Random details: The resumption of convict transportation 1783: `Men unworthy to remain in this island' Part One: A business overview: Henry Dundas and attitudes of the East India Company: From the Bengal famine to Penang: The Larkins family of Blackheath: Secret plans for men unworthy: Part Two:

 

The Blackheath Connection

Chapter 25

 

Random details:

 

        On 12 July, 1783 was born Campbell's son Colin, who died young. In Campbell's other domains, his nephew Campbell Betham was at the college of Glasgow studying medicine. The medical student's sister, Mrs. Colden of New York in 1778, by October 1783 was thinking of going back to America - as a Loyalist she would make claims on the British government. ([1]) Duncan's son Dugald made his first voyage to Jamaica from January 1783, returning in 1785 with his sailor-brother John, who was taught by Bligh.

 

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The resumption of convict transportation:

 

The year 1783...

 

     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 "convict 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. ([2]) 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 by Moore. ([3]) What gives these undiplomatic debacles extra interest is that Moore's efforts were stopped partly by the agency of Matthew Ridley, Campbell's former agent in Baltimore. ([4])

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    Between 1776 and 18 August, 1786, Britain involved seven ships in futile efforts to transport convicts, not including ships sent from Ireland. Those ships were Den Keyser to Africa of 1782-1783, Recovery, to Africa associated with Camden, Calvert and King; Mackrel  to Africa; George Moore's Swift I  to North America/Nova Scotia, Moore's Swift II to North America/Nova Scotia, Moore's Mercury's to Honduras and Fair American, also associated with George Moore. ([5]) Since 1718, no convict contractor had ever suffered so badly from convict mutiny as Moore. In all, Moore suffered losses of £4500. ([6])

 

*   *   *

 

`Men unworthy to remain in this island' Part One:

 

      During 1782, vague plans had been made to transport convicts to Africa, despite the official prejudice that transports should be sent to America. Lord Sydney on 12 and 18 July, 1783, communicated to George III his political distress arising from problems with transports. ([7]) George III replied to Lord North on 12 July, "Undoubtedly the Americans cannot expect nor will ever will receive any favour from Me, but the permitting them to obtain Men unworthy to remain in this Island I shall certainly consent to." ([8])

 

       George was still furious with his rebels. And since the disposal of a convict in the light of the criminological thought of the day, and under the legislation, necessitated that the state derive some benefit from the labour of the transport, Townshend was in effect faced with an insoluble problem of colonial development. This was his constant pressure during discussion of "the convict problem", which he considered almost weekly insofar as transportable convicts remained a major problem for the Home Office.

 

      Lord Sydney remained the recipient of all the plans concocted for the disposal of convicts, and his response to plans was always beggared by the duality in the status of a transportable convict. The word convict implied a colony where, under new legislation, government would supervise the convicts' labour - but a colony where? This duality later meant that when James Matra ([9]) produced a plan to make a colony for American loyalists at New South Wales, or in the Pacific, Lord Sydney immediately tacked onto it an idea to transport convicts to there. ([10]) Though Matra himself was dubious about transportation as a useful penal measure, he revamped his plans according to Sydney's suggestion that any settlement, as proposed, could be associated with convict transportation. Matra offered his revised ideas to government just as George Moore's first ship was getting away. In researching the additions to his plans, Matra looked also into the hulks and the monies paid to Campbell. ([11])

 

     The fact it had taken a war of independence to sever the previously existing links between the transportable convict and the idea of colony is the prime illustration of the nature of the problem confronting Lord Sydney, who must have been frustrated with the king's lack of any appreciation of the inner meaning of any excess number of transportable prisoners. The greater the number of prisoners, the larger became the non-existent colony suitable for their exile. This was all why Sydney once conveyed to the king, "The more I consider the matter the greater difficulty I see in disposing of these people in any other places in the possession of His Majesty's subjects". ([12]) Into the gap stepped George Moore.

