The fleet now daily expected: You do not mention Henny: Death in New London: More on the British Creditors 1: William Bligh, merchants, prestige, and literary confusion: The outlook of George M. Macaulay: More on the British Creditors 2:

 

The Blackheath Connection

Chapter 24

 

`The fleet now daily expected':

 

      On 12 September, 1782, Campbell wrote to John Campbell, Inverary:

 

"My poor brother Saltspring has been obliged to embark in the fleet now daily expected in so bad a state of health that I am under the greatest anxiety about him & this is the rather increased - Peter saw him at Blewfields the 8 July, having gone round from Green Island". ([1])< /p>

 

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     Henrietta's husband Colin remained importunate.

 

Campbell Letter 105:

London 14 Sept 1782

Colin Campbell Jnr

      Glasgow

             I received a day or two since your letter without a date & the inclosures which I have perused and am sorry to see you so dissappointed in your expectations of money matters; I thank you nevertheless for your kind intentions. I have no directions from Saltspring touching the Interest you mention but if your occasions require it, I will take upon me to pay your Bill for the same

Mrs Campbell and Dugd joins me in Love to Henny and self & I remain - ([2])< /p>

 

Campbell Letter 106:

London 26 Sept 1782

Robert Boxall

             My son delivered me your message touching the Farm at Sydenham. The proposal you have made seems to me to require more time for consideration than your limits will admit. You will therefore not consider yourself under any tye of giving me a preferance as I cannot at present come to any resolutions on that score but you will give me leave to remind you of the inconvenience already received by a bad Tennant. I shall soon expect you will call to pay the years Rent     I am ([3])< /p>

 

     On 21 October, 1782, Duncan Campbell returned from Portsmouth where he'd been some days. Saltspring on Jamaica finally owed Campbell over £7000. And on 22 October, 1782, Campbell wrote to Archibald Campbell, Minare, Jamaica that delays and the results of storm damage on Jamaica had made a difference to his capital of £10,000-£15,000. Though it is unclear if this deficit was also connected with his North American losses, or not. Thus, Campbell could not carry Arch. Campbell through an emergency.

 

Campbell Letter 107:

London 22 Oct 1782      

Arch Campbell Esq

Minare (?)

         Upon my return from Portsmouth yesterday where I had been for a few days past I found your very polite & kind letter of the 9th Inst. I am sorry to learn by its contents that you have fears of a Dissappointment in Remittance from Jamaica, and I am the more so that I cannot conveniently relieve you. The consequence of the late dreadful storm on that Island with the Delays has made a very material change in my Currt Cash at this time of the year; if I say from 10,000 to 15,000 pounds from what it used to be, I shall not over rate it. I thank you for your kind wishes for Saltspring's safe arrival. But Alas! his niece my beloved child died above twelve months since  I am under great anxiety about the arrival of my Brother, who is passenger in my Ship Saltspring one of the missing fleet. I have little hopes of her getting into a British Port of my poor Brother is but safe. I shall be contented, tho' in point of Interest her loss will add to my inconveniences. I beseech you to present my very affectionate Compts to Mr and Mrs John who upon every occassion I should wish to oblige

        With great respect and regard I remain

                                      Dear Sir ([4])< /p>

 

Campbell Letter 108:

Mincing Lane 30 Oct 1782

Thomas Ard Esq

               I beseech you to Pardon my troubling you with this letter, it being for the purpose of inclosing to you a petition from the Collector at the Port of Douglas in the Isle of Man, which he and the Earl of Selkirk his friend desired I would put into your hands, together with Lord Selkirk's letter to the Earl of Shelburne which is likewise inclosed. As I am nearly connected with the Petition as a relation I can take upon me to assure you that the facts set forth of his age and infirmities are true. Your being pleased to lay this Petition before my Lord of the Treasury will be an Act of great kindness to the Collector, a very worthy man, & my poor mite of thanks be ever due. With the greatest respect I have the honour to be

                                  Sir ([5])< /p>

 

Campbell Letter 109:

London 1 Nov 1782

Richard Betham

              By the inclosed letter which I wrote to Mr Arde & his answer you will see the State your Petition to the Lords of the Treasury is in.

[conveys some of the information as is conveyed to Lord Selkirk in letter 126]

... but on receiving a letter from Lord Selkirk to Lord Shelburne I wrote to Mr Arde whose answer is a civil one ... If you get through this matter without Mr Lutwidge you will be lucky & will owe it all to Lord Selkirk for I can have no weight being already their Slave and Servant. I sincerely wish you success & with Compts to Mrs Colden Mrs Bligh, annie and Campbell who I find from Lord Selkirk were at St Marys Isle

                 I remain in truth ([6])< /p>

 

Campbell Letter 110:

London 1st Nov  1782

Earl of Selkirk

St. Mary's Isle

               I had the great honour of receiving your Lordships Letter of 20th Ult Connected as I am with Betham & his family I think myself bound in strong tyes of gratitude for your kind attention and repeated kindness to (?)  A week before I received your Lordships Letter I had Bethams Petition & had sounded the folks at the Treasury where I found there was a rule not to receive any applications from Officers for increase of Salary &c.  but through the Board of Office under which they act now tho' Betham is not under The Board of Customs yet Mr Lutwidge stands in that place, & I was advised by all means to apply to him & get him to recommend Betham's Petition; if I gave it in without I found, that under the Rule it would not be taken up by the Lords of the Treasury, or that if they did so far break Their rule it would be immediately refered to Lutwidge. Your Lordship will see the difficulty I was in, I was about to try to obtain the last indulgence thro' Mr Rose one of the Secretary's, & to put Mr Lutwidge of course to the necessity of speaking out: but upon receiving your Lordships Letter I alter'd my intentions & wrote to Mr Arde a Letter of which I transmitted to your Lordship, a Copy with his answer, I know not what will be the event but mr Ardes letter is a civil one; I do suppose your Lordship will probably receive an answer from Lord Shelburne in a few days which will convey the prospect of success or the reverse. Whatever may be the event Betham & all his connexions are much obliged to your Lordship & I am with the greatest respect and regard

