The Battle of the Red Book and the Green Book at Lloyd's: Campbell fires his American agent: William Russell and the Court Brothers:

 

The Blackheath Connection

Chapter 42

 

The Battle of the Red Book and the Green Book at Lloyd's:

 

      From about 1798, there occurred at Lloyd's of London, The Battle of the Red Book and the Green Book. Some writers assert that at the heart of the problem was a management regime instituted in the 1780s largely by John Julius Angerstein, to which rebels began to object. ([1]) Probably, argument over methods of valuing ships for insurance purposes was one issue involved. Generally, writers on Lloyd's agree that the battle between the red and green books was ruinous to all concerned until matters were resolved in 1834. What is noticeable in the development of the management committee of the new Red Book are the names of merchants who had been involved with ships to New South Wales - Camden, Calvert and King, and John St Barbe. ([2]) Generally, London merchants seemed not to favour either the Red Book or the Green Book, listing their ships with either.

 

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     Unfortunately, information on Calvert and partners then lapses from the records. Calvert after 1797 escapes notice, until in 1803 when he was listed as a subscriber to Lloyd's Red Book, as Camden Calvert and Co. From the outset of the Red Book in 1799-1800 (it is treated below in more detail), Thomas King was listed solely and separately as being on the Red Book's managing board. It seems then that Camden Calvert and King broke their partnership. St. Barbe was also deeply involved in the management of the Red Book, (although his firms, mainly linked with Reeve and Green, subscribed to both the Red and Green Book).

 

      Thus, the King-St Barbe links in the managerial sense with the Red Book also become part of the Blackheath connection. King later underwrote only on his own account. Camden and Calvert remained partners together. Thus, while Calvert and Co. were awaiting news of the success of their investments to Sydney and India by the Third Fleet to New South Wales, they were also trying to shore up their trade pattern about Africa by recourse to the highest body of appeal in the land. But they were to be forced to change their pattern as the anti-slaving lobby gathered momentum in London, and they went into underwriting for the long haul.

 

       There began from about 1797 a concerted battle for dominance at Lloyd's, (about when the Bank of England stopped payment), greatly motivated by ambitions to lead the market. From 1799-1800, the new Red Book appeared labelled as a shipowners' book, while the Green Book, as was traditional, related more to the interests of underwriters. The extended battle between the two books is widely regarded as "having been ruinous to all concerned", a fair indication of the stakes at risk when the battle started. Reports from Lloyd's historians can be unclear on the battle, but much is made of the role of John Julius Angerstein, whose career is well-documented. His stature as a market leader was such that any underwriting deal he subscribed to became known as "a Julian". Any underwriter possessing a "Julian" had little trouble finding other underwriters to back a project Angerstein had blessed. Unfortunately, few "Julians' survive, and it is not possible to gain a picture of which merchants developed projects which might have appealed to Angerstein, or what Angerstein's commercial tastes were.

 

     The agreement amongst Lloyd's historians is that Angerstein, who also had a West Indies plantation interest, developed a "cabal" of underwriters. The cabal "managed" Lloyd's, no easy feat with such a subtle and arcane field of finance. Lloyd's then behaved with a casualness all the more difficult to understand precisely because it worked so well. The cabal did not surface into any public view at Lloyd's until the late 1790s, when forced to do by a combination of resentment from non-cabal Lloyd's subscribers to the then Green Book (for underwriters), the only book subscribers could view, and various subtle forces native to the financial market. There was also a virtually naval pressure, a need as real to government and to the public, as it was to Lloyd's, to have reliable information (in the military sense, intelligence information) on events in the high seas and foreign events which could affect shipping. Such information could have dramatic impact on the market at Lloyd's. This nexus became an increasingly strong link between Lloyd's and the Admiralty, a link formed partly through the agency of Evan Nepean, secretary to the Admiralty.

 

      By the late 1790s, when the cabal did care to show its hand, it was too late. A breakaway group had formed a rival Red Book (for shipbuilders) - and among the Red Book managing committee, the names St Barbe and Thomas King are those with any major connections to shipping to New South Wales. Other Red Book names, including  Norrison Coverdale, Peter Foot, J. J. Oddy, Thomas Horncastle, are unknown in relation to Australian maritime history. After 1800, Red Book names such as Yves Hurry, Robert Curling and John Lyall could be related to such history. By 1800 the Angerstein-led committee managing the Green Book included other shipmen who had been involved in shipping to early New South, Alexander Champion, and one William Hamilton, who may have been the Blackheathite freighting some ships to New South Wales before, like Davison, abandoning the connection. ([3]) ([4]) (When it is considered that several interest groups, including a shipbuilding interest, inhabited the East India Company alone, the potential for conflict over a leadership battle can be more clearly sighted). ([5]) ([6])

