routledge, 1988. Also, Anon, an article, 'The Diary of Landon Carter', William and Mary Quarterly, 16, 1907, pp. 149-150.
These Endnotes are followed by a bibliography
Below is the bibliography to A BITTER PILL, by Dan Byrnes (1994-1996)
Special Acknowledgements: Thanks for encouragement with this project are due to Dr Alan Atkinson, University of New England. Dr Noel McLachlan, Melbourne University (Ret). Mollie Gillen of London. Philip Russell of Tamworth, Australia. Anthony Twist of Cambridge, England. And Katherine Thomas and Tod Moore of Armidale, NSW. I am grateful for an exchange of information with Mr John F. Dorman, Genealogist, 175 Hulls Chapel Road, Falmouth, Stafford County, Virginia 22406-5218. USA., regarding John Campbell of Black River, Jamaica, c. 1700 and his marriage to Catherine of the Claiborne family of Virginia.
ON GENEALOGY AND BIOGRAPHICAL DETAILS
The Australian
Dictionary of Biography.
Zena
Bamping, West Kingsdown: The story of Three Villages in Kent. Second
edition. London, Tyger Press Limited, 1991.
Burke's
Genealogical
and Heraldic History of the Landed Gentry. Eighteenth edition.
London, Burke's Peerage Ltd.
John Burke and John Bernard
Burke, A
Genealogical and Heraldic History of Extinct and Dormant Baronetcies
of England, Ireland and Scotland. Second Edition. London, John
Russell Smith. [Facsimile of the 1964 edition].
The Duncan
Campbell Letterbooks, ML A3225-3230 are held as: ML A3225, Vol. 1. of
Business Letterbooks, March 1772-October 1776; ML A3226, Vol. 2 of
Business Letterbooks, 13 December, 1776-21 September, 1779; ML A3227,
Vol. 3 of Business Letterbooks, September 30, 1779-March 9, 1782; ML
A3228, Vol. 4 of Business Letter books, March 15, 1782-April 6, 1785;
ML A3229, Vol. 5 of Business Letterbooks, December 1, 1784-June 17,
1788; ML A3230, Vol. 6 of Business Letterbooks, June 20,
1788-December 31, 1794. Some ML Blighiana is also relevant to
Campbell. The breaks of dates which are noted between Business
Letterbooks are not in all instances covered by letters entered into
Private Letterbooks, ML A3231, comprising three volumes of same (of
physically smaller volumes).
K. G. Davies, (Ed.), Documents
of
the American Revolution, Vol. XIII: A Calendar, 1777-1778. Irish
University Press, Shannon, Colonial Office Series, 1972-1981. [This
title has notes on some staff at the Woolwich Arsenal assisting as
the hulks system was established 1776-1777].
Richard S.
Dunn, 'A
Tale of Two Plantations: Slave Life at Mesopotamia in Jamaica, and
Mount Airy in Virginia, 1799 to 1828', William and Mary Quarterly,
Series 3, Vol. 34, No. 1, January, 1977., pp. 32-65. [Containing
genealogical material on the Tayloe family which can be applied to
information available in Stella Pickett Hardy, cited below].
"The
Samuel Enderby Book": Whaling Documents 1775-1790. (Originals
held at the Pennsylvania Historical Society, 1300 Locust St.,
Philadelphia, PA. USA. Used by permission of director, James E.
Rooney. No accession date. No provenance). Being a list of names of
merchants placing vessels in the South Whale Fishery. Ships' names,
masters' names, with some information on catches of whale oil, seal
skins, areas fished, etc. Copies of these originals are with the
Petherick Collection of Manuscripts, Ms 1701. Australian National
Library.
English Dictionary of National Biography (DNB).
W.
A. Feurtado, Official and Other Personages of Jamaica from 1655 to
1790. Kingston, Jamaica, 1896.
Vicary Gibbs, (Ed.), The
Complete
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1910.
Stella Pickett Hardy, Colonial Families of the
Southern
States of America: A History and Genealogy of Colonial Families who
settled in the Colonies prior to the Revolution. (Second edition,
revised). Baltimore, Genealogical Publishing Co., 1968.
O.
F.
Hogg, The Royal Arsenal: Its Background, Origin and Subsequent
History. Vol. 1. London, Oxford University Press, 1963. [This title
has information on Neil, the brother mentioned above of the hulks
overseer, Duncan Campbell].
Dictionary of American
Biography.
American Council of Learned Societies. 1928ff.
Katharine A.
Kellock, 'London Merchants and the pre-1776 American Debts',
Guildhall Studies in London History, Vol. 1, No 3, October, 1974.,
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Australasian edition. London, Debrett's Peerage, 1980.
Samuel
M.
Rosenblatt, 'The Significance of Credit in the Tobacco consignment
Trade: a study of John Norton and Sons, 1768-1775', William and Mary
Quarterly, Series 3, 29, 1962., pp. 383-399. [James Daltera and the
Daltera family are mentioned pp. 181-183, too briefly].
Virginia
Magazine of History and Biography. [see separate citations]. Also,
various information in scattered earlier issues of The William and
Mary Quarterly, circa 1900.
Note: I have used a database for
organising genealogical information to compile, recompile, link and
cross reference a great deal of previously scattered information on
merchants, merchant politicians, mariners and their families relating
to the period and events under consideration here. The database is:
Personal Ancestry File, V 2.2 for MS-DOS computers. Marketed by the
Family History Departments of the Church of Jesus Christ of
Latter-Day Saints, Salt Lake City, Utah, USA.
Assistance in compiling and annotating the complex Campbell genealogy and related material has been gratefully received from Rev Richard Borthwick, Perth, Australia. Edward Linn of Sydney. Miss Marion Campbell of Kilberry, Scotland. Mr Alastair Campbell of Airds, Chief Executive, Clan Campbell, Inverary Castle, Inverary, Argyll, PA32 8XF. Scotland. Mr Diarmid A. Campbell, Editor, Journal of the Clan Campbell Society of North America, 284 South Sly, Foxway, Denver, Colorado. 80135, United States of America. also PO Box 4428, Denver, Colorado. 80204 United States of America. Mr Colin Campbell, Secretary, Clan Campbell Society of Australia, 21 Morella Avenue, Sefton, NSW 2162.
ARTICLES
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and Convict Transportation, 1718-1812', pp. 25-38 in Carl Bridge,
(Ed.), New Perspectives in Australian History. London, Sir Robert
Menzies Centre for Australian Studies, Institute of Commonwealth
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Alan Atkinson, 'The
First
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Alan
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Dan Byrnes, 'From Glasgow to
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- Finis -
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