                             Your Lordships most

                             obliged and most faithful

                                               Serv. ([7])< /p>

 

`You do not mention Henny, I hope she is well':

 

      On 11 November, 1782, Campbell upbraided his son-in-law Colin at Glasgow for having drawn on Campbell for £120 without Campbell's approbation. Colin's late partner was a Mr. Campbell... his [the partner's?] arrival would reduce Colin's inconveniences and enable him to fulfill his engagements. Duncan was sorry to find the Alexander had suffered so much, "my poor ship I hope is taken in America, that is now all the hope I have left for her safety - You do not mention Henny - I hope she is well".

 

     Henny seems to have had a daughter recently, whom she named after Lady Grace Campbell.

 

Campbell Letter 111:

London 11th Nov 1782

 

Richard Betham

              A day or two since I was at the Treasury making some inquiry touching your Memorial which I found had received as much indulgence as to be referred to Mr Lutwidge for his report: This was just as I expected & indeed was the regular & ordinary course, if any application like yours is received at all which is not usual by the Board of Treasury. Permit me to advise you to write to Lutwidge in such terms as may best lead him to make a favourable report & your business will I think be done. I understand Mr Lutwidge has at present in contemplation some alteration on arrangement in respect of the Revenues of your Island; if your application does not clash or interfere with his plan, I cannot see how he can oppose your Petition; if he does, you will probably learn upon what grounds: I thought it necessary to give you this information for your government .....

                              I remain ([8])< /p>

 

*    *    *

 

Death in New London:

 

     On 2 November, 1782 John Saltspring died at 9am at New London, US, after earlier being captured on a voyage and carried to New London, his ship had left its convoy.     John Saltspring left Jamaica aboard Duncan's ship, Saltspring, which left her convoy, or was parted. On 5 September, 1782 she was met by the American privateer Marshall Capt. Buckley, of New London, Connecticut, at latitude 35 degrees north 14 minutes longitude 65 degrees west 53 minutes. On 10 September 10 Marshall  brought Saltspring into New London. John Campbell stayed at a friend's house but died of yellow fever. ([9]) Duncan later had a monumental inscription erected on Jamaica: ([10])

 

"John Campbell Esq. of Saltspring who on his passage to England for the recovery of his health ... died 2 November 1782. 52 years. He had for many years represented the Parish of Hanover in the Assembly of this his native island had been long and at the time of his death Custos of that parish. Erected by order of his brother-in-law Duncan Campbell Esq. of London as a lasting mark of the friendship and affection which from early youth had ever subsisted between them".

 

            Much of John Saltspring's movement seems to have been on business. At least, from Campbell's letters, it seems Saltspring's visits to North America before the Revolution had been on business. Perhaps Saltspring simply enjoyed travelling? But his health suffered with the Jamaican climate too. Saltspring's last voyage had been a desperate measure though. Duncan knew John's health was poor, and his anxiety for John to arrive safely in London knew no bounds.

 

Campbell Letter 112:

                                            London 3 Dec 1782

Ann and Mary Snodgrass

         Paisley                                                   In a letter I received from my Brother Saltspring dated at New London 22 Sept to which place he was carried in by an American Privateer he desires me to pay you the 20 pounds for which sum your bill on me At Sight will be duly honoured. My Brother has been in a very bad state of health on the passage but was recovering when he wrote & I hope his next Letters will give me the pleasing accounts of a further restoration of his health.

               With much regard

 

Campbell Letter 113:

London 3 Dec 1782

James Blundell

      Portsmouth -

              This letter will be delivered to you by my Son John a young gentleman on Sir Hyde Parkers Quarter Deck; as he will probably want a little money to refit himself after so long a Cruise, you will oblige me by furnishing him with what he may want for that purpose    his bills on me for the same will be honoured with thanks by... ([11])< /p>

 

*    *    *

 

        Unaware of the death of his brother-in-law, Campbell on 4 December, 1782 had written Saltspring a letter already full of anguish. He was riddled with anxiety for the safety of a ship's company, the risk of storms, the state of markets, the outcome of the peace treaty with America. His letter was full of dread which would only be increased when he heard of John's death. Jamaica had suffered hurricanes in February 1780 and again in August 1781. Hanover Parish and the Campbell crops had particularly suffered. Sugar prices were low. Campbell was compensated since he found the insurance for the value of the cargo lost with John Saltspring exceeded the market value. But he had also lost a good ship, the Saltspring.

 

Campbell Letter 114:

                4 Dec 1782

John Campbell per Packet

                    Your letter of the 22 Sept arrived two weeks since gave me real joy as it conveyed to me accounts of you & Ship's Company safety, about which I was in the utmost anxiety Well may you say it is lucky for you that the Ship was captured for had you encountered the dreadfull storms the fleet met with a day or two preceding the date of your letter you must have sunk under the fatigue if your Ship had weathered them before this you will have heard how many noble Ships founder'd in consequence of that storm. My loss will be considerable by the Capture but what is that to the safety of my Dear Brother & the poor Ships Company. You and my other friends Shippers will rather gain than lose by that event, as the Sugar had they come home would not have yielded with 5 pounds per hdd.. .. of the Sum insured viz 24 pounds each our market being in a very drooping state & the great expectation Of Peace soon taking place adds to its (?) Some provisional Articles are certainly Signed between the British Commissioners & those of the United States of America, I pray God they may send in a Safe and permanent Peace.

