The Cozens/Byrnes Merchants Networks Project - Updated 27 September 2020

[Prevous page - Timelines From 1760-1770] [You are now on Merchants Networks Project Timelines page filed as: From 1770-1780 - timelines6.htm] [Next page Timelines 1780-1790]

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This file is devoted to presenting basic Timeline information for website readers. The items are often sketchy, and some have been extracted from other websites managed by Dan Byrnes. These Timelines will be added to intermittently, as new data and new e-mail arrives. Book titles will be entered according to the timeframes they treat. -Ed

To go to the next file in this Merchant Networks Timelines series of files, Timelines7

For 1770++

Merchant Networks Timelines
From 1500 to 1930	There are now 21 files in this series
Most files are filled with data for ten-year periods (decadally)	These data have been years in compilation. Their trend is to follow the changing shapes of the British Empire.

Reference items

1770: F. G. Fassett, The Shipbuilding Business in the United States. (Two Vols) New York, 1948.*

1770: Joseph A. Goldenberg, Shipbuilding in Colonial America. Charlottsville, 1976.*

1770: Pacific Explorations: See Michael Cannon, (Ed: Margaret Fraser), Reader's Digest, The Exploration of Australia: From First Sea Voyages to Satellite Discoveries. Sydney, 1987.

Follows an impression of the family history of London Lord Mayor 1770 Brass Crosby:
Descendants of Hercules CROSBY and sp: Mary BRASS 2. London Lord Mayor Brass CROSBY (b.1725;d.1793)
This Lord mayor married three wealthy widows, names presently unknown.

1770: About 1770 the governors of London's Christ's Hospital included Arthur Baron, Adrian Beyer, Col James Boddington, Sir William Coles, Sir James Collett, Peter Godfrey, Samuel Jackson, Robert Knight, Thomas Lockington and Micajah Perry [Jnr?]: [A. L. Bier and Roger Finlay, London, 1500-1700: The Making of the Metropolis, p. 276]. The Virginia planter Robert Carter dealt with merchants Perry and Thomas Lane in London; William Byrd II (1674-1774) once went to Holland to learn mercantile matters; he was later associated with Perry and Lane of London, before he studied law prior to his admission to the Bar [Clarence L. Ver Steeg, The Formative Years, 1607-1763. London, Macmillan, 1965., pp. 103, 134, pp. 184-185, p. 192, p. 233]. It is not known if Perry merchants were related to Pery (sic), a long-term secretary for the Africa Company. The Virginia planter Robert Carter wrote to Messrs Perry of London, 2 June, 1721; [Ralph Davis, The Rise of the English Shipping Industry in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. London, Macmillan, 1962., pp. 278ff].

1770s: Alexander Hamilton was the Maryland factor for James Brown and Co. In 1770, William Russell moved to Baltimore. [Jacob Price, 'One Family's Empire', p. 168, Note 5. T. Thompson, p. 23.]

1770, Captain James Cook charts eastern coast of Australia.

1770: Deberdt and Burkitt, Kellock, London debt claimants of 1790 appendix p. 123, head was Dennis Deberdt who died in 1770 aged 77, a dissenter with a strong interest in Massachusetts House of Reps. pre war debt of firm was £47,294 in Pennsylvania, New York, Mass and South Carolina. Dennys Deberdt [died 1770] and Wright Burkitt-Kellock; Deberdt and Burkitt, Kellock, London debt claimants of 1790, appendix, p. 123, head was Dennis Deberdt who died in 1770 aged 77, a dissenter with a strong interest in Massachusetts House of Reps. pre war debt of firm was £47,294 in Pennsylvania, New York, Mass and South Carolina.

1770: The establishment from 1770 of the East India Company's "first bank at Canton", which later helped the operations of the British opium trade.

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1770s-1790: On opium trader Alexander Colvin, active by 1790 if not earlier. Parents unknown. In the 1770s were two substantial concerns, Croftes and Johnson, dissolved in 1785, case Kirkpatrick versus Johnson; and Paxton and Cockerell, operating in Calcutta, while the house operated of Alexander, Bayne and Colvin, which grew out of a business earlier conducted solely by the East India Company's paymaster, Claud Alexander, earlier than 1784.
(See S. B. Singh, Agency Houses, p. 10, p. 41, opium dealers; pp. 216ff and also on indigo deals.)

The 1770s: Years earlier, ship volumes in the Anglo-Baltic trade might have been such as 1000 ships loading at Dantzig to 1750. Later, 1300 ships; By 1700, some 250 ships annually sailed from Riga, to 500 by 1750; in 1789, some 4388 ships left Baltic ports, with 1300 carrying timber, some 210 cargoes of ship timber. (Albion, Forests and Sea Power, p. 161).

1771: ++ Unmarried. Contractor and banker John Farquhar (1751-1826), Farquhar arrived at age nineteen in London to join the EICo at Bombay. He had 45 years in India and returned to London in 1814 after leaving his Will in Calcutta with his agents, Colvin and Bassett. He was born at Kirkaldy and ended found dead in his bed, presumably having died in his sleep. When he made his Will he had a friend, George Wilson who was one of his agents and he was also friends with Sir John Royds, puisine Judge of Supreme Court, in Bengal, and John McKenzie, Military Paymaster General of Bengal, friend of George Davidson, Mint Master, Bengal. And friends in London with George Harry Phillips. Farquar began as a saltpetre dealer in India. He dealt sometimes with David Scott Senior. His solicitor was Mr Drake. Names arise re his Will, Mary Lumsden and Charlotte Aitken. His fortune went to seven mostly unnamed nephews and nieces - one of whom was James Farquhar Fraser a barrister, one being James Mortimer, also a George Mortimer (died 1832) a wool trader. Once at Bombay, Farquhar had a hip wound, became a sort of chemist, and was known for respecting the moral system of the Brahmins. He moved for his health to Bengal, and re chemistry became interested in gunpowder, in the time of Lord Cornwallis. Gunpowder manufacturer at Pultah had been found unsatisfactory, Farquhar improved, and became superintendent at factory at Ishapore in Bengal, and final sole contractor, enjoying the favour of Warren Hastings. In middle life he went back to England with about £500,000, [which became about a million and a half]; his banker was Hoare (or, George Barnett); he was eccentric and penurious in behaviour, dressed poorly etc, and he had a residence in Upper Baker Street, Portman Square. He became a partner in 1816 in the great agency house of Basset, (Crawford) Farquar and Co. in the City (with R. C. Bassett, David Colvin, W. Crawford and J. G. Remington) and had shares in Whitbread's brewery (having bought the late Mr Whitbread's share in the brewery). In 1822 he bought Fonthill Abbey from William Beckford (1749-1844) for £300,000; when he died, intestate, he was worth about £1.5 million, which was divided amongst his seven nephews and nieces. (His own DNB entry.) Query: might he have dealt with gunpowder and Frederick Pigou? He evidently dealt with David Scott Snr. One David Colvin of Basset and Co. had something to do with his Will (proved in Calcutta in 7 March 1814). Farquhar once met a Mr. Joseph Hume at the 1825 funeral of Mr Fairlie and discussed education in Scotland. He had some relatives with links to name Trezevant in Georgia USA.

1771: (Walvin, p. 100), Landon Carter the great Virginian planter in 1771, p. 279. and slave runaways. p 85, Chesapeake area. Carter family. Walvin p. 344 cites J. P. Greene, (Ed), Diary of Col. Landon Carter, 1752-1772. Two Vols. Charlottesville. 1965. See on slavery, M. Craton and J. Walvin, A Jamaican Plantation. London, 1970. James Walvin, Black Ivory: A History of British Slavery. London, Harper Collins, 1992. James Walvin with Michael Craton and David Wright, (Eds.), Slavery, Abolition and Emancipation. 1976.

1771+: London Lord Mayors, in 1771 Mayor is Brass Crosby, John Sawbridge in 1776, 1776, Sir Thomas Halifax, 1779 Mayor is Samuel Plumbe, in 1779 Brackley Kennett is Mayor, in 1780 Brackley Kennett is mayor, in 1782 Sir William Plomer is Mayor, in 1784 Robert Peckham is mayor, in 1792 John Hopkins is Mayor, in 1792 Paul Le Mesurier is mayor, in 1797 Brook Watson is Mayor, in 1795 Thomas Skinner is Mayor, in 1798 Sir John William Anderson is mayor, in 1797 John William Anderson is Mayor, in 1800 mayor is Harvey Christian Combe; in 1801 mayor is Sir John Camer.

1772: Marion du Fresne, French explorer - at New Zealand, killed and eaten (along with 15 crew members) at Bay of Islands (northern North Island) in 1772.

1772: So-called sexual revolutionary De Sade seeks an aphrodisiac, and gives prostitutes sweets laced with Spanish Fly, a name for blister beetles found in Southern Europe.

1772: Discovery of mysterious Easter Island in the Pacific by three Dutch ships, Commander Jacob Roggeveen. (Date from Hancock and Faiia, p. 221).

1772: James Albert Ukawsaw Gronniosaw writes the first autobiographical slave narrative.