 

        Moore's ships have provided enormous confusion for researchers. The back of the research problem was finally broken by the American historian, Roger Ekirch, who was assisted by an Australian, Gillen. Ekirch's research revealed that George Moore's activities amounted to creating a diplomatic incident between Britain and the new United States of America. The locations to be mentioned are as far-flung as Virginia and Maryland, Nova Scotia, Honduras, the Gambia River in north-west Africa. In some of this, government seems to have been manipulated as much as it was willing to manipulate certain men such as Moore. There was a certain craziness in the idea of sending convict labour to Nova Scotia, since when the defeated British quit their former American colonies in 1783, they took slaves with them, many of whom were later sent to Sierra Leone. ([13])

 

    For the British after 1783, and after the peace treaty with the new United States of America, there had been an "impetuous and disastrous burst of [British-US] trade in 1783-1784". The efforts of George Moore in Britain and a prominent Maryland Whig merchant, Salmon, were part of this. ([14]) Salmon was a leftover of the firm Woolsey and Salmon which had earlier imported Irish convicts to Maryland. There still exists a set of Woolsey-Salmon Letterbooks. ([15]) And still, the British remained loathe to relinquish their obsession, that convicts sentenced to transportation would go to America. The authorities in Ireland were even more reluctant to relinquish this assumption, and they continued to act on it after 1788. ([16])

 

     In April 1783, Britain ceded a complete independence of the USA. With the peace treaty, ([17]) the first British ambassador to US was George Hammond, son of an English-whaler owner. ([18]) Nova Scotia exerted an almost-strange magnetism on events. Major Robert Molleson in 1782 became wagon master for the British in America, and at the end of 1783 he led a group of Loyalists from New York to Nova Scotia, where he was a JP and colonel of the loyalist militia; but he only lasted there a year. ([19]) It is not known if there were ever any links between the former tobacco trader, William Molleson, any loyalists on Nova Scotia, and anyone such as Matra ([20]), his loyalist associates De Lanceys, John Call; or even George Macaulay. John Call in 1783 became a co-promoter of Matra's scheme, and William Molleson was associating with Duncan Campbell on matters of concern to British Creditors. It seems unlikely that merchants interested in sending convicts to Nova Scotia would lack links to Canadian trade, and in Canada, Loyalists from the revolution were settling down to new life. 

 

     Before he made his overtures to government, Matra had researched the hulks. Amongst the information he proffered to Lord Sydney on 23 August, 1783 were figures on the monies paid to overseer Campbell. (If Matra could find the information, so probably could the researchers working for London's aldermen!) Like so many others who had ideas on convict transportation, Matra woefully underestimated the real costs. But Matra argued for a cheap transportation to NSW and a consequent saving to government - if the hulks were dispensed with. Matra soon contacted Fox, only to find the North coalition disbanded by December 1783. Matra had to wait. Was it lack of money, or imagination, or both, which meant Britain did not see great potential in Matra's ideas, with or without convict transportation?

 

     Something then occurred which is also hard to square with the way Australian maritime history is usually seen. About August 1783, Capt. Henry Wilson was on the East India Company ship Antelope,  wrecked near Pelew Islands. George Keate's account of this was published in 1788, 1789, 1803. ([21]) Another little-known title is John Pearce Hockin, 1803, A Supplement to the Account of the Pelew Island,  compiled from the journals of the Panther and Endeavour; two Company ships sent to these islands in 1790. There was some basis here on the oral story of Capt. Henry Wilson. (London. Printed for Capt. Henry Wilson). Here, any East India Company interest in Australia has never since been followed up. By the 1990s, the historian will only find the East India Company remaining consistently negative to the Australasian region.