 

       I thank you for your kind offers of service in Virginia but it is not time to meddle with those matters which I wish to lye dormant yet a while. The Orange Bay after a complete and very expensive repair will sail with the first fleet which is expected to depart early next month. Dug as you have so long exprest a desire for his coming out to Jamaica will go by that fleet & I hope & trust your health & other circumstances will enable you to meet him there in March or April & that you will be able so to order Matters as to return home in the course of the Summer. I have been much at a loss for want of an Order for Saltspring supplies I will endeavour to send out such as I think may be most wanted together with a few Bricks & Coals. All my young folks and your friends at Enfield are well.

 

PS Mr D. Campbell as your Attorney has drawn upon me a bill to D & Arch Campbell of Lucea. ([12])< /p>

 

     The chief consequence of the news of the death of Duncan's brother-in-law was that Campbell settled his son Dugald on Saltspring as a trainee manager. ([13]) By the time peace had been declared between England and America, most of Campbell's affairs were modified, or were to be modified. He continued as overseer of the hulks convicts and made what adjustments he could in his private capacity as a merchant. One of those adjustments in early 1783 was the employment of William Bligh as a captain on the Jamaica run.

 

Campbell Letter 115:

                  Mincing Lane Dec 1782

Admiral Campbell

                I entreat you will forgive the trouble I have given & am about to give you touching my young Sailor. As perhaps the Goliath may be ordered on immediate service, I am desirous he may be firnished with sufficient necessaries for his voyage whereever may be the destination   you was so kind as to promise me to speak to Sir Hyde Parker & to ask whether this youth might be permitted to come to town for a few days. If you have seen the Captain you will oblige me by the result   If Sir Hyde is not in town may I ask the favour of your writing a few lines to him so that (?) being myself a stranger to Sir Hyde & of too little consequence to merit his attention. I have no other way of obtaining this boon but thro' your mediation but should you think my application in any degree (?) I must in that case send my boy his supplies as well as I can which his great increase of size makes the more difficult in his absence    Mrs Campbell joins in best respects & I have the honour to be with great regard

 

PS I will send up a servant in the morning for your answer if you will favour me with a line --- ([14])< /p>

 

Campbell Letter 116:

London 10 dec 1782

John Campbell Renfrew

        I was favoured a few posts since with your letter of the 26th last month, the rect of it did as you expected surprise me a little. You say you are not conscious of having given me any cause of offence; if you find your mind at ease on that score I will not make any animadversions other on yr conduct in Scotland or while you was here; you reasons for what you call inattention while you was in London might bear I must admit (???) sufficient from a familiarity as I hope myself to be forgiven I forgive you; but if you wish me to forget several circumstances of Conduct for some time past; you must alter & my God i will return in proportion. You do not want sense, John, you will apply my hints. You are now a father teach your children, as they grow up, truth & candour & shew them the example; reflect that as you gave them existence you are bound to provide for their support. It is time over you should begin to think; I think what will become of the young lady you made a wife, of children if you persevere on the same line of behaviour touching money matters; if I am rightly informed there are more complaints than one about your unpunctuality, to give it no harsher name. When I am satisfied of yr taking new course, & noting up to the character you ought to fill I shall then readily overlook what is past. I hope yr conduct to my poor child which fortune has thrown in your neighbourhood will be such as I may be bound to thank you for I understand I am much obliged to your wife on that score as well as her Father & Mother. These are Civilities of a sort I cannot easily forget; please to offer my Compts to them all

     I am

      Sir ([15])< /p>

 

*     *     *

 

     The American historian, Ekirch, in Secret Trade, mentions a plan submitted by Campbell, dated 27 December, 1782, for the transportation of convicts to North America. ([16]) There is no such plan referred to in Campbell's surviving papers. Ekirch says some courts had been begun ordering criminals to "His Majesty's" American destinations. Thus, administrative inertia gave rise to fictions guiding the application of a punishment.

 

*    *    *

 

More on the British Creditors:

 

      During 1786-1787, London merchants were organising. They lit on Thomas McDonough, appointed as the British Consul in New England, who had earlier been the secretary of Governor Wentworth of New Hampshire, and felt he understood their problems well. McDonough since 1783 had been secretary to the Committee of American Merchants. One of their worries was a weakness of the central US government under the Articles of Confederation - there was no central legal system, no central financial and monetary system. Money was almost worthless in many states, and by a British order-in-council of 1783, American merchants were excluded from trade with the West Indies. ([17])

 

          Among the British Creditors to whom Campbell was writing by 1786 were John Dixon, Henry Fleming, Fisher and Brigg, Samuel Martin, at Whitehaven; Joseph Daltera and John Backhouse at Liverpool; William Jones and William Randolph, plus Stevenson and Cheston at Bristol. ([18]) The dates of the lobbying actions of the British Creditors, some gained from Campbell's own Letterbooks, began from April, 1782. An initiator of the group seems to have been Nathaniel Polhill, and Campbell soon missed Polhill's  guidance.

 

     From Olson's researches, we find that in the last years of the American Revolution, the remainder of London's core-group of America merchants re-surfaced in their old mode of operation, asking for government assistance in recovering American debts. ([19]) Few of the merchants named were any of Campbell's own usual British business associates. Why and how Campbell became their chairman is unclear. His life for the previous 18 months had been punishing. He took action. Campbell usually closed his books on 1 April, the end of the financial year. In 1782 on 1 April he also began his campaign to recover his own debts in America.