1772 and thereabouts: On the career of East India Co. rebel William Bolts (1739-1808). The British in Bengal were in transition as seen through the lens of William Bolts' career. By 1764, Bolts was unpopular with EICo officialdom in India, as he was a conspicuously successful private trader. Bolts by 1772 had his revenge, he oechestrated matters such that the Armenian merchant clients of Governor Verelst would pursue Verelst in the courts. After which, Bolts became an enemy of the administration of Warren Hastings. Verelst was of Dutch extraction, was a friend of Clive of India, and once bought a manor, Astor. Cf., William G. J. Kulters, The British in Bengal, 1756-1773.

1773: Slaves in Massachusetts unsuccessfully petition the government for their freedom.

1773: Boston: Phillis Wheatley becomes the first published Afro-American poet when a London publisher releases a collection of her verse.

1773: Firm Greenwood and Higginson; earliest firm member seems to have been John Beswicke a trader to Africa who went to South Carolina, later at Cheapside London, partner with William Greenwood and own nephew William Higginson, in 1773, this firm organised tea for Leger and Greenwood at Charles Town, and also dealt with Andrew Lord and William and George Ancrum, with their own ship the London, Capt Curling as the carrier. Finding a harsh reaction in America, property in America was confiscated (Kellock's article).

1773: East India Company grants land to John Prinsep, one of the first free Britishers in Calcutta, to set up a chintz workshop. Later he developed large interests in indigo before retiring to London business life with a fortune.
See (broken link?): http://www.bengalonthenet.com/adda/millennium/timeline/milestones_.htm - Bengal on the Net

1773: EICo as a monopoly grows opium in Bengal and sells it at auction to all comers. (Bulley, Bombay Ships, p. 153.) Opium is sold along Malay peninsula, to China and elsewhere and funds paid into the EICo's Canton treasury in exchange for bills on London or Bengal houses. ("The first EICo bank at Canton".)

1773: Boston Tea Party and Merchants: - A List of America Merchants in London at the time of the Boston Tea Party: 1773. Brook Watson of Watson and Rashleigh, Garlick Hill; Benjamin Fanieul; Joshua Winslow at Boston late of Nova Scotia; Jonathan Clarke a London-based partner of Richard Clarke and Sons of Boston; Gilbert Barkly; George Browne of Tower Hill; John Browne of Philadelphia; Roberts, Payne and Roberts, King's Arms Yard; William Morris and Co of Philadelphia; William Kelly; Greenwood and Higginson, Andrew Lord and George Ancrum all of Charleston, South Carolina; Benjamin Harrison, Virginia merchant at Webb's, Arundel Street, and his son; Samuel Whaton (Wharton?); George Hayley and John Blackburn; Frederick Pigou Jr of Mark Lane; Pigou and Booth, New York; William Palmer of Devonshire Square; Messrs Hutchinson of Boston; John Nutt, New Broad Street Buildings; Roger Smith, South Carolina. (List provided by Dr. Pennie Pemberton).

Anon, John Julius Angerstein and Woodlands, 1774-1974: a Bicentenary exhibition celebrating the building of Woodlands by John Julius Angerstein, 17 September-5 November, 1974. London Borough of Greenwich, Woodlands Art Gallery, 1974.

1774 Spanish Captain Juan Perez and Santiago get as far north as Alexander Archipelago and get sea otter skins from Haidas. (Item re fur trade and North-West America) -- 1778 Britisher Captain Cook discovers Nootka Sound, explores PNW, meets with Russians on islands close to shore. (Item re fur trade and North-West America)

1774: Whaling history: Nantucket whaler Capt. Uriah Bunker crosses the Equator to work the Brazils whaling grounds in brig Amazon.
K. Jack Bauer, A Maritime History of the United States: The Role of America's Seas and Waterways.. University of South Carolina Press, 1988., p. 232.

In 1774: In Jamaica, the very centre of Negro slavery, a debating society voted the slave trade not consistent with sound policy or the laws of nature and of morality. In 1776, Thos. Jefferson wrote into the Declaration of Independence three paragraphs attacking the King of England for his "piratical warfare" on the people of the coast of Africa, who had never offended him, and for refusing to try to stem the slave trade, but these paragraphs later deleted; two petitions against slavery presented to Parlt in 1774 and 1776, and again by Quakers in 1783; and Lord North defended slavery before the Quaker petition of 1783, and said abolition was impossible, but the loss of the American colonies had led to a re-evaluation of the value of the West Indies, (Eric Williams, p. 154, p. 255.) Thos Jefferson on balance was in favour of slavery, while Adam Smith was against it. (entry, Williams, p. 108,) Thomas Jefferson preferred white servants to black slaves, and thought not so well of the capabilities and potentials of members of the Negro race.

1774: Firm Hibbberts, (See C. N. Parkinson, The Trade Winds), George Hibbert and Co. was a mercantile firm at the turn of the century, 1800, owning a ship of 610 tons, one of the largest in the West India trade. Other sources indicate George Hibbert was an Alderman of London, and first chairman of the Court of Directors of the West India Dock Company of the late 1790s.

1774: Spanish visit Nootka Sound area, source of furs for Canton market - Juan Perez.

1774, Ice cream is known in France. It was made in the US by Jacob Fussell, and could be enjoyed in Baltimore, Boston, New York and Washington.

1774: Jesse Ramsden innovates fast, accurate machining for sextants.

31 March, 1774: British Parliament closes down the Port of Boston - an error of judgement.

1774: Revolutionary America: The First Continental Congress bans trade with Britain and vows to discontinue the slave trade after the following Ist of December. In 1774, Connecticut, Rhode Island and Georgia prohibit the importation of slaves and Virginia took action against slave importation. Georgia took further action against slave importatuion in 1775.

1774: John Wesley, writes Thoughts Upon Slavery. London 1774.

1774: Edward Long, writes History of Jamaica. 3 Vols, London. 1774 [re costs and profits of sugar planting and a racist attack "dehumanising the Negro"].

1774-1785: Warren Hastings is governor-general of British India. Later impeached in London.

5 March, 1774: Opening of Lloyd's of London for marine insurance over the north west corner of the Royal Exchange, with T. Taylor as master of ceremonies. Thomas Tayler, master of Lloyd's 1774-1796. 1774-1814, a suppression of the gate crashers at Lloyd's, the non-serious men. 1774, beginning of career of Thomas Tayler as Master of Lloyd's Coffee House till June 6, 1796. It was in 1791, Justice Buller said, "A policy of Assurance has at all times been considered in a court of law as an absurd and incoherent instrument", one of the more famous remarks noted by historians of Lloyd's.

In May 1774, in Annapolis, merchants met to adopt four resolutions re American affairs, one of which, was that lawyers should not prosecute debts cases for British creditors until Parlt repealed the Intolerable Acts. (T Thompson, p. 23.)

June 1774: Boston newspapers carried a story that Molleson was among London merchants who had refused to sign a petition for the redress of American grievances. Thomas Contee acted in Maryland for Molleson. (Jacob Price, 'One Family', p. 190).

1774: In August 1774, (T. Thompson, p. 25) Charles Carroll, Maryland radical and protester, felt in a letter to Europe that the Empire was on the brink of ruin, due to "mistaken policy, an ill-grounded jealousy, or rather ye insatiable avarice or worse ambition of corrupt ministers intent on spreading that corruption thro America".

In Sept 1774: A Spanish expedition leaves South America to explore Tahiti and take possession for Spain. A matter history seems to have largely forgotten?

For Antarctic chronology:

1772-1775: Captain James Cook circumnavigates Antarctica.

1775: American David Bushnell works on idea of screw propeller for his hand-propelled submarine, Turtle.

1775: In April are the first battles between British and American forces at Lexington and Concord. In July, George Washington announces a ban on the enlistment of free blacks and slaves in the Colonial Army, but by year's end he reverses the ban, ordering the Continental Army to accept the service of free blacks.

1775: On the Estate of George Hayley (per Kellock, London debt claimants of 1790 appendix, p. 129).
George Hayley (1723-1781) and after Alexander Champion left Hayley in Great Ayliffe Street, Goodman's Fields, he tried to draw the former correspondents of Champion and Hayley and find others. At end of 1768 he got a partner, Edmund Hopkins, died 1785, but that ended in 1774. Hayley's relationship with Wilkes the alderman was helpful in finding American correspondents, but he also seems to have offered overly-extensive credit. At the end of the war with America, Mary Hayley went to New England and tried to recover debts. She was Mary Hayley, merchant, 7 Great Winchester Street. She finally claimed pre-war debts of £79,599, in Mass, Rhode Island, Penn, Conn and New Hampshire. (See Horace Bleakely, Life of John Wilkes. London, 1917. Estate of George Hayley (1723-1781), Alexander Champion and Hayley parted and Champion tried to steal clients, and Hayley from 1768 partner with Edmund Hopkins (died 1785) ending in 1774, as John Wilkes tried to help Hayley become MP, Hayley relied on offering excessive credit, and after he died Mary Hayley went unsuccessfully to US to collect debts, she was merchant of 7 Great Winchester St - Kellock's Lists; She finally claimed pre-war debts of £79,599, in Mass, Rhode Island, Penn, Conn and New Hampshire.

1775: Wilkinson bores cylinders in cannon with guide-bar.