 

*    *    *

 

A business overview:

 

     Historians refer to the period after 1783 as part of The Second Founding of the British Empire. Sometimes this second empire is jocularly referred to as having "grown like topsy". Dakin places the beginning of the South Whale Fishery, applying to the Southern Atlantic, as 1783. ([22]) Often it is difficult not to see the commercial tail wagging the imperial dog. What should be realised is that this is a legacy of the earlier days of England's "merchant adventurers" - quite simply - when freebooting was licensed by the crown, and later dignified with letters of marque allowing merchant ships to shoot and plunder. Hence, before 1800, the whalers Enderby were almost crazily proposing to harry the Spanish on western South America with a convict force sent from Sydney. Meanwhile, with the aid of the whaler Rotch, between 1783-1785, the French Government established at Dunkirk a colony of whalers with American "loyalists" from Nantucket. This would have relieved French dependence on oil bought from London merchants. ([23])

 

      After the Treaty of Paris, a son of Samuel Enderby went to Boston USA to engage Nantucketeer whalers to sail for Britain. ([24]) Enderby Senior's desire to employ Nantucketeers was to have a profound effect on maritime history because he had decided he would employ Nantucket whalers individually, not en masse. Whereas Rotch, with a decent view of family welfare, wanted his whalers treated as the human community they and their families represented. Enderby recruited his whalers individually by offering shares of catches as incentives, and by 1786 Enderby employed 30 Nantucket whalers on that basis. The Australian historian Margaret Steven writes, "Under Pitt the whalers of the southern fishery enjoyed an indulgence that has few parallels in British economic history". ([25]) This remark needs examination, since historians find it difficult to see how London whalers began carrying convicts to Australia. Steven's remark is correct - to suggest that it is incorrect is tantamount to saying Pitt and his cabinet did not know what they were doing between late 1786 and 1792! The problem with Steven's correctness is that the implications contradict traditional lore on political relations between Pitt, Cabinet and the East India Company. But in this, traditional lore on relations between Pitt and the East India is inadequate, since it has never embraced information on ship managers (such as George Macaulay, since Macaulay has been written OUT of the history.)

 

*    *    *

 

Henry Dundas and attitudes of the East India Company:

 

     One of the most powerful men in Scotland by now was Henry Dundas, a Scottish MP chosen not by the Kirk or the people, but by a few aristocratic houses, so that the great Scots chiefs kept their high authority despite competition from the Kirk. Out of a population of 1.5 million, 2662 voters in the counties had 30 MPs, and 1301 voters in the burghs had 15 MPs. Earlier, the Scottish interests had been grouped by Argyll, until Dundas set out from 1775 to re-organize matters. After 1784, with his Scots power organised, and in a position of authority of Board of Control, Dundas sought to induce the East India Company to distribute jobs as he desired, and so he sent energetic, talented young Scotsmen to India. ([26]) (And here, it can also be asked, why the British Government never sought to send more Scots from the overpopulated Highlands to the new Australian colony from 1788?)

 

    It remains odd that the East India Company was never asked, or ordered, to bear with having convicts landed in any territory under its control in, say, India. (After 1814, indigenous Indian convicts were being transported to Mauritius, when in theory, the infrastructure of New South Wales and Tasmania could have received them). The West Indies since 1717 had been against the reception of transports, and no serious attempt was made after 1782 to require the West Indians to receive transports. Sydney knew that if the disposal of convicts was uncongenial to the mode of Britain's possession of an area, then disposal of convicts there would one way or another be rendered ineffectual in practice.

 

The point here is that in London, two large merchant lobbies would have complained if convicts had been sent to territories from which they drew their wealth. This meant that politicians had to identify some destination where there was no merchant resistance which would give trouble in London. George Moore's efforts to transport were undone precisely because of resistance. Moore's engagement in convict contracting involved both Sydney and Evan Nepean. Administratively, it was Nepean who provided the equilibrium when the dual nature of the convict problem tended to tip matters one way or the other. Sydney was concerned primarily with the policy aspects, Nepean had executive powers and assessed information. Their partnership was crucial to what occurred in practice.