 

Campbell Letter 117:

                       London 1 April  1782

Nathaniel Polhill

                I had the honour of receiving your letter of the 28th past & I am extremely sorry to find that the fears you express therein were but too well founded. I sincerely condole with you on this melancholy event such events put the fortitude and reason of man to the severest tryals, but knowing when whence they come it is our duty to submit with resignation to that divine being, who alone is able to support us under such afflictions. In complyance with your desire I called the Gentleman you mentioned to meet on Saturday evening but we were so few in numbers, that we could then come to no other resolution than to call another meeting at 12 oClock on Wednesday. We feel the want of your presence much, so much that I fear our progress will be small without your assistance, which we must be debar'd from for sometime however Mr Sainsbury has promised to speak to Aldern Newnham in order to sound the Chanc. of Exchs to hint that such an application is in contemplation if the Alderman should be able to effect this purpose it may be of use in our deliberations on Wednesday. I request you will forgive my troubling you at this time with any sort of business but as I was sending a Servant to enquire after the health of yourself & family & thinking you might wish to know what had been the result of our meeting I took the liberty of dropping you these few lines With very great regard I am ([20])< /p>

 

       On 1 April, 1782, Campbell wrote to Nathaniel Polhill, "in complyance with your desire I call the Gentlemen you mentioned to meet on Saturday evening but we were too few in numbers, .... we feel the want of your presence much ... however Mr Sainsbury has promised to speak to Aldern Newnham in order to sound the Chanc. of Exchs to hint that such an application is in contemplation if the Aldermen should be able to effect this purpose". ([21])

 

*    *    *

 

William Bligh, merchants, prestige, and literary confusion:

 

      Naturally, any merchant - such as Campbell - who hoped to become part of a national committee of British Creditors would have needed some prestige and good connections.  Campbell was sufficiently well-connected. Here, since Bligh was sailing for Campbell, can be mentioned a literary confusion that has played a role in the construction of the Bligh legend. Most writers on Bligh have recycled minimal information that Campbell was "an influential West India merchant" by way of finding some way, otherwise impossible, to impart prestige to the Bligh-Campbell connection. Thus, prestige is attached to Bligh, who otherwise had "been out with Cook", and merely sailed the Jamaica run for Campbell. Otherwise, Campbell might appear as a respectable shipping contractor to the navy... Almost never in books on Bligh is Campbell the hulks overseer so hated by Thames historians. By the 1980s, the convict taint did not attach to the legend of the mutiny on the Bounty in any way. Thus, during the Australian Bicentennial, the Australian public was still  unaware of the Bligh-Campbell connection.

 

     1782 - (A) The Mitchell Library in Sydney which holds The Duncan Campbell Letterbooks also has many letters written by Bligh between 1782-1805. Few researchers on Bligh have even backtracked concerning Bligh's several letters, which are quite laden with feeling, to Campbell. The Bligh "publishing industry" tends to move in cycles not unrelated to claims that new material has been discovered, or, matters not unrelated to the three movies so far made on the mutiny on Bounty. The third such movie made, starring the popular Mel Gibson as Fletcher Christian, gave an especially poorly-researched picture of personal and status relations between Bligh and Christian as Bligh sought his ship's crew. Meanwhile, the best biographers of Bligh agree that the way the ship was crewed contributed greatly to the mutiny. Early in this movie, the impression was given that Fletcher Christian was of higher social status than Bligh, and had more clout in the navy; Bligh was of lower status and would be greatly flattered if Christian would consider coming on the voyage. This was rather like the rough cowboy inviting the suave polo player for a long but possibly entertaining ride.

 

     The initial sections of this movie's script were entirely bereft of the realisation that the two men had sailed twice if not three times on vulgarly commercial voyages on Campbell's ships to Jamaica. Those initiating this movie project, with its script which was much rewritten, had spent considerable time on Tahiti and in the Pacific before the movie production was begun, according to movie business publicity noted in Australia at the time. It appears a visit to the Mitchell Library in Sydney had not been on the agenda. By the 1980s, many different kinds of writers had been deflected from paying attention to Campbell's career, from the "convict taint". This is a peculiar way for a maritime legend to develop... at the price of accurate family history while attention is almost completely distracted from both slavery on Jamaica, and convict transportation to Australia. Bligh in fact met his later mutineer, Fletcher Christian, long before 30 November, 1786. ([22])

 

*    *    *

 

The outlook of George Mackenzie Macaulay, alderman of London and British Creditor:

 

     In 1874 the English magazine The Academy published diary entries written 1796-1797 by a seemingly-obscure London alderman, George Macaulay (1750-1803). Heckethorne noted this in his book, Lincoln's Inn Fields and the Localities Adjacent: their historical and topographical associations. (London, Eliot Stock, 1896., p. 81). Heckethorne alluded also to the Adelphi, and to Duncan Campbell. We find, Macaulay has been unfairly excluded from the British maritime history of the Pacific Ocean, as a case of disappearing information. How and why information on Macaulay's career has been deleted from the historical record becomes fascinating... since for one thing, he might have been the organiser of the First Fleet to Australia. Unfortunately, although Macaulay habitually kept diaries, only his writing for the year 1797-97 remains, held in the British Library after purchase from one Edward Darcy. So with its unknown provenance, Macaulay's journal joins The Samuel Enderby Book as part of information on how London merchants transported convicts to early Australia, as part of The Blackheath Connection.