1775: British Creditor Lists: William Jones - Little information. This Creditor of Bristol was presumably Jefferson's creditor. By the early 1770s, the Glasgow tobacco trade was dominated by three large firms, the Spiers, Glassfords and Cunninghames. The Speirs' group had variously been Speirs, Bowman and Co, Speirs, French and Co (with whom Duncan Campbell at times had dealt between 1772 and 1776); and then Patrick Colquhuon and Co, in which Alexander Speirs had a large share. Colquhuon must have brought a large capital back from America. (Speirs' first firm had begun with £16,200 in stock). It is not known where Colquhuon had lived in the colonies, but Speirs' Virginian stores were concentrated in the Upper James River area. In 1782, Colquhuon became Lord Provost of Glasgow, in 1783 he founded the Glasgow Chamber of Commerce. In the 1790s he moved to London, possibly a casualty of downturn in the tobacco trade. With the influence of Henry Dundas in 1792 he moved to London where he was appointed a metropolitan police magistrate, first at Bow Street, later at Worship Street. From 1793, concerned about the institutionalisation of pilfering from ships on the Thames, he assisted the lobby of West India merchants desiring a redevelopment of the West India docks, which they achieved after 1800. Those merchants had suffered long and greatly from institutionalised thievery, and one reason for building new docks was to find security for their goods. Colquhuon suggested that an extrapolation of the Bow Street runners, a water police force, should be established to protect river commerce, and he devoted much research, a kind of sociology of its day, to the "low types" thriving on river thievery. Aspects of Colquhuon's career are treated in the Everyman No. 835 edition of John Howard's book, State of the Prisons. (Orig. 1777).

1775-1783, The American War of Independence. The beginning of the end for aristocracy as the dominant model enabling government of populations. Revolutionary war concluding with Treaty of Paris in 1783.

1775: American David Bushnell works on idea of screw propeller for his hand-propelled submarine, Turtle.

1775: Robert G. Albion, William A. Baker and Benjamin W. Labaree, New England and The Sea. Middletown, 1972.*

1775: William Hutchinson Rowe, Maritime History of Maine. New York, 1948.

1775: John A. Tilley, The British Navy and the American Revolution.. University of South Carolina Press, part of a series on maritime history. nd?

1775: Samuel Eliot Morison, Maritime History of Massachusetts. Boston, 1921.*

1775: By about now, noted Rhode Island merchants Aaron Lopez and Moses Brown are getting out of slaving business, leaving leadership of slaving to the de Wolfs in Providence. Lopez and Brown move their money into distilleries and textile mills by about 1799.
K. Jack Bauer, A Maritime History of the United States: The Role of America's Seas and Waterways.. University of South Carolina Press, 1988., p. 66.

1775: Robert G. Albion, William A. Baker and Benjamin W. Labaree, New England and The Sea. Middletown, 1972.*

1775: William Hutchinson Rowe, Maritime History of Maine. New York, 1948.

1775: John A. Tilley, The British Navy and the American Revolution.. University of South Carolina Press, part of a series on maritime history. nd?

1775: Samuel Eliot Morison, Maritime History of Massachusetts. Boston, 1921.*

1775: By about now, noted Rhode Island merchants Aaron Lopez and Moses Brown are getting out of slaving business, leaving leadership of slaving to the deWolfs in Providence,Rhode Island. Lopez and Brown move their money into distilleries and textile mills by about 1799.
K. Jack Bauer, A Maritime History of the United States: The Role of America's Seas and Waterways.. University of South Carolina Press, 1988., p. 66.

1775: British Creditor Lists: John Strettel, Kellock, London debt claimants of 1790, appendix, p. 147. John Strettel 1721-Aug 1786) father prominent merchant in Philadelphia, and John later supplying the Indian Commissioners of Pennsylvania, exchanging goods for furs. By 1763, John Strettel at Mr Cooke's, Sise Lane, later by 1769 had his own premises at 1 Riches Court, Lime Street. Claimed debts of £14,848, with interest, Pennsylvania and New York. But in January 1775, he had been appointed with Brook Watson and a Mr Hunter to represent the trading interests of Quebec.

1775 British Creditor Lists: James (Bissell) (Bussell?) Russell - listed in Kellock [if Russell] Jacob Price, 'One Family's Empire'.

1775: British Creditor Lists: John Strettel, Kellock, London debt claimants of 1790 appendix p. 147. John Strettel 1721-Aug 1786) father prominent merchant in Philadelphia, and John later supplying the Indian Commissioners of Pennsylvania, exchanging goods for furs. By 1763, John Strettel at Mr Cooke's, Sise Lane, later by 1769 had his own premises at 1 Riches Court, Lime Street. Claimed debts of £14,848, with interest, Pennsylvania and New York. But in January 1775, he had been appointed with Brook Watson and a Mr Hunter to represent the trading interests of Quebec.; An indication of American indebtedness arose when Barlow Trecothick assembled figures on the value of his own exports and on those of seven other reputable firms including David Barclay and Sons and Lane, Son and Fraser. He said they had a combined debt of £956,579. When asked by members of Parlt re testimony he made on the necessity of repealing the Stamp Act, how long these sums had been due, he said it was impossible to say due to the roundabout nature of much of the American trade. (Citing: Trecothick Testimony, Feb 11, 1766, British Museum, Newcastle Papers, 30,030 vol. 145, 88-89. Kellock's article, p. 109.) Trecothick and Co, Kellock, London debt claimants of 1790 appendix p. 148. Barlow Trecothick son of a London sea-captain, told MPs in Feb 1766 he had lived in Boston, then in Jamaica, been in American trade for 23 years. In Boston he had been apprenticed to Charles Apthorp. By 1763 he was trading to West Indies and also to New England. Trecothick in 1764 was a London alderman and in 1768 a City MP. In December 1765 he chaired a meeting for the relief of American trade. Later debts claimed of £28,000' Mass, Conn, Rhode Island and New York.- Kellock's Lists;

1775: British Creditor Lists: Thomas and Rowland Hunt @ - listed in Kellock. (These are noted elsewhere in information on the Carter family of Virginia).

1775: British Creditor Lists: John Backhouse and Co. Little information. On John Backhouse of Liverpool. (See Olson, Virginia Merchants in London, p. 383. Also, Robert Polk Thomson, 'The Tobacco Export of the Upper James River Naval District, 1773-1775', William and Mary Quarterly, Series 3, Vol. 18, July 1961., p. 405.)
This dealer received about one third the amount of tobacco imported by Dobson, Daltera and Walker also of Liverpool.
(Richard B. Sheridan, 'The British credit crisis of 1772 and the American colonies', Journal of Economic History, 20, June 1960., pp. 161-182; here, p. p. 175.)

1775 and later: [Kellock lists some of the major London houses with debts in the American Colonies, (London debt claimants of 1790) being: George (and James) Abel and George M Macaulay, underwriters and merchants of 15 then 2 Cloak Lane; George and James Abel, merchants, 2 Cloak Lane, College Hill. George Abel probably the George Abel and Macaulay insurance underwriters at Lloyd's from ?? George and James Abel, merchants, 2 Cloak Lane, College Hill. George Abel probably the George Abel and Macaulay insurance underwriters later at Lloyd's. Abel and Macaulay, (Kellock, London debt claimants of 1790, appendix, p. 116), in 1769, George Abel a merchant at 15 Cloak Lane, College Hill, in 1785 George and James Abel at 2 Cloak Lane. In 1790 Abel and Macauley (sic) claimed a debt of £5630 3/5d all in South Carolina. - 1791 Macaulay between 1791 and 1795 was at 6 Leadenhall Street and c/- Lloyd's Coffee House, Cornhill.

1775: In 1775, the top seven tobacco importers in London were William and Robert Molleson, C. Court and T. Eden, Lyonel Lyde and Co, Dunlop and Wilson, Gale, Fearon and Co, Wallace, Davidson and Johnson, and various other and unknown accounting for 44.3 per cent of overall trade. (Jacob Price, 'One Family', p. 180).

1775: James F. Shepherd and G. H. Walton, Shipping Trade and the Economic Development of Colonial North America. Cambridge, England, 1972.*

1775: Stanley F. Chyet, Lopez of Newport. Detroit, 1970.* (Merchant history on US eastern seaboard before and after American Revolution)

1775: W. T. Baxter, The House of Hancock. Cambridge, Mass, 1945.

1775: Russell F. Weigley, (Ed.), Philadelphia. New York, 1982.*
1775-1776, Beginning of the American War of Independence concluding with Treaty of Paris in 1783.
Emory G. Evans, 'Private Indebtedness and the Revolution in Virginia, 1776 to 1796', William and Mary Quarterly, Series 3, Vol. XXXVIII, July 1971., pp. 349ff.

Late 1775: 1776, Royal Governor of South Carolina is Lord William Campbell, Gov. of North Carolina had been Josiah Martin. (Fleming, Illusions, p. 235).

