Alderman William Beckford: Britain glances again at the Pacific: Random slices on family matters from 1758: Increases in numbers of convicts: Commerce and the Campbell family: More random slices and Richard Betham: More convicts versus less credit in the colonies: Endnotes:

 

The Blackheath Connection

Chapter 11

 

Alderman William Beckford:

 

     Beckford is oft-noted for his defiance of his king and his defence of liberties, he who was a slave-owner in the West Indies. Beckford, who had often advised Pitt (the Elder) on commercial and financial matters, was a wealthy absentee landlord who would have known well how sweetly George III respected sugar island revenues. ([1]) Beckford in 1752 was elected alderman for Billingsgate ward. (By 1756 a sheriff, MP for the City from 1754 to 1770, chief magistrate of London in 1762 and 1769, died 21 June, 1770.

 

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     One of alderman William's relatives, planter Peter Beckford, had eleven sugar estates. ([2]) It was a rule of thumb, one slave was required per acre of land in sugar cane on a plantation. ([3]) Between the 1730s-1781, one acre of cane in the West Indies required 172 days of human labour. William Beckford's great grandfather was Col. Peter Beckford, one of the first colonists in Jamaica from 1756, who died so wealthy in 1710, he could leave a property of £110,000 per year and £1 million in ready money, a sum so large it resembles a misprint, when, after 1800, the banker Francis Baring is supposed to have had an "enormous sum" of capital in his own bank of £68,000; which also seems a misprint, being probably too little. ([4])

 

      William II Beckford, Lord Mayor of London, slaver and MP, began at Westminster school, where he showed good ability. He became friends with the later Lord Mansfield. The family came originally from Gloucestershire and kept large holdings on Jamaica. William inherited business on the death of his older brother, and would be  jibed, "To see a slave he could not bear, Unless it were his own". He entered City politics as a radical alderman "to further his national aims".  He was speaker of the Jamaica Assembly, and as Jamaica's largest landholder had 22,022 acres. (William is said to have left his author son an income of £40,000 per year.) He became alderman for Billingsgate, Master of the Ironmongers Company, Lord Mayor 1762-1763 and 1769-1770. He remained sympathetic to the Americans. ([5])

 

     William Beckford (1709-1770) with his hawk-like features was a handsome and imposing man, elected Chief magistrate of London in 1762 and again in 1769. He was a West India MP for the City of London, and a great admirer of Pitt the Elder. Typically, absentee planters such as Beckford found it easier and more profitable to live in London and see ministers and parliamentarians personally, than by bothering their colonial governments in the West Indies. ([6]) Beckford's civic entertainments were "the most magnificent ever given". To one private dinner held at his own expense he invited members of the House of Commons and the House of Lords, which cost him £10,000.  Six dukes, two marquis, twenty three earls, four viscounts and fourteen barons of the upper house attended. There were 600 dishes on the table. ([7]) In October 1769,  Beckford, a predecessor to Wilkes as a barometer of popular opinion, compared a ministerial effort to deprive him of a second term as Lord Mayor with quasi-legal harassment of the colonists. ([8]) The American revolutionaries were not the only ones who could read which way the wind was shifting.

 

*    *    *

 

Britain glances again at the Pacific:

 

..."commercial familiarity with the Pacific brought contempt, and with Evangelism the happy - or injured - Islanders were transformed into degraded or reprobate savages." ([9])

 

"The first recorded encounter between Pacific Islanders and Europeans took place in 1519 and ended in misunderstanding and bloodshed."...  "The intentions of the missionaries, on the other hand, were precisely to destroy every significant aspect of Polynesian civilization. The by-product in this case was the progressive depopulation of the Pacific islands." ([10])

 

     A prominent naval figure, Anson was a reserved man, not given to self-aggrandisement, and given to an egalitarian outlook with his men, even to doing a bit of carpentry when necessary. He was a good navigator, a gallant and not an arrogant victor. The original plan for Anson's expedition in 1739 had been that one squadron under Anson would sail to Manila in the Philippines, another via Cape Horn would deliberately vex the Spanish. But the navy was so inefficient in preparing the squadrons, the Spanish got wind of the plan. Instructions were dated January 1739/40, but they did not reach Anson till 28 June.