 

      The battles lines of the book battle speak of certain leanings amongst the underwriters of both the Red and Green, since some of the Red Book entrepreneurs, including King and St Barbe, had been rebellious and independent enough to assert themselves against the Green Book by having earlier attempted to open the Pacific Ocean against the wishes of the East India Company. But the leaning does not seem strong enough for any conclusions to be ventured about strongly noticeable battlelines drawn lastingly between the whalers and the East India Company, being duplicated amongst the two camps of Lloyd's underwriters. This in turn suggests that no particular commercial prejudices, for or against, existed in Lloyd's' political camps after 1800 in the matter of underwriters wishing to become involved with shipping to Australia, or the Pacific. A certain evenhandedness at that level conforms to observations drawn from raw data on shipping.

 

Item: 11 January, 1794 was the date of the third Nootka Convention. But by now, many of the original British merchants interested in that area had looked elsewhere. And in 1794, in a context of the East India Company service, newish members of Lloyd's  included John Prinsep ([7]); St. Barbe; Green and Bignell; Robert Wigram; St. Barbe and Marten; ([8]) Prinsep was later to become involved in convict transportation, as would the Wigrams. ([9]) In 1794, the southern whaler Teast of Bristol had out the redoubtable Charles Bishop sailing in Nautilus across the Pacific.

 

*     *     *     *     *

 

      Campbell's son Mumford had been born on 5 February, 1778, to his second wife, Mary. ([10]) He was being educated for a legal and commercial career, and by March 1795, when his stepbrother John was already in trade to India, Mumford wanted to become a writer for the East India Company in the Bengal establishment. ([11]) One of his teachers was one William Okey. James Boyick provided a reference for Mumford. ([12]) The Bearer Mr. Mumford Campbell has been regularly taught Arethmetic (sic) & Book-keeping and is in every respect qualified for a Counting house or any other Mercantile Situation.

I have the Honor to be, Gentlemen,

Your most obedient and most humble servant

                  James Boyick. ([13])< /p>

 

     In the margin of Mumford's application was a note" "Recommended by Paul Le Mesurier". Who was a London alderman; probably the Le Mesurier whose ship years before had run into one of the sugar ships owned by Mumford's father. ([14]) Mumford Campbell married in February 1797 and then proceeded to India where in 1800 he became head assistant in the general treasury. As his family grew older, Campbell was naturally more preoccupied with their doings.

 

*     *    *

 

     At the Board of Trade meeting on 22 June, 1792, ([15]) 20 days after the board read Governor Phillip's views on sperm whaling about NSW, two days after they read Phillip's views on land grants there, a friend of Camden King and Collow on the Gold Coast appeared - J. Currie. (This man was probably related to the Currie(s) who had long harassed Campbell about monies and/or the ownership of Saltspring on Jamaica ([16]) At the Board's meeting of 27 June, 1792, Calvert also attended. J. Currie had been on the coast of Africa from September 1788 to January 1792, on the CC&K ship Recovery Capt. Andrew Hewson, as an assistant in the trade based at Annamboe. About then, 17 June, 1792, the board was also reading a great number of letters about Lord Macartney going to the court of Peking on a trade mission with novel manufactures that did not happen to interest the Chinese. Turnbull Forbes and Co. were having trouble dealing in produce on the Barbary Coast, in or around Tripoli.

 

     On 11 July, 1792, the South whalers Lucas and Spencer at Cherry Gardens were wanting improved wharves for  landing their goods. On 28 June, 1792, less than three weeks after the trial of Donald Trail, and the decision so unfortunate for justice, The London Chronicle reported that an application had been made at the Court of King's Bench for leave to file a criminal information against Thomas Evans for having published inflammatory pamphlets tending to influence the minds of a jury pending a murder trial. It was requested he be struck off the Rolls. Whether these proceedings against Evans were successful is not known. ([17])

 

       Jeremy Bentham had been watching developments. He may have well been following the progress of the Neptune (Second Fleet) case with a lawyer's kind of delighted disgust. Bentham, enemy of the hulks system, with a cheerful malice on 2 July, 1792, wrote to the treasurer of Lincoln's Inn, Francis Burton, "Did Sr C Bunbury tell you as he told me of a conversation between him and Mr Campbell in which Mr Campbell began with I am sorry Sir Charles to see you should so much be my enemy..." ([18]) Bentham then went on nevertheless to quote a hulks price. As a commercial costing matter he had researched the way Campbell was paid for handling convicts. A certain cynicism about the commercial aspects of Bentham's plans seems as warranted as it is for Campbell's operations. (Also about Campbell's operations, Linebaugh meanwhile reports after a brief discussion of boxing in the era ([19]) that about 1792, "The superintendent of the prison hulks kept Little White, a black man, to box prisoners to death.")