 

     Heckethorne selected abridgements from Macaulay's journal reflecting a London alderman's views, many of them understandable...

 

"Dec. 6, 1796, Fran. Dunn & Will. Arnold yesterday executed for murder - conveyed to new Surgeon's Hall in Lincoln's Inn Fields - in a cart - for the public to see - I think, contrary to all decency and the laws of humanity in a country like this. I hope it will not be repeated."

 

    For much of his adult life, Macaulay ([23]) kept a "journal of occurrences and observations". Every day, the habit of a man bred on an island, he noted the wind and the weather. Born on 8 March, 1750, Macaulay was one of nine children of an Isle of Wight captain of coasting vessels who'd been killed falling  from a cliff. ([24]) His children had been left unprovided for. Men on the island impressed with young  Macaulay made a subscription and sent him to London, where he found employment in the counting house of Abel and Co. ([25]) There, George Abel was an underwriter in marine insurance, a subscriber to Lloyd's Register.

 

     One of Macaulay's relatives to whom he remained ever-grateful for advice was his uncle, Capt. Urry RN, probably the "naval hero" of that name. ([26]). Another relative was Rev. Aulay Macaulay of Rosthey in Leicestershire. Macaulay's adult references to these men when he was deeply troubled in 1796-1797 suggests he had sorely missed his long-dead father, while the amount of time he spent with some of his older associates suggested a continued need for mentors, for whose advice Macaulay remained genuinely grateful.

 

    In 1772, George Abel was at 15 Cloak Lane, London. ([27]) By 1774, merchants Abel and Macauley (sic) were at 2 Cloak Lane. Macaulay remained with Abel until 1778, and the pair as insurance underwriters were often listed as subscribers to Lloyd's  Register. It appears that Macaulay was noted by Lloyd's from at least 1781, with Abel and Macauley (sic), and then on his own account from at least 1787 to 1795. ([28])  Macaulay was admitted to the freedom of the City of London on 20 January, 1774 and joined the Bowyer's Company. ([29]) Abel and Macaulay by 1776 lost money in South Carolina due to the American Revolution: some £5630//3/5d. ([30]) Their resentment lingered.

 

       Information on Macaulay's life during the American Revolution is gapped, and available genealogical information is tortuous. We can know little of Macaulay's views on the Gordon Riots of 1780 ([31]), on the outcome of the revolution, but his views would be informative, if only because his opinions were vehement. His political personality can however be profiled. In 1781, Macaulay appeared newly-elected as a common councilman of the Corporation of the City of London. Then, Nathaniel Newman was on the senior council of aldermen, as was George Hayley. The Lord Mayor was Sir Watkin Lewes, a keen Freemason. The sheriffs were Thomas Sainsbury and Will Crichton. Among common councilmen destined from 1781 to rise as full aldermen were John Hopkins, Richard Clarke, William Gill and John Boydell, stationer of Cheapside. ([32]) Macaulay's abilities as an alderman were respected, and he was a Freemason, as a Blackheath golfer.

 

      About 1784, or after, in 1790, Macaulay's business address was 9 Chatam Place, Blackfriars. ([33]) Confusingly, he had several addresses. He also left George Abel and found new partners for new ventures. In 1790 he was still at 9 Chatam Place. Between 1791 and 1795 he was at 6 Leadenhall Street and Lloyd's Coffee House, Cornhill. ([34]) Macaulay is pictured in an illustration held at London's Guildhall Library, of The Administration of the Oath of Allegiance to Ald. Richard Clark in 1782.

 

     Macaulay was ambitious. Like Alderman William Newman (a contemporary document said), Macaulay was "repeatedly passed over for the Mayoralty on account of his Whiggism". He contested Queenhithe in 1784 and from 1786 to 1803 had an address at Coleman Street, close by London Wall, near the City Guildhall. He was sworn a Sheriff of the City of London in 1789 and 1790. From 1784 he became a full alderman (Vintry Ward). Politically, Macaulay remained a passionate Whig, ([35]) and given his  vehemence as Whig, his long friendship, with a devoted Tory, alderman William Curtis, remains curious. ([36]) ([37])

 

     It was reputed that during 1784, when he was elevated from common-councilman to  alderman, Macaulay attempted unsuccessfully to become a member of the East India Company after buying a ship, Pitt. He was "the only man who ever fitted out an entire East Indiaman at his own expense, which however turned out a misfortune. The Directors of the Company gave him no sanction, and in consequence he ceased to be a favourite at the Treasury." ([38]) (It is uncertain if here is meant the Treasury of Britain, or the Company treasury, but the latter is more probable). ([39])

 

     About 1788, Macaulay, then of 9 Chatam Place, Blackfriars, married the "wealthy and beautiful Miss Theed"... "with whom he had 20,000 l which put him above the world and enabled him to procure an Alderman's gown". At least, records state, Macaulay was elected an Alderman in London in 1784, four years prior to his marriage to Mary Ann Theed. Kent's London Directory of 1792 mentions a firm, Methold and Theed, wine merchants, at 15 Mark Lane. One John Theed junior was a wholesale haberdasher at No. 25 Philpot Lane. ([40]) Later, Mary Ann Theed of the parish of Lewisham, Kent, was a minor when she married widower Macaulay on 4 May, 1790. She may have been the daughter of William Theed (1764-1817) a painter of classical subjects and a designer for Wedgewoods. (Or, Theed the jeweller?).