 

     There were intolerable delays, so Anson did not get away till 18 September, too late to get about Cape Horn. (The same late start had annoyed Dampier, and in 1787 would annoy Bligh for the same reasons). Anson arrived on June 1741 at Juan Fernandez, plundered the Spanish a little, then sailed to Macao in China, his crew suffering much scurvy. A prize ship was taken off the Philippines, and the expedition reached Spithead in June 1743 with a treasure worth £600,000. Anson had also picked out the usefulness of the Falklands. (Some of his men were John Campbell and Byron, later admirals). ([11]) So, as the sailor in the sailor-pirate stereotype was promoted to admiral, the tradition of freebooting against the Spanish was given a new lease of life.

 

The Pacific...

 

     In 1764, Hon John Byron in HMS Dolphin made South Pacific voyages. In 1766-1768, Capt. Samuel Wallis voyaged in the same vessel. About then, the hydrographer Alexander Dalrymple was updating as much material as he could on the exploration of the Pacific. ([12]) In the 1760s, Sir John Dalrymple was a member of The Royal Society   who had become convinced that a great land lay south of the Strait of New Guinea. Dalrymple bought this to the notice of Joseph Banks (and therefore to Cook). ([13]) Capt. Phillip Carteret on a voyage around the world in HM Swallow 1766-1769, discovered Pitcairn Island, and named it for a crew member. Years later, a book on Carteret's voyage was on board HMAV Bounty, which was how and why Fletcher Christian took Bounty to Pitcairn after the mutiny. Carteret had misplaced Pitcairn on the map, and when Christian realised this, he knew he had discovered a haven that might never be found by a navigator who believed in Carteret's printed location.

 

     The jewel of the Pacific, of course, was Tahiti, both exotic and erotic. Discovery by Europeans is one thing; the infection of human beings is another. The deleterious effects of venereal disease on Tahiti are noted by Howard M. Smith in, `The Introduction of Venereal Disease into Tahiti: a reexamination. ([14]) Wallis' men infected Tahitians in 1767 with "the French disease" and de Bougainville's ship shortly after brought "the English disease". There was to be a long tradition of destructive VD on Tahiti.

 

*    *     *

 

     In 1766, Sir George Jackson (later Duckett), who was well-liked by Capt. James Cook, was second secretary to the Admiralty and a naval judge-advocate. Cook later attached Jackson's name to Port Jackson, otherwise known as Sydney. In 1768, the First Lord of Admiralty was Lord Sandwich ([15]). And in this relatively busy decade, the Admiralty urged that a cat-built barque should sail to Tahiti.

 

     James Cook had returned from surveying Newfoundland on 15 November, 1767. Within a month, The Royal Society happened to be considering "the places proper to observe the ensuing transit of Venus' and the method, the persons to observe it. ([16]) The Society produced a report and by 19 November, 1767 Mr. Alexander Dalrymple was suggested as a good navigator and a man skilled in making observations; his letter was dated 18 December, 1767. Dalrymple also had dwelt on the problem of the "southern Continent", and in October 1767, he was impressing the Society with a "summarizing chart" of the South Pacific, west between South America and New Holland. Astronomer Royal Neville Maskelyne also offered his views.

 

     Maskelyne spoke on instruments for observing the transit of Venus on 28 January, 1768, and on costs to be presented to the king. Joseph Banks entered the scene on Thursday, 5 February, 1768. George III considered it all during February and considered  offering £4000 for the expedition. By early April a ship was being discussed in detail. Lord Shelburne was principal secretary of state, the President of The Royal Society, was a Scot, Lord Morton ([17]). Secretary to the Admiralty was Philip Stephens, First Lord of the Admiralty was Sir Edward Hawke. Dalrymple continued entertaining great ambitions of leading an expedition into the Pacific, and enjoyed Shelburne's support. Dalrymple sunk his chances, however, by insisting on being granted a navy commission as captain. Lord Hawke brusquely refused this about 3 April, 1768. ([18]) Joseph Banks meanwhile worked to get aboard any ship searching the Pacific.

