`The whole city was in tears': Currying favour with gaolers: `Think what you are about':  Moving into Mincing Lane: The little-known Sir Robert Herries: Background to the Boston Tea Party and the international tea trade:

 

The Blackheath Connection

Chapter 14

 

`The whole city was in tears':

 

     By mid-1772, reports circulated in London and Maryland about the collapse of Fordyce and Co., and Londoners were beginning to press Marylanders severely for repayments. ([1]) (Things were better in London by mid-1773, however). In mid-1772, Mauduit Wright and Co. of London sent a large order of goods to Stephen West of Prince George's County, somewhat nervous because of "the critical State of Credit in London". The Marylanders involved defaulted on this and following transactions, and  ended with their credit ruined in London.

 

            The bust hit hard. The quotes are exotic. Clapham notes that by 22 June, 1772 "universal bankruptcy was expected" in London... "the whole City was in an uproar - the whole City was in tears", ([2]) "universal bankruptcy" was expected. Neale, James, Fordyce and Co. had been declared bankrupt. Several Scots banks encountered serious trouble when Alexander Fordyce faltered, then absconded. ([3]) ([4]) During 1773, the crisis  spread to the Continent. And by May 1773 the East India Company was contemplating new tea marketing measures designed to foil smugglers. The Company's tactics for exporting tea to America were to brew a disaster for Britain now known as the Boston Tea Party. ([5])

 

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     Some victims of the 1772 financial bust were the Adam Bros., the four Scots brothers, one banker and three architects; John, Robert, James and Adam; the doyens of architecture, building, interior decoration, domestic taste and fashion in London. Robert and William Adam on 3 March, 1774, held a lottery of their goods drawn outside Jonathan's Coffee House, Exchange Court, ([6]) at the opposite side of the Strand. They required a lottery to raise funds to continue building the Adelphi by the Strand, an ambitious development and still a splendid London precinct. ([7]) The Adelphi became a combination of houses in one great architectural scheme, with vaulted warehouses beneath them with direct access to the river. The Adelphi was the result of Robert Adam's inspiration when he visited Spalato, (in modern former Yugoslavia, at Split), viewing the ruins of a palace of Diocletian. In 1768 the Adam Bros. pooled resources and leased from the Duke of St Albans a piece of land called Durham Yard for 99 years. It then had, "small, dilapidated houses". Later, however, the embanking of the Thames shut the warehouses from direct access to the water. ([8])

 

     The Adelphi... The Adam style "still suggests exquisitely moulded fireplaces, door knobs, and nymphs and charioteers in stucco", writes John Hillaby. ([9]) .... "delicate medallions, symbolic motifs and mythical animals, bosomy sphinxes, griffins, cherubic putti "all carefully bordered and wrapped about with floral arabesques". Hillaby also feels that one of the few remaining glories of the Adams' Adelphi is The Society of Arts Building, at the corner of Robert and John Adam Street. One contemporary critic of the Adelphi said, "the work of the Adelphi leaped about. It looked so light and airy". ([10]) Walpole criticised it all trenchantly. Things went wrong. The Ordnance Department failed to rent vaults for storage, the company of watermen and lightermen disliked the idea of so much storage capacity so near the river. First class residences found some opposition in the City. The actor Garrick bought one house but other fashionable types failed to follow. A state lottery helped, with the houses as prizes. The Adam Bros. had to sell their art treasures and speculation worried them for years. Later literary figures living about the Adelphi have included Thomas Hardy, G. B. Shaw, Galsworthy and J. M. Barrie. The Savage Club met there. The Adelphi precinct once housed an office of The Lancet; also some old offices of The New York Times. The residency of England's arch convict contractor, Duncan Campbell, is not part of the precinct's history published for the modern tourism industry!

 

The Adams Brothers wrote to Campbell about an issue of bonds they were concerned with. He replied...

 

Campbell Letter 31:

Undated in the original

                           Probably written Dec 8, 1772.