 

*    *     *

 

     The East Indiaman Macaulay bought in 1784, Pitt, becomes ironic, since Macaulay as a Whig intensely hated Pitt's policies, especially Pitt's policies on Scotland. Lloyd's  registers for 1786-1787 record that Pitt Capt. G. Couper was in the East India Company service that year, to China. Macaulay sent Pitt regularly for China tea. And as Macaulay would have known, in September 1784 were held London's council elections. All of the old members were returned, suggesting a continuity of attitude. Fraser became Lord Mayor and he was to take special note of London's "prisoner problems". ([41]) Alderman Bull died over Christmas and his place was taken by Brook Watson. ([42]) Alderman William Curtis was a successful speculator, especially interested in the Greenland whale fishery. It may have been that Macaulay wished either to emulate Curtis, to compete with him. Or, alternatively, he wished to join with Curtis because Curtis had the sounder judgement about speculations.

 

     Sir William Curtis, a Tory MP, died 1829, was "a pitiably bad speaker", often derided, Popularly, he was the inventor of the term "the three R's". He was a personal friend of George IV, and it is said he helped popularise the drinking of Scotch whiskey. ([43]) He is noticed also in City Biography. ([44]) The third son of Joseph Curtis of Wapping, William, born 25 January, 1752, went into the family business - sea biscuits at Wapping - with his brother Timothy. William was elected an alderman as guild Draper, of Tower Ward. Both brothers became Freemasons.

 

     Between 1784 and 1787, Macaulay became a member of a partnership, John Turnbull, Macaulay and Thomas Gregory. ([45]) Two if not three of the partners lived at Blackheath.  Between 1788 and 1796, Macaulay lived at Dartmouth Hill House, Blackheath. His journal of 1796-97 reveals him as a laissez-faire Whig Imperialist who hated Pitt, who could speak approvingly of a "tolerable booty" taken from India. ([46]) He could become personally excited when the Prince of Wales visited his locality. He fished, played golf, dined out often by way of conducting business, and enjoyed light theatre (he had a young wife). ([47])

 

     Blackheath Common is divided by the boundaries of the Boroughs of Greenwich and Lewisham, and Greenwich Park once adjoined the heath. Most significantly here, the heath included an estate owned, from the 1670s, by the Legge family, later the Earls of Dartmouth. We are here particularly concerned with Dartmouth Row and Dartmouth Grove, built by 1689; and with a house named The Orchard (which Duncan Campbell leased), built about 1781. From West Grove, at the hilltop at one end of Dartmouth Row, the Thames River, with its docks and, perhaps, its prison hulks, could be observed through a telescope held, say, in an observation post placed atop a house. The whalers Samuel Enderby Snr and John St Barbe lived in such houses in West Grove, virtually next door to each other. Macaulay's business partner John Turnbull lived at 32 Dartmouth Row. George Enderby once lived at 22 Dartmouth Hill, while Charles Enderby lived at 20 Dartmouth Hill.

 

    By 1785, now on his own account to Lloyd's, Macaulay had left Abel and gathered new partners, John Turnbull and Thomas Gregory, who were involved in provisioning HM forces in Canada and the West Indies. ([48]) However, no presently available material on London civic and/or commercial history of the period, or on the history of convictism, (as construed by Australians), mentions Macaulay's partners between 1785 and 1797, Messrs Turnbull and Gregory. Since Turnbull and Gregory were government contractors, they and Macaulay can be included amongst the usual contractors to government who assisted the colonisation of "Botany Bay", who have never been regarded as such, but included William Richards, Alexander Davison, and John St Barbe.

 

     By 1786, Government in arranging supply for its forces in Canada, and to a lesser extent in the West Indies, had dealt for some years with a partnership, Gregory and Turnbull. ([49]) By a warrant in June, 1785, Mark and George Gregory with John Turnbull were issued £3,644 by a warrant in June, 1785. Then, or somewhat later, Messrs Turnbull and G. M. Macaulay were issued as well, £108,149 for provision to the troops in Canada and the Loyalists there. During 1786-1788, the TMG partnership was issued more than £13,000 for providing the troops in Canada; and for troops elsewhere, £74,000. About 1785, this partnership was injected with capital by Macaulay, allowing its volume of business to rise substantially. The firm did not however conduct as much business for such contracts as was transacted by Alexander Davison. ([50])

 

     Considerable social and political stress had built up in London during late 1785 over the extent of London's - and the nation's - "problem of overcrowded jails". Researchers were set to work by London's aldermen, and they remained busy making assessments of the extent of problems, and their figures seem realistic. ([51]) Their brief had been to discover what had earlier transpired with transportable convicts. They went back a long way. One finding was this: ([52]) "Recorder laid before the Court [of aldermen] a draft memorial relating to a Complaint made against Andrew Reid for neglecting to take away the convicts under sentence of transportation according to his contract - read". (Rep 156 fo 181.)

 

       Andrew Reid had been a convict contractor between 1753 and 1764, succeeded by John Stewart and Campbell, then Campbell alone. London's 1785 researchers must have hunted high and low for a long time to find this information concerning Reid. Presumably as a measure of their frustration, and perhaps their ignorance of the then-prevailing legislation of 1784, the aldermen were evidently searching for precedents which might have offered some legislative or legal weapon to use against those NOT transporting felons sentenced to transportation - the government. By mid-March, 1786,  London had completed this research on handling transportable prisoners and decided that a petition had to be made. The king would be asked to assist a speedy resumption of  transportation. Mysteriously, Turnbull, Macaulay and Gregory on 10 May, 1786, made known to government (to Evan Nepean at the Home Office), their willingness to transport felons to Das Voltas, Africa. ([53])  Here, envisaging an ambitious alderman with a desire to promote himself by helping government rid London of felons is one thing - but was Macaulay working with anyone else, and why was he interested in sailing by Africa? By mid-May, 1786, the Home Office knew that two firms were willing to tender to carry convicts to the African Coast. The firms were Turnbull, Macaulay and Gregory, and the slavers,  Camden, Calvert and King. It is unknown if Macaulay's firm  had usual commercial links with Calvert's firm.