 

*     *    *   

 

Campbell fires his American agent: William Russell and the Court Brothers:

 

            As revealed in the letter Campbell wrote to London tobacco dealer Christopher Court on 1 July, 1792, Campbell had long ago sent out young William Russell to Maryland. About the time Russell arrived in Maryland, 1768-1773, William Lux had been writing to James Russell in London. In this period a new firm arose, William Lux and Bowly. Prior to 1773, Darby Lux, dealer in convict servants, had been partner in a rum importing business with William Russell, brother of James in London. And, while it is not known just what had set him off in mid-1792, Campbell, now the father of thirteen children, as he made yet another effort to collect his outstanding American debts, was casting his mind back as far as April 1768, before he had employed Matthew Ridley. Now, he was to turn his affairs in America out of the hands of his long-time agent, William Russell, and give them to Joseph Court, brother of Christopher Court, formerly one of the largest London merchants dealing in American tobacco.

 

Campbell Letter 222:

                            London 1st July 1792

Joseph Court Esqr

  ? River near

Annoplis [sic] Maryland([20])

 

              Under the sanction of your Brothers introduction I have taken the liberty to hand to you several statements of Account with Mr William Russell of Baltimore who has been for many years my Agent in Maryland and who at the commencement of the War had the charge of all my Books and Vouchers committed to him, but whether my expecting too much from his Collections, or the non performance of his repeated promises to remit, see his latter A of 20th Jany 1789, what it now seems he had collected of my effects was the cause, his correspondence has not altogether given me that satisfaction I thought myself entitled to, and this has led me through your Brothers kind interposition to apply to you to bring about an amicable settlement if possible of my Affairs with that Gentleman. That you may the better be enabled to effect this you will receive herewith my Power of Attorney for that purpose. I send also for you perusal & regulation the Letters which have passed between Mr Russell and myself on the subject of his remittances, which being written by his own hand your Brother thinks with me, you can prove if necessary, his letters (-1) of the 1st and 29 May 1790 in answer to mine B of the 4 December 1789 will furnish you with the cause of our coming to this ???calav ? isse ment?? [pass] as well as the Claims he seems to have in contemplation for what he calls Extra Services (?) and odd years back - That such an idea never entered into his head till after Mr Ridley's death will clearly appear from the tenor of his letter E of the 10 January 1786 which I beg you will read with attention particularly the clause in which he values himself on having lodged a Deed amongst my papers sufficient to Guarantee his debt to me in case of his death - this is not consistent with his Claim for Extra Services, but in full objection to such a Claim please to refer to his Agreement F with Stewart & Campbell made in April 1768. The charge he wished to establish of Commission for Collecting and remitting my debts is most absurd and unreasonable, not one Shilling of which has he even sent me to this day. Please to refer to my letter G of the 24 June 1785 and to his before mentioned letter E on the subject of Commission these will apply equally in (?) to his Claim for settling as he calls it. Dr Ross's debt, if he had settled his debt none of the good effect of such a Settlement has been felt by me - that Mr Russell may have been at some trouble and many have incurred some expence in his endeavours for the recovery of that and others of my debts may be true, but till that is effected in fact or in whole Commission in proportion only an attack to such Debts, but the extent of this I leave to your judgment & experience as a man of business. By his general declarations it would seem he means fairly, and it is my wish, as it has ever been my practice in business, to keep peace with him in that respect in every part of this negotiation through you; but my duty to a large family consisting of no less than thirteen children calls upon me to protect them and the little property they look up to me for, as far as is ought, and this I beseech you Sir to have in view in all your transactions with Mr Russell.