 

     At this time, Byron's Voyage (in Dolphin) was being circulated. (It included information on the amazing "Patagonian giants"). Cook had appeared before the Royal Society and discussed ideas of a voyage by 5 May, 1768, saying he was prepared to accept a command. By 5 May, incidentally, 5000-6000 merchant sailors were protesting in London for higher wages, and were ready to petition the king. ([19]) By 9 May, most of the ships in the Thames were unable to sail. On 10 May, Parliament was petitioned by 5000-15000 sailors, and in a separate matter, John Wilkes was in prison for remarks about liberty' and the "massacre" of St George's Fields was occurring. This was also the England which sent Cook into the Pacific - London was a city of unhappy sailors!

 

      About 17 May, 1768 came home Capt. Samuel Wallis with news of his discovery of Tahiti (King George's Island), and Tahiti now seemed even a more scientifically suitably place for any observation of a transit of Venus. Cook's commission was dated 25 May, 1768. Daniel Solander would volunteer as Banks' companion on the voyage. (Banks by this time was already a Freemason). ([20]) It should here be noted that among Solander's wide interests was a curiosity about crime. During his career he took a degree in criminology, and it was probably this interest which prompted Solander before 1779 to help Campbell organise a convicts' hospital on the Thames prison hulks). ([21]) James Cook meantime was afloat by 30 July, 1768, on Endeavour. And so James Cook prepared for his voyage of "discovery", that allegedly provided the world with Australia's eastern coast and New Zealand. While the mercantile English sailor-pirate could hardly get a ship up or down the Thames River because sailors were on strike for higher wages and wanting the assistance of the king!

 

     This strike helps re-explain a minor mystery of the literature on convictism. The years 1768-1769 were distressing as waves of strikes threw London into disorder. Weavers and sailors wanted higher pay. Hatters stopped work. Thames watermen, tailors and coalheavers all gathered about Westminster as parliament met again in autumn, and they all backed Wilkes who had returned from France. Wilkes was later expelled from Parliament, unsuccessfully. ([22]) During 1768, publicans who had acted as coal-heavers' agents were attacked. Seven coal-heavers were hanged at Stepney as, it is said, 300 soldiers fought to keep order amongst a crowd of 50,000.

 

     By 24 August, 1768 the London merchant Jonathan Forward Sydenham, whose business papers have apparently been lost, still described himself as the contractor with the greatest part of the counties of England (i.e., presumably outside London) for transporting felons, whom he sent to Maryland. ([23]) In 1768 his ship Middleton at Limehouse was threatened by 600 rioting sailors demanding money from the ship's master. Since he could have lost £40 for each convict found at large after a disturbance, Sydenham desperately asked Shelburne for armed protection, and got it. ([24]) A covert operation as it usually was, the convict service was protected when it needed protecting. This too was part of its insidious character as a commercial operation. As James Cook was preparing to explore the Pacific, food was scarce for the poorer people in London! ([25]) It has been entered in history books, but not well enough. The historians of convict transportation never noted that the sailors' strike affecting the Middleton was part of general working class unrest just as Cook left to explore the Pacific. Ironically, writers on Cook usually fail to note the matter, which is part of the general history of working class feeling during George's reign. As Cook sailed off, many merchants in London could not get a ship up or down the river that served a supposed empire! (Meanwhile, the 1756 convict ship Bella commanded by William Middleton suggests an involvement of a Middleton family in the convict service that has not yet come to light). ([26])

 

     Between 1768-1770, Cook sailed to find what might be found south of where Wallis had sailed. He arrived at Tahiti on 13 April, 1769. In Barclay's view, the prize Cook might have expected was control of the trade routes of the Pacific and the wealth of an unexplored continent. ([27]) The odd things are about such remarks about Cook's first voyage are that, there were as yet no trade routes in the Pacific except in the wake of wealthy Spanish ships, and few routes would develop for the British in the Pacific. Later, Cook would try to pin down another cherished fable - the North-west Passage giving access to China via North America. In the 1790s, British interest there would provoke the Nootka Crisis with the Spanish, but some British merchants interested in Nootka Sound have been half-buried by historians, seemingly due to their involvement in convict transportation. And when the early maritime history of Australia finally was written, it would be difficult to explain how and why British whalers would carry convicts to New South Wales. In 1811, Robert Peel would censor remarks Joseph Banks wanted to make about the implications of Dutch discoveries on the coast of terra australis, New Holland.