 

      Did Macaulay have new or old interests in slaving? Or, in redeveloping some old East India Company-African shipping lane? On the face of it, using presently available information, there are no sensible reasons explaining why Macaulay and his partners would make such an offer. We cannot even be sure that it was he, and not one or other of his partners, who might originally have suggested that the firm would make such an offer. As far as is known, Macaulay by 1786 had no business in Africa either actual or planned. This was not the case with Calverts. They were traders-cum-slavers on the African Coast, and for some years they had also registered their vessels with the South Whale Fishery. ([54]) Calverts however may have been merely sealers on the African coast, and in that sense, may have been hedging their commercial bets as they otherwise  exploited the African Coast. But since Calverts had taken some convicts to Africa in 1782 ([55]) and by 1786 already had two commercial operations about Africa, it is hardly surprising that they would have wished to make their voyage to Africa more economical by carrying convicts.

 

     But it is also doubtful Macaulay would have wanted to sully his own Indiaman, Pitt, with any bi-annual carriage of convicts. Little is known except that in mid-1786, two firms, Macaulay and his partners, and the slavers Camden Calvert and King, offered to take felons to Africa.  ([56]) ([57])

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    As local residents, both Duncan Campbell and Macaulay ([58]) were keen golfers at the Blackheath Golf Club. From January 1789 there developed an offshoot, also a Masonic club, The Knuckle Club, which was since been referred to with jocular contempt by several golfing historians. ([59]) Both Campbell and Macaulay were wealthy, had addresses in the City, and both knew many people who would be associated with the establishment of the early colony at Sydney. It would hardly be surprising if two men with so much in common, sometimes discussed their losses by the American revolution. ([60]) ([61])  Both men and their milieu should have been researched many years ago by Australians. ([62]) ([63])

 

     Blackheath was a hotbed of interest in the Pacific Ocean. A surprising number of men living there, and not only regular government contractors, chartered their ships to government to sail to the eastern coast of Australia. Macaulay is conspicuous because he wanted to sail more ships to Sydney than he was allowed. If Macaulay had gotten his way, he would have mounted the First Fleet to Australia. He anyway became associated with the First Fleet ship Lady Penrhyn. The later voyage of his Pitt to Sydney is regarded as historic (in terms of the history of opening sea lanes) in its own right - while Macaulay himself has been forgotten. When Macaulay disappeared from history, London forgot a great deal about its desire to be rid of convicts. So when Macaulay is brought to light, what recollections of London politics come with him, in respect of exploiting the Pacific region?

 

     In 1796-1797, Macaulay failed financially. ([64]) He lost 25 per cent of his capital within a year that has remained notorious in the histories of the Bank of England and of London finance. Macaulay can be seen as a passionate man, oversensitive when one of his partners insulted him and he would not forgive - he was on the verge of bankruptcy, maybe fearful of it, not yet aware of it. ([65]) When Macaulay died in 1803, his work as an alderman was much appreciated by his colleagues, as The Gentleman's Magazine reported:

 

 [Died] March 5, 1803, at Bedford, of a quinsy, George Mackenzie Macaulay Esq. alderman of Coleman-street ward, to which he was elected in 1786, and in 1790 served the office of sheriff. He was an active and intelligent magistrate, and possessed very strong natural abilities, highly improved by a cultivated education. He had been twice married; and has left a very numerous family by each of his wives. To his widow, the Corporation of London have, in a very handsome manner, unanimously voted an annuity of 100 l. ([66])

 

     Then, Macaulay's ghost disappeared, excised from the political history of London's desire to be rid of convicts, Pacific maritime history, the history of the "founding" of Australia, to be replaced in book indices by a spurious identity, Turnbull Macaulay.

 

*    *    *

 

More on the British Creditors 2:

 

     Because of the commercial complexities of transporting convicts to North America, the response in 1791 of Abel and Macaulay to their losses by the revolution needs some  explanation. The question termed by the British, the Americans' repudiation of debts, looms large. ([67]) By 1776, Abel and Macaulay had lost investment in South Carolina due to the revolution: some £5630//3/5d. ([68]) Other creditors registering complaints included: John Dixon, Henry Fleming, Fisher and Brigg, Samuel Martin, at Whitehaven; Joseph Daltera and John Backhouse at Liverpool; William Jones and William Randolph, Stevenson and Cheston at Bristol. ([69])

 

     The following information on claimed losses by British merchants is gleaned from a diversity of sources. By 1775, Stevenson, Randolph and Cheston had about £8000  sterling owing in America. ([70]) Duncan Campbell, as he informed Henry Dundas in 1791, had lost a total of £38,135/3/10, some £25,634/17/7 in Virginia and £12,500/6/3 in Maryland. Campbell's agent in Virginia was John Rose of Leeds Town, Virginia. Abel and Macaulay in South Carolina had lost £5,630/3/5d. George Bogue had lost £2,746/15/10. Stephenson, Randolph and Cheston of Bristol had lost £14,000 all in Maryland. One William Jones had lost £80,000 in Virginia. The losses totalled in 1791 were £2,522,952/9/5d. The break-up of losses by states, so the merchants memorialised, was: * Virginia: £390,225/18/1d; * Maryland: £310,407/11/9d; * South Carolina: £596,289/19/2d; * Georgia: £247,781/14/6d; * Massachusetts: £280,535/16/2d]]. ([71]) There, for all intents and purposes, the question of Macaulay's losses by the Revolution lapses until 1791, when it came into view again in the hands of Duncan Campbell.