 

You will observe what he says in his before mentioned letters C&D proposing to purchase these Debts stated in the lists he transmitted to me, to this proposal I am inclined to listen, provided you are clear about and approve of the Security he offers, the time of payment by Instalments ought not to exceed one, two & three years; the term of the first which he proposed is now nearly expired, and I doubt not he has made a prop??? of that line in his Collections either for his own benefit, or for mine, or perhaps for both: on this Subject I beseech you Sir to bring your attention, and to give me your advice as I shall pay the greatest regards to what you recommend. The first thing that presents itself on such an occasion is the Character and responsibility of the Man we have to deal with, my connexion with the folks in Maryland has been so long withdrawn, that I scarcely know one Acquaintance in that State from whom I could obtain any information on these heads. I carried out with me to Maryland Mr Russell when very young and have almost ever since had intercourse and connexions in business with him through the whole of which I never had reason to doubt his integrity. I have at different times had fears of his having an expensive turn, and entre (?) I have the same fears still and that to gratify this turn, he has continued to withhold my property which has been already so long kept from me, and which he chiefly obtained during the War, however this may be I rely on your enquiries and advice. In your conversations with himself the best way is to be candid and open in expressing my fears which will probably draw from his candid answers. Should Mr Russell be obstinate and refuse to meet a fair Settlement and to deliver to you my Books and Papers in his possession, the two Accounts Currnt sent you herewith made from the accompanying Vouchers in his own handwriting will enable you to institute a Suit at Common Law to compel the payment of the balance he may owe as well as the delivery of those Papers &c but you will probably wait my answer to your information on that Score before you enter upon a litigation. Permit me Sir most earnestly to request that you will take an early opportunity of communicating to Mr Russell the subject matters of this letter, and that you will expedite the much wished for settlement with him. That you may the better regulate yourself in that respect I send you a Copy of my letter to him on the business in question, the original of which you will forward as soon as convenient; in it you will observe I have mentioned that you will settle with him what may be a reasonable allowance for the course of my Books and Papers during the War - When this subject is under discussion please to refer to his letter H of 12 September 1773 which will shew I think clearly that there was no such promise made as he Claims for £100 per annum, but Mr Ridley and Mr Hodge's Mouths being now shut for ever I am deprived of a stronger evidence in objection to such an Allowance.

 

I send you under this cover the list of Balances due 31 August 1773 transmitted to me by Mr Russell in his before mentioned letter of 10th January 1786 with his Remarks on the State and quality of the respective Debtors, and also lists of Vouchers belonging to myself and former Partnership delivered to his care as per his receipts of September 1773: these lists will the better enable you to investigate the state of my Affairs under his management. I need not to a Gentleman of your knowledge and experience in business point out of what consequence the safety of these lists and Papers as well as the Letters herewith sent are to me and those that may succeed me, not doubt their being kept in a safe repository. Mr Russell has in his possession Books of Accounts Currnt containing sundry Debts wholly distinct from those contracted in Maryland by the Sale of Servants, but as I have not had a regular Statement of these for a considerable time past I am at a loss to know what payments have been made on those debts, as soon however as I hear from you on that score I will forward a complete state of the same. It will give me no small satisfaction to hear from you that this Packet has safely reached your hands. Your Brother has been so good as to take the charge of putting the same into a proper line of conveyance by a Ship just now about to depart for Baltimore. With much esteem I have the honor to be

                           Sir

 

List of Papers sent in this packet to Joseph Court Esqr

London 7th July 1792.

Power of Attorney from Duncan Campbell to Joseph Court Esqr

A Letter from William Russell to Mr Campbell - dated 20th Jany 1789

B Copy of a Letter from Mr Campbell to William Russell - dated 4 Decemr 1789

C Letter from William Russell to Mr Campbell dated 1 May 1790

D Letter from William Russell to Mr Campbell with a State of the payments made to him on Account of John Stewart and Campbell to Duncan Campbell List Debts &c {dated 29 May 1790}

E Letter from William Russell to Mr Campbell dated 10 Jany 1786

F Copy of William Russell's Agreement with John Stewart and Campbell 8 April 1768

G Copy of a letter from Mr Campbell to William Russell dated 24 June 1785

G Letter from William Russell to Mr Campbell dated 12 Septr 1775 List of Balances Due Duncan Campbell the 31 August 1775 received in Mr Russell's letter of 10 January 1786, with his remarks

List of Vouchers belonging to John Stewart and Campbell in hands of William Russell per his receipt of 5 September 1775.

List of Vouchers &c belonging to Duncan Campbell in hands of William Russell per his receipt of 5 September 1775.

William Russells Account Current with John Stewart and Campbell.

William Russells Account Current with Duncan Campbell

Letter from Mr Campbell to William Russell sealed, And a Copy of ditto for Mr Courts information -

Copy of the above list inclosed in Mr Courts Letter.

 

       Here, Campbell revealed a great deal that might have interested American historians delving into the aftermath of the American Revolution, delving even into the onset of the revolution.