Follows material on London Lord Mayor in 1775 John Sawbridge
Descendants of George SAWBRIDGE sp: Miss NOTKNOWN-13752
2. South Seas Co. investor, MP Jacob SAWBRIDGE (d.10 Jul 1748) sp: Elizabeth FISHER
3. John SAWBRIDGE (b.1669;d.20 Apr 1762) sp: Elizabeth WANLEY wife2
4. MP Alderman, London Lord Mayor John SAWBRIDGE (b.1732;d.21 Feb 1795) sp: Mary Diane BRIDGMAN wife1 (c.1763;m.17 Nov 1763;d.28 Jan 1764) sp: Anne STEPHENSON wife2 (c.1766;m.16 Jun 1766)
5. Samuel Elias SAWBRIDGE (b.1769;d.1851) sp: Elizabeth ELLIS (m.1794)
4. Historian - radical - Catherine (Macaulay) SAWBRIDGE, Pro-Wilkite (b.1733;d.1791) sp: Dr George MACAULAY (c.1752;d.1766)
4. Rev Wanley SAWBRIDGE Unm 4. Mary SAWBRIDGE
3. Jacob SAWBRIDGE sp: Elizabeth FISHER
3. John SAWBRIDGE Of Olantigh (b.1669;d.20 Apr 1762) 3. Jacob SAWBRIDGE sp: Miss NOTKNOWN

1775: Wilkinson bores cylinders in cannon with guide-bar.

1775: British Creditor Lists: William Jones - Little information. This Creditor of Bristol was presumably Jefferson's creditor. By the early 1770s, the Glasgow tobacco trade was dominated by three large firms, the Spiers, Glassfords and Cunninghames. The Speirs' group had variously been Spiers, Bowman and Co, Speirs, French and Co (with whom Duncan Campbell at times had dealt between 1772 and 1776); and then Patrick Colquhuon and Co, in which Alexander Speirs had a large share. Colquhuon must have brought a large capital back from America. (Speirs' first firm had begun with £16,200 in stock). It is not known where Colquhuon had lived in the colonies, but Speirs' Virginian stores were concentrated in the Upper James River area. In 1782, Colquhuon became Lord Provost of Glasgow, in 1783 he founded the Glasgow Chamber of Commerce. In the 1790s he moved to London, possibly a casualty of downturn in the tobacco trade. With the influence of Henry Dundas in 1792 he moved to London where he was appointed a metropolitan police magistrate, first at Bow Street, later at Worship Street. From 1793, concerned about the institutionalisation of pilfering from ships on the Thames, he assisted the lobby of West India merchants desiring a redevelopment of the West India docks, which they achieved after 1800. Those merchants had suffered long and greatly from institutionalised thievery, and one reason for building new docks was to find security for their goods. Colquhuon suggested that an extrapolation of the Bow Street runners, a water police force, should be established to protect river commerce, and he devoted much research, a kind of sociology of its day, to the "low types" thriving on river thievery. Aspects of Colquhuon's career are treated in the Everyman No. 835 edition of John Howard's book, State of the Prisons. (Orig. 1777).

1775 British Creditor Lists: James (Bissell) (Bussell?) Russell - listed in Kellock [if Russell] Jacob Price, 'One Family's Empire'.

1775: British Creditor Lists: Thomas and Rowland Hunt @ - listed in Kellock. (These are noted elsewhere in information on the Carter family of Virginia).

1775 and later: [Kellock lists some of the major London houses with debts in the American Colonies, (London debt claimants of 1790) being: George (and James) Abel and George M Macaulay, underwriters and merchants of 15 then 2 Cloak Lane; George and James Abel, merchants, 2 Cloak Lane, College Hill. George Abel probably the George Abel and Macaulay insurance underwriters at Lloyd's from ?? George and James Abel, merchants, 2 Cloak Lane, College Hill. George Abel probably the George Abel and Macaulay insurance underwriters later at Lloyd's. Abel and Macaulay, (Kellock, London debt claimants of 1790, appendix, p. 116), in 1769, George Abel a merchant at 15 Cloak Lane, College Hill, in 1785 George and James Abel at 2 Cloak Lane. In 1790 Abel and Macauley (sic) claimed a debt of £5630 3/5d al;l in South Carolina. place in lists - 1791 Macaulay between 1791 and 1795 was at 6 Leadenhall Street and c/- Lloyd's Coffee House, Cornhill.

1775: James F. Shepherd and G. H. Walton, Shipping Trade and the Economic Development of Colonial North America. Cambridge, England, 1972.*

1775: Stanley F. Chyet, Lopez of Newport. Detroit, 1970.* (Merchant history on US eastern seaboard before and after American Revolution)

1775: W. T. Baxter, The House of Hancock. Cambridge, Mass, 1945.

Late 1775: 1776, Royal Governor of South Carolina is Lord William Campbell, Gov. of North Carolina had been Josiah Martin. (Fleming, Illusions, p. 235).

1776: On the make-up of the British Parliament in 1776, see Lewis Namier and John Brooke, The History of Parliament. London. 1964.

1775 and before: The Estate of George Hayley Listed in Kellock's article [Otherwise in Kellock, William Dickinson and Co]. Hayley's widow Mary Wilkes died intestate in 1816. Her father was a distiller, Isaac Wilkes; her brother, John Wilkes, the notorious radical London alderman. She had first married a clothier, Samuel II Storke and secondly, George Hayley of the firm Hayley and Hopkins, investors in whaling. Later she had the assistance of Francis Rotch, whaler, and Patrick Jaffrey. John Wilkes was born in 1727, at Clerkenwell, London. A member of the Hell-fire Club, he had married Mary Aylesbury Meade.
George Hayley: Sources: An interesting view of Mary Hayley's brother, the radical alderman John Wilkes is given in Richard Ketchum, The Winter Soldiers: George Washington and The Way to Independence. London, Macdonald, 1973., pp. 68-73.
A prime anecdote about Hayley is that about the time of the Boston Tea Party, George III knew that the Boston merchant John Hancock was deeply indebted to Hayley. So the king must have been given City gossip.
The historian purveying this anecdote finds it insignificant. I find it highly significant that the king had information on which outspoken Boston merchant might have been indebted in the City! -Ed

1775 and before: Further on George Hayley: A Portuguese-Jewish merchant from Newport, Rhode Island, Aaron Lopez, developed links with George Hayley of Hayley and Hopkins of London. Lopez had extensive whaling contacts throughout New England, especially with the Rotches of Nantucket. Rotches provided equipment and acted as purchasing agents for the United Company of Spermaceti Candlers, a consortium of three Jewish merchants including Lopez. Hayley and Hopkins were to service the London market. By 1765, Lopez owed £10,000 to the son of Henry Cruger, Henry Cruger Jnr, a merchant of Bristol. This debt took four-five years to extinguish. Lopez built an even larger debt to George Hayley and Hopkins, to whom he transferred his business via London. In 1774 Lopez owed Hayley-Hopkins some £12,000. Lopez dealt also to the West Indies and owned several ships (slaving?), one placed in trade between Jamaica to London. [See Lopez to Cruger in Bristol, November 1770. Pares finds it impossible to quantify any of merchants' dealings such as those of Lopez, regarding factors such as capital formation. In 1775, Leonard Jarvis, a boatbuilder of Dartmouth, Massachusetts, was building a ship for Lopez. Capt Greenwood of King George, returning from the Falklands in 1775, spoke to Jarvis. Jarvis then wrote to Lopez on 5 April, 1775. Lopez had lost Leviathan off Brazil in 1773, on a voyage to the Falklands. A relevant title here is: B. M. Bigelow, 'Aaron Lopez: Colonial Merchant of Newport', New England Quarterly, No. 4, 1931., pp. 757-767]. Lopez' situations were part of the attempt that Enderbys in London had made from 1770 to found an English South Whale Fishery, but of course the American Revolution ruined the project.
On Abraham Lopez of Newport: Sources: Richard Pares, Yankees and Creoles: the trade between North America and the West Indies before the American Revolution. London. Longmans, Green and Co, 1956., pp. 162ff. See also Anthony Dickinson, 'Some aspects of the origin and implementation of the eighteenth century Falkland Islands sealing industry', International Journal of Maritime History, Vol. 1, No. 2, 1990., pp. 33-68.)

1775: British Creditor Lists: Joseph Daltera @ + The Daltera family is mentioned briefly in Samuel M. Rosenblatt, 'The Significance of Credit in the Tobacco consignment Trade: a study of John Norton and Sons., 1768-1775', William and Mary Quarterly, Series 3, 29, 1962., pp. 383-399. The Daltera family were Huguenots with a branch in Bristol, See pp. 181-183 in Kenneth Morgan, Bristol and the Atlantic Slave Trade in the eighteenth century. Cambridge University Press, 1993.) Fowlers versus Daltera remained as a debt matter still in 1798. Also, Emory G. Evans, 'Planter indebtedness and the coming of the Revolution in Virginia', William and Mary Quarterly, Series 3, Vol. 19, October 1962., pp. 511-533., here p. 524)

1775: British Creditor Lists: Samuel Martin = Samuel Martin of Whitehaven. He got his tobacco from Bollint Starke and Greenwood, Ritson and Marsh, who seemed to act as commission agents. (See Thomson, 'Upper James River', p. 398.)

1775: British Creditors; Speir(s), French and Co. (See T. M. Devine, 'A Glasgow Tobacco Merchant During the American War of Independence: Alexander Speirs of Elderslie, 1775 to 1781', William and Mary Quarterly, Series 3, Vol. 33, No. 3, July 1976., pp. 501-513.)

1775: May: (Ketchum, Winter, p. 43.) By May 1776 the French and Spanish had set up a dummy company, Hortalez and Cie, to conduct a clandestine arms and munitions business with the Americans so as not to embarrass their governments, one of the American contacts here was Silas Deane, whose life is a confusing story, the son of a Connecticut blacksmith who graduated from Yale in 1758.