 

     Macaulay's fellow alderman, William Curtis, ([72]) MP for London 1790-1818, one of London's Lord Mayors (in 1795-96) is noticed in a recent book on the Lord Mayoralty of London, but his association with the First Fleet is not mentioned, and indeed, the matter is largely unknown to his descendants but for the inquiries of some Australian researchers. ([73]) And in the alderman's world?...

 

Rep 190, 14 March, 1786 - resolved that an humble Petition be presented by this Court to his Majesty to pray that the Sentence of Transportation may be carried into execution against persons convicted of Felony. ... It is referred to the Rt Hon Thomas Harley, Brass Crosby, James Townsend, John Wilkes, Nathaniel Newnham, Richard Clark, Esqr, Aldermen - James Sanderson, Brook Watson, Ald and Sheriffs. or any 3 of them to be a committee to prepare a draft of a Petition agreeable to the said Resolution.

 

    A draft had been prepared by 21 March, 1786, entitled, Draft of Petition to the King respecting the enforcing the Sentence of Transportation. ([74])

 

Incidentally, on 14 March, 1786, there were 21 items of business before the aldermen, including: a banker to employ three foreigners, extra constables within the City, £50 for Lady Turner the widow of the late Sir Barnard Turner Kt and Alder, a clause in a Bill for the office for measuring coals, appointment of a preacher for Easter to preach to the Court of Aldermen, surrender by James Webb of the office of Water Bailiffs Youngman. On 14 March, unwittingly, London began to influence the history of Australia. Presumably, though it is not known for certain, George Macaulay and William Curtis were present that day.

 

    And so historians might write, that in March, 1786, "a strong petition from London against the hulks" was presented to the King by the Mayor of London, the Aldermen and Magistrates. They asked for a speedy resumption of transportation as the only remedy for the state of crime. The petition itself was delivered to the King by the London Sheriffs and the City Remembrancer "on behalf of the City". ([75])

 

      By 14 March, 1786, London aldermen, meaning, City merchants, had decided to take action about "the convict problem". On or after 4 March, 1786, hulks overseer Campbell was acutely aware of problems with the convicts on hulks. On 24 March, 1786, convicts on the hulk at Plymouth rose, and were not subdued until eight were shot dead, and 36 were wounded. ([76])

 

     After the presentation of the Aldermen's 1786 petition, senior government ministers including Pitt ([77]) were monitoring their convict problem, and suggesting means of solving it. By mid-May, some tenders had been obtained from some merchants, and unless government officials had taken care to invite only a few selected merchants, or regular contractors, to make a tender, it can hardly be said that government was swamped with offers from merchants.

 

     If he was an alderman genuinely concerned about prisoner problems, Macaulay and other may also have taken note of the new 1784 legislation on convict transportation, ([78]) concerning which the year was replete with ironies and frustration. (Macaulay could easily have discussed details with Campbell, at Blackheath) The legislation - Act 24 Geo III cap 12 - was proclaimed in March 1784, withdrawn, then re-enacted in August, cap 56. Once while it was being discussed, the MP for Salisbury, William Hussey, suggested to the House of Commons that convicts could be sent to New Zealand. Many parliamentarians had many views on what could and should be done with transportable felons. ([79])

 

     Macaulay's business propositions at the time were made in the context of what are now four separate areas of study, all well-defined, and seldom having been linked by consideration of a single biography, simply because historians have felt little temptation to link them together in any wise at all.

 

These contexts are:

 

(1) The commercial responses of British merchants to the loss of the American colonies;

 

(2) Before convicts were sent to New South Wales, the proposition they would be sent to Africa;

 

(3) The mounting of a voyage to transplant breadfruit from Tahiti to Botany Bay ,or, what became the first and second breadfruit voyages of William Bligh;

 

(4) In the context of the development of the South Wale Fishery, the exploitation of seal-fur resources of Nootka Sound on the Western Canadian Coast, which bore some relationship to opening whaling in the Pacific.

 

     However, no presently available material on London civic and/or commercial history of the period, or on the history of convictism, (as construed by Australians), mentions Macaulay's partners between 1785 and 1797, Messrs Turnbull and Gregory.

 

     Macaulay planned to increase his own luck from 1786: two loads of China tea for 1787-1788 instead of the usual one from his Pitt, plus the proceeds, as expected, of Nootka furs. For the voyage after Lady Penrhyn had finished her convict business, as happened from early May 1788, Macaulay recruited Lt. John Watts. Watts had been a midshipman under William Bligh on Resolution for Cook's last voyage of exploration, and therefore had some experience of the Pacific. Little is known about Watts, but according to the Lady Penrhyn's log he was termed a "passenger for China" when he boarded her. ([80]) In early May, 1787, less than two weeks before the First Fleet left Britain, Alderman Curtis came down to Lady Penrhyn, loaded with her female convicts, to discuss business with her captain, William Crofton Sever. The First Fleet then sailed and that leg of Lady Penrhyn's voyage is well documented. ([81])

 

    Though Macaulay may have been heard of again in the documents of the Corporation of the City of London, he did not surface in shipping records until there sailed on 26 December, 1788 his ship Pitt 775 tons Capt. Edward Manning for St Helens and Bencoolen. ([82])

*     *     *

 

[Finis Chapter 24]

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