 

      A brief chronology is thus: Probably before 1768, Campbell as partner with John Stewart on one trip to America had taken out a young agent to install in Virginia and Maryland, William Russell (brother of the later noted London tobacco merchant, James). There had been a captain Daniel Russell in the convict service as early as 1722, sailing for the London convict contractor Jonathan Forward. James Russell had settled in Nottingham in Prince George's County, Maryland, from 1729.

 

       By 1735, James Russell dealt in ships and slaves and loaned on mortgage. He also had links with Buchanans in London and with them had an interest in a colonial ironworks. His brother-in-law was James Wardrope. James Russell had married into the powerful Maryland Lee family and a Lee relative had a store at Dumfries. By the 1750s, James Russell had built links with Annapolis shipbuilder James Roberts and Annapolis merchant James Dick. By 1763, James Russell had a counting house in London, William remaining in America. By April 1768, William was an agent for Stewart and Campbell, selling their "convict servants". (One might presume that Campbell in turn sold part of his tobacco to James Russell in London?) During the 1750s and 1760s, James Russell as Maryland merchant (in London) with another Maryland merchant, William Molleson, were part of the "core group" of American merchants in London, along with Campbell. In 1762, James Russell's sister married William Molleson, and James Russell and Molleson became partners in London, till about 1770.

 

     During the 1770s, Russells used the services of Captain Johnstoun's annual ship in the tobacco trade (among other vessels, presumably). James Russell dealt also with William Lee in Virginia. By 1766, the firm Russell and Thomas Hodge was selling Stewart and Campbell's convict servants, and William Russell would also deal to Europe, while by 1767 another dealer in convict servants for Campbell was Ringold in Maryland. By about 1770, William Russell was partner with Matthew Ridley, another of Campbell's agents.

 

     In 1770, William Russell moved to Baltimore. By 1771, Joshua Johnson in London had warned his Annapolis partners Charles Wallace and John Davidson that Russell and others were interested in shipping tea to American colonies. By early 1773, James Russell reportedly was owed £50,000. Before 1775, James Russell had helped set up William and Darby Lux, linked with the convict service, in shipping between America and the West Indies - William Lux, Charles Ridgely and one Dorsey managed Russell's business on the Patapsco River at Elk Ridge near Baltimore, the same landing often used by Campbell. The tobacco dealer John Buchanan also had links here. The Luxs were soon in debt to James Russell (William Lux and Bowly). By 1769-1773, other links in Annapolis were with James Dick and Anthony Stewart. One Russell client, Charles Ridgely, also dealt with the Bristol convict contractors, Stevenson, Randolph and Cheston.

 

     By 1774, Molleson sent a considerable nine annual ships, London-to-Maryland, and dealt annoyingly with Col. Landon Carter (who also dealt with Campbell, who had once personally visited Carter's plantation). Carter was also quite annoyed with Thomas Hodge. On the Continent, Campbell sold tobacco to Boronberg and Gopiter (sic, who may have been linked with Berenbergs (sic) who dealt with John Parish the British merchant in Hamburg. Russell in London with American tea importers Wallace and Co. and Williams and Co., both of Annapolis, was directly involved in the affair of the ship Peggy Stewart, with its objectionable hidden parcels of tea, in October 1774. Amos Hayton in London had sold the tea to Russell and at this time, one of Campbell's correspondents, William Fitzhugh, was in touch with James Russell.

 

     In October 1775, James Russell was owed about £100,000 by Americans, so he was a signatory to the "extreme" petition urging government to restore peace in the American colonies. William Molleson's attitude was deeply resented in North American colonies.  Campbell's own views on the issues were conservative, but no evidence surfaces Campbell's stance was resented in America. Charles Graham an agent for Russell of London was in 1775 elected to the Maryland Constitutional Convention. Charles Ridgely, deeply in debt to Russell, was elected to the same convention.

 

     During 1776, James Russell was honorifically made a trustee of Maryland bank stock. And Molleson kept in touch with Lord Dartmouth about the American troubles, playing a double role. In 1776, Molleson's Maryland agent was a Maryland congressman, Matthew Tilghman of Nantes. Russell's agent was Charles Graham. William Russell remained  Campbell's agent through the American Revolution, as the firm Russell and Ridley. By 1780, William Molleson was secretary of the Audit Office in London (in which capacity he came to know Francis Baring, who dealt with John Parish of Hamburg). ([21]) And in 1787 Thomas Contee in Nottingham, Maryland, was Molleson's agent for debt collection, Molleson being owed less than £83,000 by Americans. William Russell by the late 1780s may not have been pleased that Campbell's agent in Virginia was John Rose of Leeds Town? From 1782, Campbell had become deeply involved with the British Creditors... and, given that Campbell and other chairmen of the British Creditors had to deal with government ministers, a useful continental contact may have been John Parish of Hamburg, contactable via Francis Baring?