 

Mr William Adam,

                           I have this day made the necessary inquiry about the Nature of the Bonds you proposed putting into my hands, and I have tryed many of my Acquaintances who have money laid out in funds at a lower Interest than these Bonds but I find they are not a Saleable Commodity even at a discount which I would willing have given to enable me to accomodate you but not being able to liquidate them, it will be out of my power to sink money just at this time, as I am realy loaded with Goods on hand which put me to my ships - If any other method can be fallen upon to make this settlement reciprocally convenient, I shall most readily come into it. ([11])

 

    Campbell directed other occasional letters to Messrs Adam. ([12]) The transactions referred to may have been associated with the financial moves the Adam brothers were making for their Adelphi development. But of course, the sale of any bonds would have been retarded by the financial crisis in London during 1772.

 

     The Adelphi development did proceed. The dining room and bar of The Society for the Encouragement of Arts, have been in use at 8 John Adam Street since 1774. From today's Cleopatra's Needle on the Thames bank, across the Victoria Embankment Gardens, Robert Street the Adelphi lies roughly NW-NNW. Today the precinct is close to Charing Cross Hotel, Strand Palace Hotel, Savoy Theatre Hotel. Further away are the Royal Opera House and Drury Lane Theatre. The nearest piers to the Adelphi on the Thames' north bank are Charing Cross and Waterloo. On the river at the Adelphi in Campbell's time were stairs direct to the water. Somewhat further were the Legal Quays, where dutiable goods were landed. Also, Lincoln's Inn, the meeting place of the legal fraternity, Leadenhall Street the site of the East India Company offices, and Fenchurch Street. The present-day Customs House stands where the legal quays had once been. From the Adelphi, only a short carriage drive would have been necessary to arrive at the Admiralty, the War Office, the Board of Trade, and today's Foreign Office and Whitehall.

 

*    *    *

 

Currying favour with gaolers:

 

     The convict service wobbled on. On 3 July, 1772 Campbell wrote to the Keeper of Oakham Gaol, a ship was ready to sail on the 15th. ([13]) To John Dickson, 7 March, 1772, in Jamaica. Probably feeling by now as harsh about unpaid debts as most Londoners, Campbell wrote to Samuel Orvings on 31 March, 1772, advising Capt. Kidd on Thornton would call in the Maryland debts due to JS&C. During 1772, Tayloe had been sailing for JS&C, Capt. Dougal McDougal; later, she had to be repaired at Falmouth. ([14]) On 2 March, 1772, Campbell wrote to Peter Thornton. Campbell wrote to John Tayloe, John Page, 1 April, 1772. By 12 May he was writing to the Keeper at Oakham Gaol about a convict for transport. ([15]) On 16 June, 1772, he wrote to Messrs Bently and Boardman, "This days post brought me your favour covering your drafts upon Thomas and Stone for 12 pounds 12:0 which when paid shall be placed to the credit of Richard Betham Esq: agreeable to your desire I am"... ([16])

 

     On 20 June, 1772, he wrote to Neil Jameson and Co, about one of his ships been taking lumber from Philadelphia to Jamaica, a ship arriving in Virginia was to be directed by Mr Tom Hodges; lumber was on Orange Bay. Campbell wrote to Isaac Strong on 3 July, 1772. In July, six felons fled his ship Thornton after it had reached Leedstown on the Rappahanock River. in Virginia. On 16 July, 1772, Campbell wrote to the Keeper of HM Gaol at Maidstone. [Capt. McDougal was on Tayloe, Capt. Gillies was on Justitia. ([17]) By October 1772, Campbell wrote to his brother-in-law, the sugar and rum markets were poorly. ([18])

 

*     *     *

 

'Think what you are about!'

 

     It was always anathema to Campbell, and provoked a punitive response from him, that a person would set themselves "at defiance" with the world. There were times when he was unforgiving. Campbell when he was angry often admonished a man - "think what you are about!" If the man did not think according to Campbell's lights he was quickly dispensed with. Campbell's abhorrence that a man's attitude might have been "at defiance with the world" possibly coloured his attitudes to convicted criminals, but interestingly there is little evidence of it from his Letterbooks.