1776: On the make-up of the British Parliament in 1776, see Lewis Namier and John Brooke, The History of Parliament. London. 1964.

**Listing - British armed forcees contractors for 1775-1783**
	The following list is drawn from Norman Baker, Government and Contractors: The British Treasury and War Supplies, 1775-1783. University of London and The Athlone Press, 1971. Contractors are here given in roughly the chronological order of their services being recruited by government. 1770 1770: (Baker p. 29), Anthony Bacon took a new contract to supply troops in West Indies. In 1770, Anthony Bacon (who had a cousin Anthony Richardson) gave up a West Indies contract and was replaced by John Durand, who had returned from India in the 1760s and was an EICo ship's husband, also did timber importing. A few of Durand's ships were co-owned by other contractors such as William James and Arnold Nesbitt. (Baker, pp. 175ff) On specie contractors for military, Harley and Drummond who got 10,000 pounds for this per year between 1770-1783. 1773 1773: Kender Mason (had a son Henry a partner with Henry Blundell, Kender Mason died in 1792) had been provisioning troops in East Florida since 1764. 1774 1774: (Baker, p. 3) Anthony Merry (difficult to trace) merchant of London, shipped cattle to America date not given. (Oddly, there is an Anthony Merry later a British deputy-secretary for War who seems to have no link to the earlier Anthony.) (Baker, p. 184), Mr George Garnier gets a patent (contract) as Apothecary General to military to supply medicine, later conducted by his son George Charles Garnier who used sub-agents John Truesdale (Apothecary in Ordinary to the King) and Joseph Partridge. (Baker, p. 170), From 1767, John Biggin (untraced so far) had a contract to supply rum to Jamaica. 1775 1775: (Baker, p. 201) In 1775, Thomas Pownall has contract for supply of Indian goods, that is, goods for Indians in America, this business by 1777 was in hands of William Knox (who got some supplies from Israel Mauduit), sending them to Sir John Johnstone in America. (Baker, pp. 33-34), mid-to-late 1775, aspiring contractor William James (an EICo director) was writing to politician Charles Jenkinson and in early 1776 James was supplying Canada. Robert Jones (difficult to trace) was a contractor for Nova Scotia to about 1775, and used the Cork merchant house of Cornefords and an agent at Nova Scotia, Butler. (Baker, p. 27), By early 1775, major British contractors were Arnold Nesbitt, Adam Drummond and Moses Franks for various garrisons of mainland colonies. (Moses Franks had brothers Aaron and Napthali, all noted in Anglo-American Jewish family history ranged around New York, Philadelphia and London.) John Stephenson (difficult to trace) and John Blackburn (difficult to trace which individual is this person) for West Florida, Witter Cuming (died 1775, difficult to trace) and Kender Mason had East Florida contracts. And John Stephenson and Richard Vernon Sadleir (brewer and banker at Southampton) had contracts for troops in Nova Scotia. Edward Coddrington (sic) and Robert Jones had West Florida and Nova Scotia. (Baker, p. 79), August 1775, politician Charles Jenkinson is approached by Cork firm of Carleton and Cossart about supply contracts but they were unsuccessful. 1776 1776 - John Booker, Traveller's Money. London, Alan Sutton Publishing Ltd., 1994. On Sir Robert Herries' earlier days, see [Sir] Robert Herries... Jacob M. Price, (Ed.), `Directions for the conduct of a merchant's counting house, 1776', Business History, No. 3, Vol. 28, July 1986., pp. 134-150. 1776: (Baker, p. 222), in 1776, only two Scotsmen had military contracts. (Baker, p. 26), Since 1766, [Arnold] Nesbitt (difficult to trace), [Adam] Drummond and [] Moses] Franks (which firm banked with Thomas Coutts and Co., Adam Drummond being a partner of Coutts) had had the contract for the mainland colonies and Quebec. Arnold Nesbitt had an uncle Albert (difficult to trace) in business in London. By early 1776, (Baker, p. 28), Nesbitt, Drummond and Franks contracted to supply 12,000 troops of mainland colonies, via Cork. More contracts in early 1776 were made with the partnership of John Henniker, William Devaynes, Edward Wheler (had a relation, William Mills), and George Wombwell (with chiefly EICo connections -- Wombwell was brother-in-law to Sir Walter Rawlinson) for 12,000 troops; and with Anthony Bacon, John Amyand (died 1780 aged 29 and Amyand had a brother named due to a name change, as Sir George Cornewall, Robert Mayne (had a brother Lord Newhaven) and John Durand (difficult to trace) (who dealt with Cork merchants Bensons (not yet traced) at Cork and also Michael Coppinger (not yet traced) at Cork and also Norman & Long (not yet traced)) would each supply 3000 men. Plus, for Quebec/Canada, a contract was made with William James (ex- EICo ship's captain during Seven Years War), Abel Smith (of bankers Smith Payne Smith), William Baynes (to be replaced in 1779 by John Roberts). Note that Baynes and John Roberts (difficult to trace) were brothers-in-law who had traded to Portugal) and Richard Atkinson (they worked 1776-1779) to supply 12,000 troops in Canada. Atkinson had a brother Matthew who was a receiver of land tax. (Baker, p. 33), the Treasury clerk chiefly responsible for handling contracts and answering to politician/Treasury Secretary John Robinson was James Royer, though for timeframes unspecified. (Baker, p. 223), Neither Atkinson by September 1775 nor his partners had any experience with military contracts, but they were approached by John Robinson and by September 1776 they were employed by Treasury; Atkinson had married into the Robinson family. (Baker, p. 91), 1776, Treasury got freight/transport from Mure, Son and Atkinson with ships supervised by Robert Gordon (died 1784) who was appointed Commissary at Cork in February 1776, (Robert Gordon, who may not have been entirely honest) was married to a sister of General Cunninghame). Gordon was succeeded in that role by John Marsh earlier a consul-general at Malaga. (Baker, p. 96), in 1776, the Commissary at New York is Daniel Chamier (who was possibly married to Achsah Ridgely who was probably an American). (Baker, p. 162), About March 1776 Treasury decides to issue Jamaica rum to troops, the contract went to Richard "Rum" Atkinson, including some for Canada. (Baker, p. 173), Treasury later found out Atkinson was using produce from his own plantations for rum, and was shipping rum to America in vessels owned by he or his partners (Mure, and partner Mure had a son on Jamaica). Other rum contracts went to Sir James Cockburn, James Bogle French, John Blackburn, Thomas Burfoot (difficult to trace). Cockburn had married a daughter of London merchant Henry Douglas (difficult to trace). (Baker, p. 102), September 1776, Commissary-General in Canada is Nathaniel Day (difficult to trace). 1777 1777: American privateer Lambert Wickes. The Falmouth Royal Mail packet taken in 1777 by Lambert Wickes on Reprisal, which was a merchantman named Molly renamed Reprisal was Swallow Capt Newman, maybe Swallow III. She was the fourth ship of five taken by Wickes on that trip. Benjamin Franklin had deliberately ordered Wickes to takes this Lisbon Packet, to humiliate George III, she went into Franklin´s possession once Wickes was in controversy with the French, we do not know what happened to her in Franklin´s hands. 1777: American Privateer Lambert Wickes (1735-1777) was a cousin of the US naval family Nicholson; the Nicholsons having put 15 men into the early US Navy. Both Wickes and his brother lost their lives in service of Continental Navy. Wickes was from the Chester River area where notable names people included Wickes, Ringgold, Tilghman. Chester River folk on 13 May 1774 had thrown British-imported tea from Brig Geddes into their river. Lambert was a Freemason, and he and his brother Samuel had for years sailed for Morris and Willing. The American Continental Navy began out of privateering activity and Reprisal Captain Wickes was perhaps the first American Continental navy vessel to enter European waters, says a US website. Reprisal Capt Wickes had once about 1777 taken Benjamin Franklin to Nantes, Frances, about Feb 1777, she and other American privateers ravaged the British coast. Franklin got to Nantes by 7 Dec 1776, Wickes had two prizes taken by then. Franklin contacted Pliarne , Penet and Co. re prizes, especially its senior partner Jacquses Gruel, and their American associate Nathan Rusmey. A set of clandestine sales of prizes was set up, sale occurring outside a port, and then an illegal re-registration of a ship was made using false papers. (From Benj Franklin Papers online) On 14 January 1777 Jonathan Williams Jnr qrote to Bej Franklin re Wickes wanting to know if prizes were admissible into French ports. From about late Dec 1776 till 24 Jan 1777 Wickes was iced-up on the Loire River, France, then went into Bay of Biscay, especially looking for British packets, HM Swallow, 16 guns. Wickes thought Swallow would carry gold and silver, but no. Having taken the five ships, Wickes had about 80 British POWs on Reprisal. The Falmouth Royal Mail packet taken in 1777 by Lambert Wickes on Reprisal, was Swallow Capt Charles Newman (two days out of Falmouth which was in ballast and she did not have specie aboard, though there was some usual if illegal trade in specie to Lisbon via Falmouth). Swallow was the fourth ship of five taken by Wickes on that trip. Franklin had deliberately ordered Wickes to takes this Lisbon Packet, to humiliate George III, and she went to Franklin´s possession once Wickes was in controversy with the