 

     As we have seen, in early 1786, Campbell was the only British merchant who would speak to Thomas Jefferson about any trade-related matter, at a time when the financier Morris of Philadelphia was handling a great deal of American tobacco, and Francis Baring was increasingly (semi-secretly) interested in trade with America ([22]) It is possible that from about 1784, Francis Baring had been dealing with American capitalists - and was perhaps even using Campbell's advice? In 1787, a man otherwise unknown from Campbell's Letterbooks, one John Parish nominated Campbell as a member of The Society for the Encouragement of Arts, Manufacture and Commerce at the Adelphi, following which Campbell promoted Bligh for the first breadfruit voyage.  John Parish of Hamburg ([23]) by 1796-1797, (the years of financial ruin for Robert Morris and Nicholson), was the Hamburg agent for Morris, who requested Parish to sell US land for him.

 

     In February 1798 an action by a minor creditor sent Morris to a debtor's prison. While Morris was imprisoned, John Parish in Hamburg plus Gouvenour Morris made efforts to extricate Morris from his predicament. If Morris' agent John Parish was the same John Parish nominating Campbell for The Society for the Encouragement of Arts, Commerce and Manufacture, the implications might be intriguing. There was however another John Parish, who gave a Gibraltar address, who might have nominated Campbell.

 

     Then, in 1791, Campbell, William Molleson and the former Carolina merchant John Nutt were attempting yet again to retrieve their American debts as committee of British Creditors. Campbell had a great deal to think about. In mid-1792, he took all his American affairs out of the hands of William Russell and put them all in the hands of Joseph Court in North America. Campbell wrote a stiff letter for William Russell, which among other matter contains a strong implication that Campbell had made surprisingly little from the sale of "convict servants" after the death of John Stewart in 1772.

 

(The above names are important to an understanding of the commercial aspects of the outbreak of the American Revolution. But they may also be of interest to any North American pondering family history and wondering if they had a convict ancestor?).

 

Campbell Letter 223:

                                       London 7 July 1792

William Russell Maryland

                   You have no doubt been under some surprise at my not sooner having acknowledged the receipt of your letters of the 1st & 29 May 1790 nor am I less so at your continued silence. ([24])< /p>

I had qualified a young Gentleman for the purpose of sending him out as an Embassy to you, but he was taken ill at Gravesend when about to embark and died in a few weeks after.

As the business yet to be settled between you and I would be a tedious if not unsatisfactory negotiation to carry on at such a distance, I have through my intimacy with Mr Christopher Court here, got his sanction and introduction to his Brother Mr Joseph Court who resides at no great distance from Annapolis to undertake a Settlement of my Affairs with you, the character I hear of him and the knowledge I have of you gives me great hopes of an amicable adjustment to these matters, to effect which after so long and friendly an intercourse between us I trust and hope you or I will not stand for triffles [sic]. Mr Court is furnished with the Lists of Debts and Accounts transmitted to me in your letters of the 1st & 29 May 1790 which likewise contain the proposals you make for a purchase of my Debts and giving Security for the payment of the same by Instalments. Upon these therefore and the explanatory Remarks accompanying and referred to in your letters I shall with your permission and with that candour and temper you recommend make a few observations - First then in answer to your remarks A. addressing your reasons for proposing a Claim for Extra Services performed twenty years before; you certainly had overlooked the tenor of your Agreement with Stewart & Campbell made April 1768 which entitled them to your whole and exclusive Services in Maryland and Virginia and for which I thought and still think your Salary at that time of day was a full compensation. I therefore beg to refer you to that Deed which will as it ought convince you that you were only in the exercise of your duty to your Employer and of course a Claim for Extra Services cannot be admitted. The next Articles which present themselves as objectionable in your Account sent me is a Commission of 15 pcent on £3812/9/3d which you say were good Debts in May 1790, and on £2225/15/11d stated by you to be the Amount of Dr Ross's debt - You surely cannot be serious in expecting that I should think you entitled to such a Commission when not one shilling of all the money come through your hands has been remitted to me hence I must refer you to my letter of 24 June 1785 and yours in answer of 10 January 1786 on the subject of Commissions which I think no Man of common sense and integrity can be at a loss to construe. The Commission however being a Contingency and depending on the event of your purchasing those Debts or not I leave to be adjusted between Mr Court and you upon fair and equitable terms. As to Capt McGachery his debt surely cannot with any degree of propriety be ranked in the class or list of bad debts after what you yourself have said in the above referred to letter of 19 January 1786 on that subject; and as to Lux and Bowly I cannot consider that as a doubtful debt & I trust & hope it will not be so stated in any Settlement to be made.