 

     The East India Company always managed to resist having convicts landed in its territories, and remained preoccupied with fending off reforms. From 1783, a secret government committee including Dundas and Jenkinson discussed issues such as the origins of the war in the Carnatic and worked on reform schemes. Dundas' views prevailed. Many friends of Burke had lost money in stock exchange disasters before North's reforms; Burke became convinced the Company was in the hands of corrupt men, who oppressed India, ignored honest merit, failed to give a return to the state or to shareholders. Proposed reforms, like many reforms of the day, all entailed more government regulation. It was recognised that due to the Company's influence on the money markets, stability in parts of the City might be at stake. Proposals for reform naturally ran into blockage from Whigs who felt they advanced the power of the executives of the crown. If so, how could the evils of India be relieved?

 

       Burke proposed that seven board members be given all the usual powers used by directors and the court of proprietors, who would be named in a Bill to parliament, to be removable by the king or the address of either house of parliament, rather as with judges. And under these seven, nine assistant commissioners would manage all commercial business. These would be voted-in by the shareholders and the court of proprietors. There was a communications problem - how to account for the delay in messages sent to or returning from India? Some names suggested for the experiment were friends of North and Fox, hardly impartial choices, so propaganda was raised against the idea. Yet it was agreed the Company was scandalous and insolvent. Fox's India Bill was apparently written by Burke. Dundas had his own policy on the Company; he came down from Scotland and talked the 24-yearr-old William Pitt into stepping forward, all to the end of 1783. ([27]) But whatever was government policy, where were the merchants who would become interested in shipping convicts?

 

    In 1783 the directors of the East India Company were: Chairman, Sir Henry Fletcher. Deputy chairman, Nathaniel Smith. Directors: Francis Baring, Charles Boddam, Jacob Bosanquet, George Curning [Curling?], William Devaynes, Richard Hall, John Hunter, John Manship, John Roberts, Joseph Sparkes, George Tatem, Jacob Wilkinson, William Bensley, Benjamin Booth, Thomas Cheap, Lionel Darrell, John Harrison, Stephen Lushington, James Moffatt, Henry Savage, John Smith, John Townson. Deputy secretary was Wm. Richardson. Treasurer was William Harris. Clerk for shipping was C. T. Coggan. Clerk to the military was John Hawkins Barnard. ([28]) None of these highly respectable names were investors in whaling (except perhaps, Curling). Otherwise, the names of the directors of London's major finance houses and trading companies were listed annually in The Royal Calendar, and many names - such as Neave - appear simultaneously on several boards of directors.

 

      The names of South whaling investors were not seen listed in connection with the Bank of England, the Lords Commissioners for the Lieutenancy of the City of London, except for the name Joseph Mellish; nor among banking directorships, except for a bank connected with alderman William Curtis. Nor with the Amicable Society for Perpetual Assurance, Royal Exchange Insurance, the Sun Fire Office (where David Pitcairn MD was installed). Nor with the Equitable Assurance, the Bank of England, the Million Bank, nor the South Sea Company. But they are associated with the maritime history of the "founding of Australia".

 

      In 1783 the board of the Africa Company was much as in 1782, and included: James Bogle French. John Shoolbred, Charles Cleland for Bristol, Thomas Farr, John Pedder, Henry Blundell. John Barnes, Robert Rolleston, Justinian Casamajor for Liverpool. Secretary was Thomas Ruthefoord. Messenger was Benjamin Potts. Government thought perhaps these might permit convicts at their Africa forts?

 

     The 1783 London aldermen included - (whalers are asterisked) - Mayor Nathaniel Newnham, with Robert Alsop, Rt. Hon Thos. Harley, Brass Crosby, James Townsend, Fred Bull, John Wilkes, John Sawbridge, Sir Tho Hallifax, Sir James Esdaile, Sir Watkin Lewes, Sir William Plomer, James Adair, Robert Peckham, Richard Clark, T. Woodridge, John Hart, Thomas Wright, Evan Pugh, Thos. Sainsbury, Henry Kitchen, John Burnell, William Gill, Barnard Turner, William Pickett, John Boydell, John Hopkins. Sheriffs are Robert Taylor and Benjamin Cole. Chamberlain, John Wilkes. Remembrancer, Peter Roberts. Solicitor, James Roberts. Swordbearer, Heron Powney. Some Common councilmen included Josiah Dornford, William Gifford, Benj. Hammett, William Wilson, William Champion*, George M. Macaulay, Wm. Chapman, Isaac Matthew, William Newman, Benj. Bunn.