 

*      *      *

 

Random slices of information on the Campbell family, 1758-1766:

 

     Rebecca Campbell, wife of Duncan, was 30 years old when she bore her first son, Dugald on 26 August, 1760. The boy was named for his mother's father, and became his father's favourite child. Only a little after the death of the third Duke of Argyll, on 22 June, 1761 died the palsied Dr Neil Campbell, principal of the College of Glasgow. He was buried at Blackfriars Church, aged at least 76, since he was born in 1678. Addison notes that as principal of the College, Dr Campbell was succeeded by William Leechman, Professor of Divinity, previously the vice-rector. ([28])  (On 26 December, 1764 died of fever Henrietta the wife of Principal Neil, also buried at Blackfriars Churchyard, aged 65, suggesting she was born in 1699.) ([29]) During the 1760s, Duncan's brother Colin in the ministry was moved as Minister at Eagleshaw, where he'd been since 1741, to Kilmaronock, where he ministered until 1769, when he went to Renfrew. ([30])

 

     Now, some possibilities need to be entertained. By 1 July, 1762, a sailor, William Bligh, was on HM Monmouth, 64 guns, listed as Wm Blyth, captain's servant. ([31]) But Bligh need not actually have set foot on the ship. This appointment was owed to a friend of the family, Capt. Keith Stewart, who later helped Bligh's promotion to Lieutenant in 1782. The question might be relevant: Was Capt. Keith Stewart related to Campbell's partner, John Stewart? (And in 1762, papers arose in London relating to the extension of wharves in London, which mention one Duncan Campbell. ([32]) Whether this was the convict contractor remains unknown.)

 

*    *    *

 

Increases in the number of convicts:

 

     In November 1768 arrived at Maryland, Randolph Capt. John Weber Price from Bristol with 115 felons to be sold by Smith and Sadler. ([33]) Records indicate that during 1763 the number of prisoners appearing for transportation began to increase. The end of the Seven Years War had displaced numbers of convicts from employment in the army and naval dockyards, which meant added profit for the convict service. ([34]) The long-term convict contractor Andrew Reid allowed his contracts to lapse and retired about 1763. That year, two of the most active merchants in the Rappahanock Valley, helping manage trade in "convict servants," were James Miller and James Robb, but it is not known which British merchants they acted for. ([35])(A further sign of gathering local sophistication in "moral citizenship" in the colonies, became visible long later in the themes of Michener's novel, Chesapeake; in Maryland, in 1769 the Assembly wanted a better system of identifying convicts - so a registry was to be kept. Meanwhile in Britain, men and women were seldom imprisoned for longer than three years.) ([36])

 

*    *    *

 

     By February 1763 ([37]), with the end the Seven Years War, there began a period when the British government was freer to assert its authority over evildoers without fear of foreign interruption. The crown had the right to pardon or commute a sentence. Prior to 1763, as there was no centralised system of gaol control, much of the expense [of gaols, etc.] had fallen on local authorities. More contracts were made with John Stewart. ([38]) Crime increased, presumably as soldiers returned home only to meet unemployment. On 16 May, 1763 was dated a petition for reprieves for convicts willing to act as subjects for medical experiment. ([39]) This was refused, as patients in hospital could already act in that capacity if they wished.

 

     On 5 November, 1763, Lord Halifax informed the Lords of Trade that His Majesty's pleasure was that they should report on the possibility of employing convicts of both sexes on public works in America. But it was deemed that there were no such public works, and that military matters were not the board's business. The date is significant as one of the first suggestions that convicts could or should labour on public works, whether in Britain or the colonies. The notion later grew almost of its own volition, to be fed most of all by the politician, William Eden.