As to the Clark Charge for your care of my Books, Papers &c during the War and the reasons you give for expecting an Allowance for your trouble and attention in keeping them safe, it always was my intention to make you a present for that service, but what you say of Mr Ridley and Mr Hodge's promise I own astonished me, neither of these Gentlemen ever expressed the smallest intimation to me that they had given you hopes of any such Allowance, this will more clearly appear by referring to your letter of 12 September 1775, their Mouths are now shut and no further information on that score is likely ever to reach my ear. It appears clearly however that you was reaping (?) (?) advantage from the possession of my Vouchers by the considerable payments made to you on my Account pending the War, look back to these, lay your hand on your breast and tell me whether in justice I and my family ought not to have participated in that benefit by Remittances which you so often & repeatedly promised in your letter. Notwithstanding these disappointments and being desirous to keep up the harmony and good will which I ever wished to subsist between us, and shall not on my side be interrupted I have instructed Mr Court to settle with you what may be a reasonable Allowance for your care of any Books and papers during the War. Expecting to hear from you soon after the receipt of this letter - I remain

                        Dear Sir

 

Campbell Letter 224:

                       Mt Pleasant 13 July 1792

Dugald Campbell chez Monsr H(?) Jn Conte Schulthess - Zurich ([25])< /p>

             Just as I was stepping into my chaise yesterday, I had the pleasure to receive your & Jacks letters from Turin of the 30th Ult with their several inclosures. As I have doubts whether this may overtake you at Zurich or whence I may next find you, any letter I henceforth may address to either of you will be merely to convey an Account of the health & Welfare of the family from time to time. I am much pleased at what you & Jack say about his appointment to the Atlas. I sincerely hope he will find it an agreeable birth [sic]. I shall show Mr Cameron his letter, but I know he as well as Cooper would wish how soon he can make his appearance. What you say about the smallness in the additional expence a weeks delay may occasion that consideration I hope, we are both satisfied hes at this time I say little weight with me one way or other; it (?) (?) at hand if wanted that I am anxious about - both Husband & Captain have occasionally expressed such a wish, I understand the Ship will be launched the 15 or 20th next Month. We are all well & join in cordial Love to you & Jack with my Dear Dugald

                                your ever affectionate Father

 

      That Campbell was newly re-considering the handling of volumes of tobacco is obvious from the following letter to Christopher Court - and it was unusual for Campbell to be so far out of London...

 

Campbell Letter 225:

                 Margate 31 July 1793

Christopher Court

       By this mornings post I received a letter from Mr Boyick informing me that you had no letter from Mr Rose nor Copy of the Evidence &c on the subject of removing the Tobac Warehouses to the Premises on which the Albion Hill lately stood, all of which I requested Mr Rose would convey to you and which he promised should be done and I pressed this the more as I told him I thought you the fittest person in London to give the needful information on that head I told him besides that the indisposition of part of my family required my making a visit to this place for a week or two in hopes of receiving benefits from the Sea Basking, permit me therefore to request you will receive from Mr Boyick Mr Roses letter to me with the evidence & Estimate he was pleased to transmit and that you will lay the same before and collect the same of such of the Importers & Exporters as are within our reach for the purpose of obtaining the information on mr Rose duties I have cast my eye over the various evidence adduced touching the safety & expedition of Navigating Tobacco Lighters thro London Bridge. It appears to me the risque of that Navigation on a rising tide is very small; but on falling tide there is more attention necessary. On this head Lightermen who have had long & constant experience ought to be the fittest persons to give information on that score, it being a business..

 

      This is some evidence that Campbell was again considering dealing in tobacco, but in all, it is not clear what he and the other London tobacco traders, notable traders before 1776, were doing after 1790. Or, were prevented from doing, regarding trade in tobacco. One has no idea why he was in Margate.