 

      Rather as though the close of the American War had shaken out the weaker members or subscribers at Lloyd's of London, the Lloyd's Register for 1783 carried many crossings-out in the lists of both old and new members. Usually-appearing names included Abel and Macaulay, Angerstein Lewis and Crockatt, but James Bradley was crossed out. New members not crossed out included the whalers Alexander and Benjamin Champion; and Hibbert, Purrier and Co., Robert Milligan; with five new members crossed out.

 

      There was a brawl brewing over the waters of the Pacific. The South Sea Company and the East India Company both had monopoly rights over Pacific waters, but had no plans to exploit Pacific resources. London's whalers coveted the Pacific. The names of the whaling investors engaged in the struggle are listed in two chief sources - The Samuel Enderby Book and various lists of shipowners letting their vessels to carry convicts to early Australia. Both these sources are largely ignored by historians. But after 1783, whale oil became important enough to involve international politics. ([29]) Francis Rotch in London continued as an advisor to Madam Hayley as she continued her husband's whaling business. ([30])

 

      Other London merchants following the Enderby example were Alexander and Benjamin Champion, Thomas Dickason, John St. Barbe. Alexander Champion Snr had been associated with George Hayley. St. Barbe, also a contractor of shipping services to government, was an able entrepreneur reputed to have been a Lieutenant in the Royal Navy `also, an adventurer in [the] Whale Fishery... of a very active and enterprizing adventurous disposition, and seems very sanguine in the pursuit of it".

 

     By 1 February, 1783, the British governor of Cape Coast Castle, Richard Miles, had penned an oft-quoted observation about convicts... [the plan] "seems to be, to get them out of Europe at all Events." But it is still not clear how Miles would have known of this vehemence in London. ([31]) Presumably from newspapers, perhaps from his contacts at the Royal Africa Company? Miles had his own problems with convicts. In February 1783 he was writing to the Africa Committee about the convicts landed about Cape Coast Castle by Katenkamp, probably those sent on Den Keyser. He complained, no provisions were made for them, nor was Cape Coast Castle directed to receive them as soldiers. They had been left to shift for themselves, landed as it were naked and diseased on the sandy shore, poor wretches to be seen dying on the rocks, or the sandy beach, under the scorching sun. There were about 40 of them including two women. ([32])

 

     By 1783 there remained also a hangover from the 1780 Gordon Riots which had wrecked Newgate. During February 1783 the Committee for rebuilding Newgate Prison was requiring even more funds. The south quadrangle still had to be repaired; the Keeper's House as well. (On the last day of June 1785, the Committee was dissolved). ([33]) Expensive, these were matters internal to Britain's handling of convicts. Public hangings were reviewed in 1783. Fielding had disapproved of such institutionalised public sadism blessed with, of all things, public holidays, so that people could watch. Fielding reproved the "barbarous custom peculiar to the English, of insulting and jesting at misery". ([34])

 

     And in East India Company circles, there sailed on 26 March, 1783, Royal Admiral,  993 tons Capt. J. Huddart, St Hels, husband Sir R. Hotham. It seems that after this trip, Royal Admiral was sold to the Larkins family of Blackheath, who were related by marriage to alderman George Macaulay. ([35])

 

From the Bengal famine to Penang:

 