 

Campbell Letter 32:

London 8 Oct 1772

Capt Neil Gillis

                I write this to request the favour of you to call upon me with the remainder of your Account for the Justitia: which ship as she is now so soon to be sold it may be proper to Acquaint you that I shall have no further occasion for your service so that from this day you will take notice that your wages as Master of that Ship ceases. I wish to make an amicable settlement with ever man I have settle with, & I hope you will not oblige me to move that Principle take my word for it you will not find it turn out to your reputation if I am obliged to take such steps - It seems you are deaf to the Crys of your poor Mate's Widow who applys to you for information about her husband's affairs: for Gods Sake Man think what you are about! do not set the World and Reputation at defiance - I am ([19]) ([20]) ([21])

 

*       *       *

 

     Campbell's letters to gaol keepers revealed some of the day-to-day aspects of the old form of the convict service. Thornton Capt. Kid had been sent also on an errand of debt collecting following Stewart's death. (Thornton had used to land at the Patapsco River, Virginia, while the main delivery point was on the Rappahanock River). By the dissolution of the JS&C partnership, Campbell had inherited part of the iron works, the ships Tayloe and Thornton as well. ([22]) At the time he was distressed as well by depression in the tobacco market. For John Page of Virginia he had sold 44 hogsheads of tobacco bought by Justitia, and as he complained to the Honble John Tayloe, the tobaccoes bought by Thornton, had been poorly bundled, cured and packed.

 

     By way of reprimand, Campbell recalled when he "used to sell at the top of the market". ([23]) He had recently been displeased to have to dispose of some iron recently back on Thornton from Virginia (which he did unload in London for £6/10/- per ton). The iron had originally come from the Ceceqhona ironworks in Virginia, an investment for both Tayloes and Thorntons. ([24]) Between 1772 and July 1774 the Honble. John Tayloe assisted Campbell by purchasing part of the Thornton family moeity in the Ceceqhona ironworks, for which favour the merchant gratefully thanked Tayloe. (About 1773 there were some 65 ironworks in the Chesapeake area). ([25])

 

     The replacement for Neil Gillis was Capt. Finley Gray. On 5 November, 1772 Campbell wrote to the Gaoler at Oakham about a convict transport for Justitia Capt. Gray, leaving on the 14th. ([26]) On 9 November, 1772, Campbell wrote to Isaac Strong Esq., Clerk of the Peace at Peterboro, about convicts for a ship at Blackwall, and the same day, 9 November, 1772, to the gaol keeper at Aylesbury, Bucks, mentioning Mr. Bury. ([27])

 

*   *    *

 

Moving into Mincing Lane:

 

    By 17 November, 1772, Campbell could send 44 hogsheads of tobacco to Johan and Abraham Retberg and Sons of Bremen, per Capt. Sager on Christian. Despite a hard year, in December 1772 he still had enough spirit and means to move into a new address at 1 Mincing Lane. ([28]) Probably, the move had been enabled by profit he had gained from Stewart's death (despite a need to buy debts?); or a need to quit Stewart's former premises? The new address was ideal for a merchant, as close to the river as it was to Lloyd's, ([29]) Cornhill, and other merchants' haunts. Mincing Lane was between Fenchurch and Eastcheap Streets, near Tower Hill; near the Legal Quays, the site of London's present customs house. One of Campbell's neighbours would be the banker, Francis Baring.

 

Campbell Letter 33:

London Dec 12, 1772

John Campbell Esq of Saltspring

....and in that letter I mentioned that McDougal was not destined for Jamaica it would have been lucky for me had he been unprovided for in Virginia from all appearances I shall be a considerable loser by his cargo as indeed I shall be on the Thornton, the delay the Board of Treasury seems disposed to give me though I have now I think fully answered, all their Queries seemed to forebode no very favourable event, never the less I shall not easily acquit them. However this circumstance together with the very dull state of our tobacco markets ..... you will regulate your matters independent of me as I said in that letter, you can contrive to give me an alternative without giving a certain person hold of either you or me but by my choice .... we are all well & Busy as you can suppose moving our furniture into Mincing Lane where we intend to eat our Christmas Dinner. ([30]) ([31])

 

In the interim, Campbell had also been obliged to engage in a renewed outbreak of the family power struggle to retain control of Saltspring estate in Jamaica.