 

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     Bligh in the Pacific on his second breadfruit voyage meanwhile had proceeded from Tahiti towards Jamaica and by 17 December, 1792 had called at St Helena to receive orders from England, designating where he was to deliver his botanical specimens. Bligh by then had on Providence some of the whalers from the wrecked Third Fleet whaler, Matilda, Capt. Whetherhead ([26]) Matilda had been wrecked near the Marquesas Islands, and Bligh had met the survivors at Matavi Bay. But as noted earlier, Bligh had not picked up all the shipwrecked crew - some had been determined to get to Nootka Sound via Jenny and Britannia.

 

      Finally, Bligh with Providence and Assistant anchored in Kingston Harbour, St Vincent, 23 January, 1793. A deputation from the Council and Assembly presented Bligh with an address and a piece of plate valued at 100 guineas, after which a public dinner was held for he and his officers. ([27]) Bligh on 30 January, 1792, sailed from St Vincent for Jamaica. By 6 February, he was at Port Royal, Jamaica, where a committee (one of whom was McLean), had decided half the Jamaican allotment of breadfruit was to be placed in the garden of Hinton East at Savannah La Mar. The two ships parted, Providence proceeding to Port Morant. By 23 February, all 623 breadfruit plants had been landed. Later the Jamaican House of Assembly in gratitude voted Bligh 1000 guineas and Nathaniel Portlock 500 guineas.

 

          There being war between France and Britain, Bligh and his men saw action with the capture of several French vessels. Life then remained quiet until on 10 June, 1793, Bligh's ships were ordered to sail to Cape Antonia, Cuba. That same day, Bligh from "Saltbush Estate" (but presumably Campbell's Saltspring) wrote to Francis Godolphin Bond on Providence. ([28]) It would appear Bligh was seeing his old friend, Dugald, who presumably would have regaled Bligh with tales of his recent tour of the Continent.

 

      Providence was then lying by Bluefields, the estate owned by Peter Campbell which Duncan had been supplying for years. ([29]) At about the same time, Bligh ordered Bond to "Send a cask of wine on shore for Mr Campbell, it is of the musquedel sort, Mr Nicholas knows which." Probably, this was for Dugald. Bligh's ships left Jamaica on 15 June, making for Cuba. By 7 August, 1793 Bligh arrived back at Deptford, his voyage an unqualified success, except that it was not yet known that the slaves on Jamaica would never eat breadfruit.

 

          Then came a lesson for Europe from "a noble savage" from the Pacific. A Tahitian on board one of Bligh's ships, Mydiddie, received a great shock when from the deck he saw some gibbeted corpses lined along the Thames. His shock was so great he shortly died, it is said. He was buried in Deptford Churchyard, his tombstone paid for by Sir Hyde Parker. (His mystified reactions were not unlike those of the Aboriginals about Sydney, who could not understand how or why the whites could flog people with whips, or hang them by the neck until they had died, or starve them on Sydney Harbour's Pinchgut Island).

 

      On 7 August, 1793, also, Bligh landed tropical plants for the Kew Gardens in which Sir Joseph Banks took such keen interest. On the 9th, important friends of Banks visited the ships. On 22 August, 1793 Bligh ordered Bond to deliver certain items to Campbell. And so the unlikely story of the transplantation of the breadfruit from Tahiti to the West Indies remained to be torn from the facts and turned into a legend. A friend of Bligh,  George Keate, wrote a poem with the most ludicrous title in the history of the English language - "An Ode - To Captain Bligh on his return to England in 1793, after having in so successful a manner executed the Commission entrusted to his care, of Transporting the Breadfruit Trees from Otaheite to the Islands of Jamaica and St. Vincent."

 

       The courts martial arising from the mutiny were over, but there were still scores to settle between Bligh's camp and the Christian family. Edward Christian - some said he wasted his talents - was Professor of Law of the East India College of Haileybury, and sometime editor of Blackstone's legal commentary. Duncan Campbell's captain Edward Lamb, his former sailmaker Lawrence Lebogue, all promised aid to Bligh's cause. There was a war of words which lingers still in literature and was heard on TV in Australia in 1997. The Christian family finally crumpled under the weight of opposition. The affair descended into a pit of character assassination, protection of family honour, badly constructed legend, and insults to Bligh. It finally become known, by 1808, that Fletcher Christian had gone to Pitcairn Island, which had originally been mischarted and made an ideal hidey-hole in the Pacific. By 1808, only a few people other than members of the Bligh and Campbell families would have remembered the Campbells' acquaintance with Dr Pitcairn. Which is yet another irony that the miswriting of the Bligh-Campbell connection encourages us to ponder. ([30])

 

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[Finis Chapter 42]

Words 7377 words with footnotes 8846 pages 15 footnotes 30