     According to information from Blackheath historian, Neil Rhind, by local repute, Alderman George Macaulay was related to the Larkins family by marriage of a sister, probably one of Macaulay's sisters (?).  ([36]) It remains a question of where to begin, since some relevant material could not earlier be entered in treatment of the Bengal famine preceding the Boston Tea Party, or the 1772 failure of Fordyce's bank. ([37]) Some information arising is surprising. During the 1772 credit crisis with the collapse of Neale, James, Fordyce and Down, who ceased trading on 8 June, 1772, later to be declared bankrupt, various other firms closed within a fortnight. Then closed the Ayr Bank (or, Douglas, Heron and Co.). The Bank of England was strained, the East India Company wanted  loans and had pressure to reduce its dividend. Tobacco importer Barlow Trecothick sat with others on a committee by April 1772. There were significant debates in parliament. ([38])

 

     But since the military successes of Clive of India, there had been some instability and a power struggle within the East India Company which has not been well explained. ([39]) As noted earlier, Laurence Sulivan, an enemy of Clive, rose within the Company, while the then chairman, Payne, left the Company to begin afresh with a new merchant bank, Smith, Payne and Smiths. ([40]) An Indian historian, Chand, suggests that much money coming into England after Clive's triumphs helped provide venture capital "for the industrial revolution". Would fresh research make this suggestion useful? Whether or not, Sulivan remains a conundrum. Sulivan had helped organize a revolt of East India  proprietors in 1758 and then "waged constant electoral warfare on Clive in the 1760s". Sulivan wanted reform which curbed the Court of Directors' powers. (But we are not told why, or what his own aspirations were.)  ([41]) Accusations were made about the crimes of Company men in India. ([42])

 

      In May 1773, at same time as the ill-fated American tea deal was being cobbled together, Sulivan callously declared the native population of Bengal would never part with their money except by compulsion. ([43]) One can easily raise a theory, thus: after financial troubles in London in 1772-1773, and the East India Company's 1773 tea deal, after Sir Robert Herries had made his first suggestions on disposing of excess tea, there were two "outgrowths" in history. ([44]) The western "outgrowth" was the Boston Tea Party, the later American Revolution, well treated by historians. The eastern "outgrowth", greatly ignored, beset with guilt feelings about the Bengal famine, was partly due to London arguments about East India Company trade, which in turn helped prompt the establishment of Penang and Singapore, which were both novel ventures at their inception. ([45]) The "eastern outgrowth" was split into two wings: one party wanted the East India Company to be involved in more responsible "administration" in India, while merchants (some interested in opium) with strong views of free trade wanted more freedom and less tie to administrative responsibilities. They were the eastern "country traders", financially, they were floating loose cannons, and their inheritors had some influence on importing to New South Wales after 1800.

 

     One might surmise that Sulivan's motives for enmity with Clive were related to Sulivan's wish to promote the activities of not East India Company traders, but free-ranging country traders, in waters between eastern India and China. ([46]) As we know from the establishment of "the East India Company's first bank at Canton", financial dealings for country traders would become more sophisticated, and aid the rise of mostly Scots-managed "agency houses" in India. Further, Sulivan, noting that Clive's successes were against the Moghuls, may well have wished to remove his own Company-trading operations from the constraints proposed by dealing in terms of Muslim customs, which constraints had been strengthened by Clive's successes.  ([47])  ([48]) This would be consistent with what is known about Sulivan's promotion of country traders in eastern waters. For, what English observers of East India Company politics in London have overlooked is the history of the establishment of Penang, which was the result of a consistent trend in regional dealings that seems to have been promoted mostly by Sulivan and partners. ([49]) And oddly enough, it is as though the Larkins family and some other Blackheathites decided to ride on the coat-tails of this trend. ([50])

 