French, we do not know what happened to her in Franklin´s hands. One view is that Wickes and Franklin hoped to ignite a war between Britain and France, as Silas Deane, William Carmichael and William Bingham on Martinique all knew. All five prizes came in with Wickes to Port Louis near LOrient, on 13 February 1777, all five prizes reached French ports. Wickes at Port Louis on 14 February 1777 reported to American Commissioners, on prizes taken, men wounded, prisoners taken, and vessels and cargoes taken. On 18 February Captain Charles Newman demanded freedom for his own crew and that of the other four ships. The British Ambassador to France at the time was Viscount Stormont, who waxed livid about Wickes. Wickes secretly disposed of the five prizes by about the 18th and the end of February. By 19 Feb 1777 Wickes at LOrient wrote to Amerian Commissioners, re safe arrival of all his prizes, and a need to repair his ship Reprisal. By 21 Feb 1777 from LOrient, Wickes to American Commissioners, intent to deliver prisoners to Captain Newman, Admiralty (the French?) had ordered Wickes to leave in 24 hours with all his prizes, Between 22-25 Feb Thomas Morris the Continental Commercial agent at Nantes sold four of the prizes (not including Swallow, but including John and Thomas. Wickes disposed of Swallow as she was a vessel of the British crown and had become property of Continental Navy. Berard Freres and Co. bought Swallow for 16,000 livres at a public auction and changed her name to Margaret. Londoners were aware of this by early March. By 13 March 1777, Wickes found the French Commissioner of Port of LOrient has ordered him to clear out, and not to enter any French port at all. By April 15 Wickes was writing to Franklin from Nantes. Later In the Irish Sea, Wickes intended to disrupt the regular Irish linen fleet. He sailed west about Ireland, came came down from the North into the Irish Sea. By 27 June 1777 Wickes took 18 ships in Irish sea, destroyed ten, and took eight as prizes. After he took the 18, he was met by HMS Burford a warship, and after some battle, Wickes won in that he got away, barely. He later died that year in a storm near Newfoundland, on his way home. 1777: (Baker, p. 164), By 1 April 1777 Joseph Loring of New York had contracted to supply 350,000 gallons of rum but he was merely an agent of Richard Atkinson and/or Thomas Burfoot. (Baker, p. 165), to the end of the war, rum contracts were taken by Gregory and Turnbull (some information available) and also Grove and Hood (who are untraced so far). 1778 1778: (Baker, p. 30), in 1778, the troops under General William Howe were supplied by partnership of Benjamin Smith (brother-in-law of John Robinson), William Fitzhugh and Simon Halliday (to be replaced by Jemes Powis who was replaced by Richard Peacock who is difficult to trace). (Simon Halliday had a father-in-law, William Bythesea who is not easy to trace.) Smith, Fitzhugh and Halliday used a sub-agent, Mr. Grant. Fitzhugh had spent 10 years or more at Aleppo for the Levant Co. (Baker, p. 88), dry goods provisioner Thomas Farrer (died 1788) (who had an agent at Cowes named James Mackenzie) is dealing with Smith, Fitzhugh and Halliday and with Robert Mayne and James Powis. 1779 1779: (Baker, p. 16), some matters for contractors are modified by Sir Philip Jennings Clerke's Contractor's Bill of 12 February 1779. (Some information arises on Clerke). (Baker, p. 35), Arnold Nesbitt died in 1779 and his nephew John Nesbitt took his place as a contractor. (Baker, p. 125), suppliers Bensons at Cork are reported to have failed in 1779. 1780 1780: (Baker, p. 30), in 1780 appeared two new contractor names, Thomas French (small-timer), and James Bogle French (small-timer, earlier had only a rum contract, had some "substantial American interests") James' Bogle French's original name seems to have been James Bogle, who changed his surname to French after marrying Elizabeth French from Barbados, daughter probably of Nathaniel French but it is uncertain. (Baker, p. 50), Christopher Potter (an MP by 1781, and his offers were highly competitive commercially, but is not easy to trace). Potter had an associate, Aaron Moody of Southampton) by April 1780 becomes a new contractor name, applied unsuccessfully for army contracts but was given naval contracts by April 1780. Aaron Moody is difficult to trace. (Baker, p. 45), a new contractor name appearing by end of 1780 is Lawrence/Laurence Cox (difficult to trace) who was connected with Smith, Fitzhugh and Peacock (Peacock an insurance broker and shipping agent had a brother Marmaduke, both difficult to trace) (Baker, p. 50), appears new contractor name John Whitelock in late 1780. 1781 1781: (Baker, p. 53), new names appearing as contractors are Messrs [John] Dearman, [Andrew] Jourdaine and [Richard Shaw] by 1781. Andrew Jourdaine is difficult to trace. Richard Shaw is difficult to trace. Dearman often imported provisions from Ireland, and supplied the Africa Co. Dearman (who came from an extensive lineage avaialbe on the Internet) possibly sub-contracted with military contracts to Gibraltar with or for contractors Fonnereau and Burrell. (Baker, p. 24), Daniel Wier (difficult to trace although mentioned in army records), by 4 September 1781 is British Commissary-General at New York. 1782 1782: (Baker, p. 25), George Cherry is Naval agent (difficult to trace) for dry provisions at Cowes by March 1782. (Baker, p. 25), by March 1782 the British Commissary in Canada is Nathaniel Day, a personal friend with General John Burgoyne (Day is difficult to trace though mentioned in military records). (Baker, p. 35), in 1782, contracts of John Hennicker and Kender Mason (son Henry) were passed to their sons. Circa 1782: (Baker, p. 224), MP Christopher Potter had held navy contracts for biscuits and bread, and with Aaron Moody owned a steam-mill/bakehouse complex at Southampton. (Baker, p. 212), in 1782, banker Thomas Harley is chief Treasury agent for supply of clothing and blankets to military, and was replaced as such by Thomas Burfoot of Barge Yard Bucklersbury. William Worsfold of Mark lane also supplied some military clothing/bedding. (Baker, p. 204), from August 1782 the British Commissary-General in New York was Brook Watson (later a London alderman) of Watson and Rashleigh. (Baker, p. 71), London banker Francis Baring takes over some supply of provisions on a commission basis by about October 1782 and Baring liked arrangements that could be made at Waterford and Limerick, when at the time for cattle, Cork was "the slaughter house of Ireland". Baring p. 142 used about 22 merchants, 13 in Ireland and 9 in England, mostly from East Anglia and s/e England. Baring p. 142, by Nov 1782 had contracted to victual 70,000 British troops using English and Irish merchants. Baring (p. 78 and with Thomas Farrer (difficult to trace) a London cornfactor and contractor a specialist in dry provisions) in 1783 under auspices of Shelburne Ministry undertook supply of all British troops abroad with a view to using his preferred agents at Cork, though he generally used the contractors and agents earlier used by the North administration. (Baker, p. 143), Baring used in Ireland, Piercy and Waggets, Ferguson and Collon, Hugh Jameson and Church and Crawford. all of Cork. P and J Roche of Limerick and John Allan of Waterford. 1783 1783: (Baker, p. 188), John Trotter of Frith Street, Soho, was supplier of bedding for hospitals during the American war. (John Trotter is difficult to trace.) (Baker, p. 34), William Fitzhugh is brother-in-law of John Purling MP and Simon Halliday has brother John Halliday MP (Baker, p. 35), William Baynes (difficult to trace) has brother-in-law John Roberts (Baker, p. 55), the names arise, George Browne (difficult to find the correct individual with such a common name) and Edward Lewis (died about 1791, a son of Percival Lewis, both difficult to trace) appear in tandem. (Baker, p. 57), Contractor names appearing are Henry Mason and Henry Blundell (not yet traced), their estates were not finalized till 1809. (Baker, p. 66), Commissary-General at Cork is Robert Gordon (difficult to trace, probably from Scottish highlands, he married a daughter of General Cunninghame). (Baker, p. 70), at end of Jan 1782, the navy board agent for transports at Cork was Lt. Harris (not yet traced). (Baker, pp. 80-81), names a few subcontractors in England used by the top-line contractors eg, Palgraves and > Henry Gooch & Cotton of Bungay in Suffolk. On the naval aspects of the American War, see David Syrett, Shipping and the American War. London, 1970. (In July 1776 the Navy Board had 416 transports of 128,427 tons, most of it chartered). David Syrett, ‘Methodology of British amphibious operations during the Seven Years War and the American War’, Mariner’s Mirror, February 1978, Vol. 64., pp. 269-280. David Syrett, The Royal Navy in American Waters, 1775-1783. Gower Publishing Co., Brookfield, Vermont, USA, Scolar Press, 1989. pp. 26ff, citing Orlando W. Stephenson, ‘The Supply of Gunpowder in 1776’, American Historical Review, January 1925, Vol. 30., pp. 271-281. and p. 41, in the first five months of 1776, British government, making strenuous efforts to find ships for government service, many tenders were advertised, delays set in, also re severe winter of 1775-1776, fitting of ships at Deptford was slowed, transports could not be armed due to regulations banning shipment of munitions by sea. Citing see also, A. T. Mahan, The Major Operations of the Navies in the War of American Independence. New York, 1969, reprint.
	Listing of British military contractors active American War of Independence.