 

Commerce and the Campbell family:

 

     In Glasgow (presumably) there was born to Richard Betham and Molly Campbell, a son, Campbell, on 14 January, 1763. Betham must have been no Covenanter, for the boy was baptized at the Episcopal Church of Glasgow. Campbell Betham later became a doctor at Whitehaven. And on 1 May, 1763, Duncan's brother Archibald acquired a commission in 26 Marines. The American historian, A. E. Smith records Colin Somerville as being on the first of his total of seven voyages between London and Virginia on Justitia in 1764, unaware Somerville was Campbell's nephew. ([40]) Smith for 1764 also records the voyage of one Capt. Dougal McDougal on Dolphin, departing London on 2 June with 141 convicts. Dolphin was registered as arriving at Annapolis, then the central depot on the Chesapeake for the delivery of imported labour - white indentured, black slave and white convict - on 14 August. (JS&C did deliver elsewhere on occasion). Annapolis as a market for human cattle was seldom mentioned specifically in the Campbell letterbooks, as Campbell usually directed his ships to the Rappahanock River, which entered Chesapeake Bay on the Virginian coast. ([41]) Meanwhile, A. E. Smith, gave Campbell/JS&C a carefully-considered place as a firm looming increasingly larger in the convict service. ([42])

 

     In 1764, the year Colin Somerville began sailing on Justitia, Campbell himself apparently sailed as supercargo on Tryal Capt. Alex Stewart, 160 tons. ([43])  At first sight, it looks like Campbell went to the colonies as trade was poor at the time. ([44]) (Another listing gives - Departing England March 1764 Tryal Capt. William McGachin for America.) ([45]) Also in 1764 sailed Justitia, 305 tons, for JS&C, Capt. Colin Somerville, Campbell's Edinburgh nephew, with 206 convicts. Colin Somerville made six more voyages, ([46]) and later Colin was to be joined by his brother Neil as a Campbell employee. Due to their business methods, both Neil and Colin ended in provoking the  wrath of their uncle. ([47])

 

     Unfortunately there are few dates for Campbell's movements in 1764-1765. He may have been in the colonies assessing the damage to business caused by the quarantines the colonials had tried to erect against receiving convict "servants". (Virginia's measure of 1765 was vetoed after John Stewart protested in the colony and to the Privy Council).  "All persons in debt with John Stewart and Company, or John Stewart & Campbell, or Alexr Stewart, Stewart & Lux, or William Lux, for servants are asked to pay up; likewise those who have open accounts with Wm Lux, at John Stewart & Campbell's store, Elk-Ridge Landing. Signed Alexr Stewart. The Maryland Gazette, 26 February, 1767. ([48])

 

     Business developed. Campbell no longer found it necessary, or he was unable, to visit North America. He had a growing family and Stewart's health was deteriorating. Campbell however was becoming more confident, and it would not be long before he opened a new set of Letterbooks, in 1766. ([49]) He was soon complaining about Curries.

 

     Duncan's grand-uncle, John Campbell of Black River, Jamaica, died 1740. He had a daughter Ann who on 26 December, 1720 in Glasgow had married David Currie. They had two sons, John Currie, and Colin Currie a merchant in London; plus a daughter Elizabeth Currie (1726-1807) who married John Shakespear (1718-1775). Shakespear was a rope-maker and alderman of London. ([50]) It would be unexceptional if alderman Shakespear had assisted Duncan to settle into London life.

 

    More merchant political activity was prompted in London. ([51]) Some 240 New York merchants made a petition to the House of Commons against the Stamp Act, though many would remain loyalists in the troubles to come, such as the New  Yorker rentier and land dealer, De Lancey. And about then, also sailing was Dolphin, Capt. Dougal McDougal for JS&C, departing London, 2 June, 1764, with 141 convicts, arriving at Annapolis on 14 August.

 

*    *    *

 

An apparently random selection of characters: On Richard Betham, receiver-general of the Isle of Man:

 

      There are many English records on frauds and adulteration of tobacco, with revenue officers termed corrupt, and a detailed investigation was made in 1733. Walpole under pressure however dropped his Excise and warehousing scheme to clean all this up, so smuggling and fraud continued. The Isle of Man was yet another thorn in the side of the English revenue, and in 1766, smuggling from the island was estimated to be worth £500,000 per year. So, Parliament purchased the lordship of the island from the Duke of Atholl for £70,000. ([52])

 

     Richard Betham was appointed receiver-general on the Isle of Man in 1765. Behind the appointment was Lord Frederick Campbell, ([53]) who in 1790 was a member of the Board of Control for India. Betham made his mark suitably and his activity in containing smuggling remains evidenced in Isle of Man records. ([54]) But apparently ignored by historians. According to the Manx Museum, there is little in print on Betham. Rediker meanwhile estimates that the actual trade of the British Empire, say 1750, exceeded the volume recorded by customs by 15-20 per cent. Up to one-fifth was smuggled. ([55]) By 1773, a report by the Commissioners of the Customs to the Treasury noted that immense smuggling operations were conducted in Kent, Sussex, Essex and Suffolk; in one 12 months period some 54,000 lbs of tea and 123,000 gallons of brandy were seized, the smugglers undaunted.