      Laurence Sulivan was part of the little-known firm, Jourdain, Sulivan and De Souza. ([51]) And by the 1760s, more British ships were carrying opium east from India, although, officially, the East India Company forbade this. The French in 1776 appointed a consul to Canton, and three seasons later a Scot, John Reid, who had worked for the East India Company in Bengal, became consul for Austria, or, his Imperial Majesty of Vienna. ([52]) Oddly enough, an emissary on trading matters in this period was John Shakespear, from  the extended family of alderman John Shakespear of London (with whom members of Duncan Campbell's family had become linked). ([53]) Otherwise, soon after he arrived in India, Francis Light secured command of a country ship owned in India, belonging to the Madras firm, Jourdain, Sulivan and De Souza, who wanted to create agencies at Acheen and Kedah. Light was first sent to Acheen as a joint agent. Light was later held in esteem by chiefs of southern Malaya, and became instrumental in establishing Penang, as is known. ([54]) Less known is the career of  Jourdain, Sulivan and De Souza, and how they achieved their ambitions. Light could not have established Penang without their consistent backing. ([55])< /p>

 

     Francis Light entered the navy in 1759, as midshipman, then went into East India Company service. Shortly he got command of country ship for Jordain, Laurence Sulivan and De Souza (probably dealing in opium and cotton). Light and a Mr. Harrop went to Achin, unsuccessfully, to make a depot, Light had a fort at Kedah harbour by 1771, and by then he was writing to Jourdain, Sulivan and De Souza about bringing in sepoys, but they as country traders could engage in no military activity, and Warren Hastings could not assist either.  ([56]) One Light associate at Kedah was Hon. Edward Monkton, and his mission also was a failure. Light however maintained a long-term commercial friendship with James Scott. ([57]) Hon. Edward Monckton (1744-1832) was an East India official who ([58]) married Sophia Pigot, daughter of a rambuctious governor of Madras, George Pigot. ([59]) Edward Monckton became tangled up with the Penang ventures promoted by Light, having joined the East India Company in Madras in 1762-1768, "the Clive period". ([60])

 

        While Clive achieved his successes in Bengal, (or rapacity, depending on opinion), he had the support of the chairman of the East India Company, John Payne. ([61]) Sulivan was then an ambitious director waiting in the wings and would harry Clive - but we are not told why. In fact, Sulivan only comes to the notice of historians since he opposed Clive, he is not noticed in London business histories as a businessman in his own right. ([62])  ([63])

 

     John Payne, banker and director of the Bank of England,  had brothers, Edward, and René Payne (1716-1795). There was also a firm, J. E. and R. Payne, East India merchants. It appears there is a father and son firm, Edward(s) Payne? ([64]) Edward Payne had his own family firm, E. and R. Payne, himself and René, after Edward's brother John died. ([65]) It is not impossible that Payne collected investment funds from Clive's associates, then moved out of reliance on East India Company trade, and invested the money in his partnership with Smiths.

 

The Larkins family of Blackheath:

 

     Meanwhile, in 1770 was born William Larkins, son of Capt. Thomas Larkins (of Blackheath?). The IGI provides a date of 13 February, 1781, for John Pascal Larkins at St Marylebone, London. John Pascal Larkins (1765-1818), son of dockowner Thomas Larkins, ([66]) was a shipowner associated with the East India Company. John Pascal Larkins (1765-1818) was spouse of  Mary Ann Sampson. ([67])  John Pascal Larkins was uncle of Captain Thomas Larkins on the Larkins' ship Warren Hastings in 1786, when that Capt. Thomas Larkins found his own eldest son William, born 1770, had not long died in the wreck of the Larkins' ship Halsewell with Capt. Richard Peirce. The managing owner of Halsewell was Peter Esdaile (a little- known name) who was presumably of London.

 

   By about 1786, the Larkins family had links with India trade, and were somehow connected with Warren Hastings, who was impeached from 1788. (They still had a ship named Warren Hastings after 1800.) And alderman George Macaulay wrote various letters to Warren Hastings which are now with the British Library. ([68]) A conjecture is, that the Larkins family had ambitions to enter the kind of free-ranging country trade earlier espoused by Lawrence Sulivan. Evidence on many family and business connections points to the Larkins family being just one set of traders resident at  Blackheath who became connected with shipping sent to eastern Australia, or, "the Pacific".