Follows here a list of English ship managers operating 1717-1775, shipping convicts to America: With a list of merchants shipping convicts to Australia from 1786-1788, to 1867: The two lists will enable completion of any research on the English use of convict transportation in the period covered...
Please note: This collected list has never appeared in any printed book to date, and did not appear on the Internet before 16-6-2002 - Dan Byrnes.
1717: Francis March, London:
1718 Jonathan Forward, London;
1720 members of the Lux family, Darby, John, and Francis (probably London before becoming colonials, (later linked to Jonathan Forward's operations) and in 1750, William Lux;
1721-1722, Jonathan Forward Sydenham of London;
1722, ? Cheston;
1731, various men named Reed, to 1771;
1737, Joseph Weld in Dublin;
1739, Andrew Reid, London, with James and Andrew Armour, London, and John Stewart of London;
1740++, Moses Israel Fonseca, London;
1740, Samuel Sedgley, Bristol;
1740, James Gildart, Liverpool;
1744, John Langley, Ireland;
1745, Reid and Armour, London;
1745, Sydenham and Hodgson, London;
1747, William Cookson of Hull;
1749, Jonathan Forward Sydenham a nephew of Jonathan Forward above;
1749, Stewart and Armour, London;
1750, Andrew Reid, London;
1750, Samuel Sedgely and Co of Bristol; John Stewart and (Duncan) Campbell, London (JS&C);
1758, Sedgely and Co (Hillhouse and Randolph), Bristol;
1759, Stewart and Armour, London;
1760, Sedgely and Hillhouse of Bristol;
1763, Andrew Reid retired;
1764, John Stewart and Duncan Campbell, London;
1766, Patrick Colquhuon, Glasgow; 1766, Sedgely and Co. at Bristol replaced by William Randolph, William Stevenson and James Cheston, Bristol;
1767, Stevenson, Randolph and Cheston, Bristol? with a colonial agent Cheston;
1768, Jonathan Forward Sydenham, London or nearby counties;
1769, Dixon and Littledale, Whitehaven;
1769, Sedgely, Bristol; 1769, any ships captain providing necessary securities could transport felons;
1770, James Baird, Glasgow;
1772, John Stewart died, Duncan Campbell carried on alone in London until 1775.

At Bristol, Stevenson, Randolph and Cheston (SRC) were active till 1776; they made ill-advised and vain attempts to transport felons to North America at the end of the American Revolution. Wisely, Duncan Campbell (1726-1803) did not attempt to resume convict transportation to America.
(The above list does not include names transporting convicts from Ireland.)
See here, Abbot Emerson Smith, Colonists in Bondage: White Servitude and Convict Labour in America, 1607-1776. Gloucester, Massachusetts, University of Carolina Press, 1947. [Peter Smith, 1965]
As a matter of silence-in-history, US historian Bernard Bailyn once wrote - about American reception of English emigrants generally before 1775, (p. 4) there are... "extraordinary facts, key facts, somehow obscured by historians of the empire concentrating on institutions, power rivalries, mercantilism and trade"... "...
(See Bernard Bailyn, 'The Peopling of the British Peripheries in the Eighteenth Century', Esso Lecture, 1988. Canberra, Australian Academy of the Humanities, Occasional Paper No. 5, 1988.)
Oddly, Bailyn then wrote, (page 19), "I have never found a single reference to a convict in any genealogy or history of an American family, nor, in any other way, does a single one of the 50,000 convicts sent to America appear as such in American history."
In terms of American colonial society (Virginia and Maryland to 1775), the following list of names is interesting: The American correspondents of London-based Duncan Campbell were mostly users of slave labour.
Here is a list of them: Duncan Campbell's correspondents from the index to his business letterbook 1772-1776: including, Allison and Campbell, William Adam, Samuel Athawes, Colonel William Brockenbrough and Austin Brockenbrough, Dr John Brockenbrough, Adam Barnes and Johnson, James Bain, Rev. Mr Beauvoir, James and Robert Buchanan, George Buchanan, Robert Cockerell, Messrs Campbell and Dickson, Colin Currie, Stewart Carmichael, William Dickson, Charles Eyles, Fitzhugh, Fauntleroy, Richard Glascock/Glascook, Benj and Charles Grimes, Henderson and Glassford, Rhodam Kenner, Abraham Lopez and Son, James Millar Jamaica, Daniel Muse, Hudson Muse, Hugh McLean, Joshua Newall, George Noble, Francis Randall, Major Henry Ridgely, Adam Shipley, William Snydebottom, Richard Stringer, Alexr Spiers and Co., Spiers, Finch and Co., Dr. Sherwin, William and Edward Telfair, Tayloe and Thornton, Charles Worthington, Cooper and Telfair.
Any lists given above of convict-transporting ship managers given for North America, then Australia, are the mainstay-names for England's long-use of convict transportation from 1718 to 1867.
For more detailed information on these merchant names as chapters arise, see Dan Byrnes' website on convict transportation from England, 1718-1810: The Blackheath Connection at: http://www.merchantnetworks.com.au/blackheath/

1775: Gary B. Nash, The Urban Crucible. Cambridge, Mass., 1979.* (Discusses role of northern American seaports in coming of the American Revolution)

1775: A. G. E. Jones, Ships Employed in the South Seas Trade, 1775-1861 [Parts 1 and 2]: plus A Registrar General of Shipping and Seamen, transcripts of Registers of Shipping, 1787-1862 [Part 3] Canberra, Roebuck, 1986.

1775: Bernard Bailyn, The New England Merchants in the Seventeenth Century. Cambridge, Mass, 1955.*

1775: Arthur L. Jensen, The Maritime Commerce of Colonial Philadelphia. Madison, 1963.*

1775: Joseph C. Malone, Pine Trees and Politics. Seattle, 1964. (Naval stores and British Imperial policies)

1775: Philip C. F. Smith, (Ed.), Seafaring in Colonial Massachusetts. Boston, 1980.*

1775: Oliver M. Dickinson, The Navigation Acts and the American Revolution. Philadelphia, 1951.*

1775: Robert Pares, Yankees and Creoles. London, 1956.

1775: Arthur Pierce Middleton, Tobacco Coast. Newport News, 1953.

1775: Leila Sellers, Charleston Business on the Eve of the American Revolution. Chapel Hill, 1934.*

In 1775-1776, The Freemasons' Tavern built in Great Queen Street, London. (Wells.)

Reference item: 1776: James A. Field, America and the Mediterranean World, 1776-1882. Princeton, 1966. *

Year 1776

From 1776 to October 1781: (See pp. 97-98 of E. James Ferguson and John Catanzariti, The Papers of Robert Morris 1781-184. Vol. 3, 1 October 1781-10 January 1782. University of Pittsburgh Press, 1977.)
In October 1781, just before Matthew Ridley escorted Morris' two sons to France for their education, Morris wrote for Ridley a list of the pre-war correspondents of Willing, Morris and Co. It should be noted that before 1776, Matthew Ridley (1749-1789) had been the Baltimore agent for the London-based convict contractors, John Stewart (died 1772) and Duncan Campbell (1726-1803) (JS&C), the Campbell who became the overseer of the Thames River prison hulks. Ridley took the American side as the War of Independence loomed. (This John Stewart died 1772 was possibly linked to the Annapolis merchants Dick and Stewart, it is uncertain. (James Dick and Anthony Stewart.)
The Willing and Morris pre-war-time correspondendents were:
London, John Motteux and Co.,
Messrs David Strachan and Co.,
Messrs Gregory and Turnbull "who could point to others", (these must have been partners of George Mackenzie Macaulay before he joined them!),
Bristol is Richard Champion Esqr. (Only the correspondence of RM with Richard Champion survives in archives. See G. H. Guttridge (Ed.), The American Correspondence of a Bristol Merchant, 1766-1776, Letters of Richard Champion. Berkeley, California, 1934.)
Liverpool is Thomas Tarleton and also John Dobson (difficult to trace),
Falmouth, England is George Croker Fox and Sons,
New York is Andrew Elliot and also
Richard Yates.
At Barbados is Charles Willing (of the firm Willing and Morris),
At Antigua is Messrs Willock and Moorson, (not yet traced)
At Jamaica is Messrs Cuthberts (probably the provost-msrshall of Jamaica, William Cuthbert, who was succeeded in that role by his brother Lewis Cuthbert.)
St Kitts is Ulysses Lynch (sometimes mentioned on websites but too briefly),
At Madeira, Willing and Morris associates were Scott, Pringle, Cheap and Co., (some information arises)
At Lisbon is Messrs Robert Paisley and Co (hard to trace),
At Lisbon, Paulo Jorge and Messrs Edward Burn and Sons (somewhat traceable).