 

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     Departing England in March 1760 was the convict ship Friendship Capt. Dougal McDougal for America; and in April 1760, Thetis Capt. Matt Craymer for America.  Also in April 1761 was Dolphin Capt. Dougal McDougal for America. ([56]) Departing England in November 1762 was Prince William Capt. Dougal McDougal, for America. ([57])

 

    And in 1762 in London, a sister of the tobacco merchant James Russell married merchant William Molleson. A new firm was set up, James Russell and Molleson. ([58]) The new business was set up as credit problems began to arise in the American colonies. And from 1762, Scots traders were becoming "very sensitive" to London bills. "The correspondence of Samuel Galloway, a merchant in Anne Arundel County, shows that in 1763 he owed L1097 to Silvanus Grove of London for goods." Galloway also in 1764 acquired a debt of L734 with Thomas Philpot of London. ([59]) By December 1762, it was evident a credit crisis might arise. The crisis of 1762-1763 indeed led to merchants writing letters (their context as received in Glasgow) such as:

 

"You cannot imagine the distress people here are in for want of money. Several of our Virginia and West India merchants are lately broke here and several we much suspected which hurts Credit..." ([60])

 

     There had been a London merchants' memorial on Virginian matters to the Board of Trade on 21 June, 1758, another on 22 December, 1762, over exchange rates, given that the colonial currencies had contributed to inflation, to the detriment of the British-based merchant. ([61]) Maybe as early as Autumn 1763, ([62]) the Virginia lobby in London formed a committee of 21 merchants to guide lobbying. This committee usually had three merchants drawn from the men trading to each colonial area. Between 1765 and 1775 this committee had at least 16 meetings, some by themselves, and some with ministers with whom they discussed mercantile opinion on American affairs. Formal meetings were held at the Kings Arms Tavern. Olson records, the Virginia Merchants of London had revived in the 1750s and renewed their oversight of Virginia legislation. Meanwhile, the colonial Burgesses thought themselves ill-used by the merchants. ([63]) In all this, one wonders if Campbell, recently visiting the colonies, had not made some initiatives? It is not entirely impossible that the revival, at least from 1758, had something to do with the arrival in London on a permanent basis of a young merchant named Duncan Campbell. But also in 1764, the Board of Trade changed its policy on meeting various merchants, who were becoming more vocal. In 1764 when Parliament was considering an Act to restrain the issue of paper money in the southern colonies, Edward Athawes seems to have organised merchants to comment. ([64]) By 1764 too, Barclay as a "core group member" was mentioned as a chairman of the (new) North American merchants group, issues at the time being bounties on hemp. Some 13 of 17 core-groupers signed a petition, which had 97 signatures all told. The Duke of Newcastle thought this new group had court backing.

 

*     *     *

 

More convicts versus less credit in the colonies:

 

     Departing England in March 1763 was the convict ship Neptune Capt. Colin Somervell (sic) for America. This is one of the earliest mentions of Somerville; and Coldham, like A. E. Smith, was unaware that Somerville was linked with Campbell. Somerville remained active. He left England with convicts again in December 1763 on Neptune. ([65]) On 7 April, 1763, John Stewart of London made an Article of Agreement with Treasury concerning transportation. ([66]) (It is as though Campbell had celebrated by employing his nephew, Colin Somerville). But Somerville lacked experience, and in the colonies, credit and trading opportunities were tightening. On these constraints, Colin Somerville foundered. He wrecked himself entirely.