 

     Also linked to the Larkins family was Rev. Sir Frederick Larkins Currie, Bart2 (born 1823), son of Sir Frederick Currie Bart1 and Susannah Larkins; his first wife was Eliza Reeve Rackham, his second wife was Mary Helen Corrie. ([69]) Sir Frederick Currie Bart1 became secretary of the India government. He was born 3 February, 1799 - died 1875); his first wife was Susannah Larkins, his second wife was Lucy Elizabeth Bird. ([70])

 

An odd matter of a ship name arises. When Penang was officially established during August 1786, there was present a ship Valentine,  Capt. Thomas Wall. which was probably the ship of that name later bought by Duncan Campbell. ([71]) Capt. Wall later in 1792 at Penang was on the East India Company ship Duke of Buccleugh.  Honourable East India Company ships associated with  Light's occupation of Penang were Vansittart and Valentine.  ([72])

 

What has such information to do with any mysteries of Britain's "founding" of Australia? The proposition is that the involvement of whalers resident at Blackheath in shipping convicts to Australia is not well-recognised by historians. Behind the whalers' involvement were linkages to East India Company traders who espoused Sulivan's hopes to create new, free-trade varieties of trading in the east. These traders benefited from the establishment of Penang, and may also have had useful connections with the East India Company's "first bank at Canton". It almost seems as if they acted as "moles" within the East India Company while government officials were finally driven to land convicts at Botany Bay. This helps explain how and why their relative and neighbour, alderman Macaulay acted as he did after George Moore's debacles, to which we return.   

 

*   *   *

 

Secret plans for men unworthy: Part Two:

 

Note: This version of the confusing entry in 1783 ([73]) of George Moore into transportation and the uncanny results leans heavily on information kindly supplied by Mollie Gillen, apart from her published material including, Convicts, not Empire. ([74])

 

From 1783...

 

       Duncan Campbell continually received queries from gaolers and other minor functionaries in the judicial hierarchy who still imagined that convicts would be sent to America, and could not imagine any other destination. Any such outlook held by anyone, the king included, was indication of a lack of appreciation of the extent to which times had changed. ([75])

 

     The Home Office never had any power to order Duncan Campbell to re-enter the convict shipping business. If they had, he would have refused. Here, the irony is that just as the British government was preparing to abridge American sensibilities about receiving British convicts, and do so secretly, and to countenance the subterfuges of Moore and his Bristol friends, the Americans had gathered their breath and were again willing to consider paying their debts to British merchants. There is an oft-cited letter of 6 May, 1783, from George Mason to Patrick Henry, ([76]) concerned with a reasonable time to repay debts to the British, denying that the Americans had fought to avoid paying their debts, as the Tories had insultingly insisted, suggesting that failing to pay debts would be a breach of the peace and a dangerous risk to the peace. (Henry was greatly opposed to paying back the debts - he came from a heavily indebted area of Virginia).

 

     But meanwhile, the Americans were irritated by various still-plundering British soldiers, a British refusal to return slaves carried away during the war, and the Virginian economy worsened. (These matters all remained on Jefferson's mind.) Britain by April 1783 had recognised the complete independence of the USA. On 3 April, Campbell had provided to Lord Sydney an account for £886/6/- relating to his provision of the hulk Censor, then used for the temporary reception of up to 250 convicts ordered for transportation to North America. At the time, the notion that convicts could still be sent to North America was simply the result of administrative inertia, or worse, fantasy. It was this April when one of Maryland's prominent merchants, George Salmon, began writing to George Moore in London about a clandestine scheme to ship convicts to Maryland as "servants". ([77]) Salmon acted partly at the instigation of Moore's brother Phillip, a merchant in Philadelphia. There was at the time, no law prohibiting such convicts being brought to Maryland. The first ship to be used was George, which was to be renamed Swift.

 

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[Finis Chapter 25]

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