Further on Matthew Ridley. Ridley's name first appeared in the Letterbooks of Duncan Campbell in London about 17 April 1770 (See Dan Byrnes website book, The Blackheath Connection, Chapter 13). Ridley from 1779 was in various business ventures with John Holker Jr, Robert Morris, Jonathan Williams, Joshua Johnson, Donatien Le Ray de Chaumont, Edward Bancroft and Simeon Deane the brother of Silas Deane. There is some information on Ridley in Kathryn Sullivan, Maryland and France, 1774-1789. Philadelphia. 1936. Ridley dealt in May 1782 re the Dutch loan for America with Nicolaas and Jacob van Staphorst. See Herbert E. Klingelhofer, 'Matthew Ridley's Diary During the Peace Negotiations of 1782', William and Mary Quarterly, Jan. 1963. pp. 95-133. Kellock, article, pp. 134-135. Ridley stopped George Moore's 1783 London-based plans to send convicts to North America. In 1781-1782, US Financier Robert Morris was writing to Ridley about the Revolution, see Ferguson, Purse, p. 155, Note 23. He dies 1789 in Documentary History of the Supreme Court of the United States, 1789-1800 by Maeva marcus James R Perry. An archivist website gives Ridley's dates as 1746-1789. There are Matthew Ridley Papers at www.masshist.org/ from Massachusetts Historical Society, Boston. Ridley had managed the Maryland branch of JS&C. Some of Ridley's major correspondents were 1772-1786 to Mark Pringle of Baltimore, John Hunt, William Russell, John Holker and Joshua Johnson. Ridley's Letterbooks 12 June 1770 to 11 May 1776 arose from his capacity as Maryland branch manager of JS&C, who are denoted inaccurately as "a mercantile firm", especially in terms of how the revolutionary war affected Anglo-American commerce. American historians so far have not fully absorbed all relevant information re Stewart and Campbell as convict contractors to Virginia and Maryland. We are grateful here for e-mail of 28 February 2006 from Guy Dixon, of Jersey UK, on the Ridley family. On Ridley see http on Livingston of New York by Mary Van Deusen. http update on Schenectady history on Livingston. See on Matthews Ridley various in England in Alan Valentine, British Establishment, 1760-1784 in two volumes.

1776: Delaware prohibits the importation of African slaves.

1776: Circa: Sir James Cockburn MP for Linlithgow, valuable contract to supply 100,000 gallons of rum to the troops in America. (Colley, Britons, p. 126.)

1776 Circa: (H. R. Fox Bourne, English Merchants: Memoirs, p. 343), David Barclay returned from America trade in 1776 or so, continued with the Lombard St bank, Dr Johnson was the executor of the brewer Thrale, and Barclay bought Thrale's brewery - David's nephew was Robert Barclay, son of Alexander Barclay who had emigrated to Philadelphia.
(See A. Wilson Fox, A History of the Barclay Family. 1933.
C. W. Barclay, A History of the Barclay Family. Two Vols. 1924. 1934. Ralph Hidy, The House of Baring in American Trade and Influence. 1949.)

1776: Adam Smith completes his book on new-industrialisation and economics, Inquiry into the Wealth of Nations. This soon influenced policy of the British Treasury.

From 15 March, 1776 till 1779, the chamberlain of London was Benjamin Hopkins Esq.

1776: See C. Whitworth, State of the Trade of Great Britain in its Imports and Exports, progressively from the year 1693-1773. London, 1776. Rare, "the statistical basis of mercantilist exultation over Caribbean colonies", says historian E. Williams.

1776: A winter of unusual severity. Britain forbids all intercourse with the American colonies.

By 1776, Colden family of New York, American Loyalists, one of whom, "old Governor Colden", had been Gov of New York, family were correspondents of Duncan Campbell, probably settled in Canada after the American War. (See Mackaness in Fresh Light). Henry Colden Antill a cousin to Mary Bligh/Putland/O'Connel. George Mackaness, (Ed.), 'Fresh Light On Bligh - Some Unpublished Correspondence', Australian Historical Monographs, Vol. V, (New Series), Reprinted, 1976 by Review Pubs., Dubbo. NSW. Australia.)

23 May, 1776: Geo III closes Parliament with remarks re no price too high for the reasons he was prosecuting the war against American colonies, submission was what he wanted.
(Ketchum, Winter, p. 98.)

4 July, 1776: Thirteen American colonies sign Declaration of Independence.

1776: June-August: The greatest expeditionary force Britain had ever mustered arrived in America, including about 8000 Hessian and Hanoverian troops, and with them was General Knyphausen, who in a quaint revelation of the idiosyncrasies of his day, buttered his bread with his thumb.

19 December, 1776: A general assembly of state of Virginia resolved to expel and banish British merchants and factors from the state.

1776 Circa: Whaling history: US sealing takes up as a Boston ship takes 13,000 hair seal pelts from the Falkland Islands. (They sell for 50 cents each in New York).

Concerning London Lord Mayor in 1777, Sir James Esdaile.
1. ESDAILE Senior
sp: Miss NOTKNOWN 2. Banker, London Lord Mayor Sir James ESDAILE (c.1777) sp: Miss NOTKNOWN 3. Louisa ESDAILE sp: Merchant Sir Benjamin HAMMET MP (b.1736;d.1800) 4. son1 HAMMET sp: Miss NOTKNOWN

1776: Volta discovers methane.

1776: George Mason drafts the part of the American constitution known as the Declaration of Rights.

1776: Adam Smith completes his book on new-industrialisation and economics, Inquiry into the Wealth of Nations. This soon influenced policy of the British Treasury.

1776: by 1776, the Virginians had almost exterminated the Creek and Cherokee Indians, so the British could not use them. (Watson. Geo III, p. 207.)

Notables: 1776-1783 in North America, included John Adams, Patrick Henry, Benjamin Franklin, George Washington, Paul Revere, Alexander Hamilton and nearly all the signatories of the Declaration of Independence (53 of the 56 is one estimate) and the American Constitution were Masons. Other Revolutionary Freemasons included Alexander Hamilton, John Marshall, James Madison, Gen Nathanael Greene, Gen Charles Lee, Gen John Sullivan.

1776, London Lord Mayor is Sir William Halifax, Kt.

1776, London Lord Mayor is John Sawbridge, and town clerk of London is William Rix.

4 July, 1776: Thirteen American colonies sign Declaration of Independence.

19 December, 1776: A general assembly of state of Virginia resolved to expel and banish British merchants and factors from the state.

1776 Circa: Whaling history: US sealing takes up as a Boston ship takes 13,000 hair seal pelts from the Falkland Islands. (They sell for 50 cents each in New York).

In 1778 the captain of Blackheath Golf Club was William Innes, son of an Edinburgh banker, a West India merchant, of Lime St., City. MP for Ilchester 1774-75.

1777: Vermont is the first of the thirteen American colonies to abolish slavery and to enfranchise all adult males. In 1777, New York enfranchisdes all free propertied men regardless of colour or any time of former servitude.

1777: Chairman of EICo 1777-1778 is George Wombwell of Crutched Friars.

1777: American David Bushnell invents the torpedo.

1777: First European indigo planter arrives in Bengal - John Prinsep.

1778: London Lord Mayor of - 1778 Samuel Plumbe

1778: Sir Joseph Banks is asked to prepare a series of notes for EICo on cultivation of new crops, esp. tea in India. Many of what became the Indian tea districts were not by 1788-ish yet British possessions. One Abel was an agent for Banks 1793-1800, and he once had tea for India on a ship Alceste, but he lost his plants. Further British interest in tea in India in 1815.

1778: British explorer James Cook had visited Nootka Sound, seeking the fabled north-west passage. By 1788 the area visited by British mariner John Meares who built a fort he later took down.
Reference item: Deryck Scarr, The History of the Pacific Islands: Kingdoms of the Reefs. South Melbourne, Macmillan, 1990.
Reference item: Roel Edmond, Representing the South Pacific: Colonial Discourse from Cook to Gaugin. Cambridge University Press, 1997.

1729-1778: First founding of a bank at Bombay (by Europeans?). It ended in 1778.
(Bulley, Bombay Ships, p. 243.)

1778: Approx: James Forbes in Bombay finds opium all too commonly used amongst British/EICo army officers and soldiers alike.
(Bulley, Bombay Ships, p. 154.)

1778: Rhode Island forbids the removal of slaves from the state. In 1778, Virginia prohibits the importation of slaves.

1779 - 10 July: Mr Anthony Calvert, owner of the Royal Charlotte bound to Jamaica, desiring she may be taken into a dock at Plymouth on account of a leak... no objections to it if will not retard His Majesty's service. (Navy Out-Letters to Admiralty. 10 July, 1779, PRO, Adm 106/2206). (No genealogy on Calvert here has yet been discovered. He is later of the London slaver firm, Camden, Calvert and King)

1779: Imperial Chinese authorities forbid the import of opium into China. (Bulley, Bombay Ships, p. 154.)

1779 +: Children of Mr William Larkins Junior Merchant H.C's service and Mary his wife, baptized at St Johns Church, Calcutta, entries signed by Chaplain William Johnson.
(1) On 8 March 1779, Georgiana Grueber Larkins
( 2) On 14 April 1780, Marian Larkins
( 3) On 2 March 1782, Apollonia Charlotte Larkins. (2 and 3 are listed as being the god-daughters of Mrs Hastings). Mrs Hastings was married at St Johns Church, 8 August 1777 under her maiden name of "Anna Maria Appolonia Chapusettin".
From Bengal Past and Present - "Baptisms in Calcutta 1778-1782".
These Larkins' were of the Blackheath family of Larkins, noted in The Blackheath Connection website.

1779, Died, English navigator Capt James Cook, Hawaii.

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