 

     In 1764, when Maryland and neighbouring colonies began to feel the shudders of an economic depression, William Lux at Baltimore began to curtail his business affairs. By that time, Lux owed L3685 to James Russell and William Molleson in London. In 1764, Lux cancelled his next year's debt and told Russell and Molleson he would pay his debts as soon as possible. Lux did not pay quickly enough and the Londoners pressed Lux, which infuriated him. The anger blew over, however. Commercial customs and ties were such that once a colonial was in London's debt, there was no way out. By 1766, anyway, Lux had ordered goods worth L1200 from Russell and asked Russell to furnish further credit of L2000 for his relative Darby Lux, who wanted to go into business. William Lux felt this was reasonable, as he understood money was now more plentiful in England. ([67])

 

     William Lux wrote his brother that trade was extremely dull; many bankruptcies were expected in Philadelphia, and several bankruptcies in England had affected Virginia "prodigiously". The low price for tobacco had a very negative effect, and by 23 May, 1764, he'd concluded, the colony was never in such a bad condition. ([68]) Presumably,  JS&C felt similar commercial worries?

 

     Capt. Dougal McDougal ([69]) in Dolphin sailing from London, with 141 convicts leaving 2 June, 1764, was registered as arriving at Annapolis on 14 August.

 

*     *    *

 

About 28 June, 1764 there set in a new influence on the convict service - there was more attention from the highest political circles to the question of the uses for public works to which convicts could be put. Sir John Fielding wrote to Jenkinson about new plans for activities for felons. ([70]) Campbell would probably have thought little of it had he known about it. On 5 September, 1764 was made an article of agreement between Duncan Campbell and John Stewart, with Richard Burke at Treasury, a contract for convict transportation. ([71]) Departing England in September 1764 was Justitia Capt. Colin Somervell for America. And in 1764 also, the Tryal Capt. Alex Stewart, for JS&C, with Duncan Campbell aboard, carried 166 convicts and 160 tons in trade.

 

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Endnote1: The reign of George III ushered in new days to which Duncan Campbell, aged 34 in 1760, seemed well adapted. Rockingham was not a man of great energy or talent, but he was honest, well-connected, full of common sense. ([72]) Grenville started the Stamp Act matter in March 1764-1765, a tax on papers required in official transactions. It was the first notion for a direct tax on colonies, a tax old to England but new to the colonists, who had long been indirectly taxed. Rockingham objected to it, Pitt also. The Americans spoke of organising boycotts of goods to make Britain feel their resentment, and traders advised against the tax. But the country men of parliament wanted America to pay its own way for defence and wanted for Imperial control from Westminster. There was little financial sense. The tax might have raised about £60,000 per year. Smugglers might have carried goods worth £700,000 per year. Some Americans saw reasons to snigger about the inability of the British navy to catch smugglers, why should Americans pay for that inability? (Philadelphia has been recorded as importing very little tea, yet its inhabitants reportedly drank 2000 chests of tea per year; presumably, smuggled Dutch tea). ([73])

 

Endnote2: On the East India Company: There was an overly intimate relationship, it's been said, between government and a chartered company "of limited social responsibility" in both England and India, the East India Company. By 1760, Britain's merchant tonnage was about 500,000 tons. Company ships were larger ships built in London shipyards, strong three-deckers. The Company had long ceased to order its ships on the open market, it wanted a guarantee that the employment of a ship was given to ships best suited to the trade. As these suitable bottoms wore out - and a ship life was three round trips each taking about 18 months - when the owner had a right to replace it. Thus there were always a minimum number of ships for the trade. There had also grown a shipping interest, the grouping of the managers or "husbands" of these bottoms, and they resisted attacks on the Company's monopoly since the monopoly gave them guaranteed freights. So the shipping interest continued business with the shipyards. Yet within the monopoly, servants of the Company both in India and on the high seas practiced ruthless, personalised ways of making their fortune, including plying the country trade about India. Captains could keep pre-booked space for their own trading goods, space they sold to cotton shippers or opium traders. Over time, Liverpool men or textile manufacturers attacked the system. However, the idea of a guaranteed trade was not only held with the East India Company, it was a widely shared idea, or hope. ([74])

 

Endnote3: About one quarter of the British goods shipped to Africa were of East Indian origin, Walvin notes. Slavery and the demand of the West Indies provided an important stimulus to the economic growth of England generally. It is calculated that about 1775-183, Britain had invested some £37 million in the West Indies and perhaps £5 million in the American slave colonies. ([75])

 

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[Finis Chapter 11]

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