 

*     *     *

 

The little-known Sir Robert Herries, banker and tobacco buyer:

 

     Sir Robert Herries has a career driven underground, as it were, by the way the history of the American War of Independence has been written. He can be glimpsed however, moving in a little-known environment - tobacco dealing after 1772. Also inhabiting that environment was the amazing Philadelphia financier, Robert Morris. Herries is also noticed in tenuous connection with another set of significant but little known traders in the revolutionary period, Hopes of Amsterdam. ([32]) Further, Herries began a bank which from 1812-1815 was to play a significant role in the economic development of colonial New South Wales, Australia, Herries-Farquhar. The tale is tortuous.

 

     Firstly, Herries' family history... ([33]) The apparent progenitor is an Edinburgh merchant, William Herries, wife unknown. He had a son, Rev. Robert Herries (1616-1662) who married Janet Mackison of South Leith. Two fifth generation men of this line were William Herries a merchant of Leith, father of Michael (1715-1799), and Robert Herries, a merchant of Rotterdam, father of Robert (d. 1845) below. The Rotterdam merchant is said to have saved the family from financial ruin. In the sixth generation of this line appeared Sir Robert Herries (1730-1815) the tobacco buyer, with other contemporaries in the family being an unmarried banker, Robert Herries (d. 1845, of the bank Herries-Farquhar), William Herries of Herries-Farquhar, and Anna Herries who married William Young, a governor of Tobago; plus Michael Herries (1715-1799) a merchant of Glasgow and London. ([34]) This Michael Herries dealt with a consortium of slavers dealing with Sierra Leone, as is noted in David Hancock's recent book. ([35])

 

     The man becoming Sir Robert Herries worked first in a Rotterdam counting house, which resulted in him becoming a staff member for Hopes of Amsterdam, Scots  merchants with a wide reach in both North America and Europe. He also became  acquainted with Coutts bankers of London, who had begun as tobacco dealers. ([36]) Herries later set up on his own in Barcelona. By 1762 the St. Mary Axe branch of Coutts was worn a little thin, so Robert Herries was asked in, to deal with European banking business only. A Herries concern, Herries, Cochrane and Co., did well enough to shift aside Coutts interests here, and Coutts gave way to a partnership between Herries, Sir William Forbes ([37]) and James Hunter Blair. ([38]) This partnership, with Herries' relatives and Sir William Pulteney founded the London Exchange Banking Company, in 1771-1772, as Herries conceived the idea of marketing "traveller's cheques", an idea he successfully broached to Hopes, who retained extensive European connections. This operation opened in No. 16 St James Street in 1772 (this Exchange became Sir Robert Herries and Co., then Herries/Farquhar and Co., bankers, absorbed by Lloyds in 1839). ([39]) Coutts were not interested in notions of travellers' cheques, and also took competitive umbrage, as this sort of financial product appealed precisely to their sort of customer.

 

     By 1771, Herries had moved into tobacco dealing, dealing mostly with Scots importers of American tobacco, not Londoners like Campbell. Against Scots rivals, Herries' firm had gotten the contract to supply the French Farmers-General with tobacco. By 1774 Herries had also obtained an extensive contract to supply tobacco to or from London. The control he wished to exercise over tobacco handling disturbed his partners, who withdrew in 1775. Presumably, considerations of the outbreak of the American War were a factor here. Meanwhile, from late 1775, in North America, the Philadelphian Robert Morris was given virtual control over the marketing of the American tobacco crop, and obviously, the most reliable market was into or via France. It also seems that as the war progressed, but as an unresearched matter, many Scots mariners took tobacco from North America by roundabout sailing routes; of which Herries was presumably aware. ([40])

 

     By June 1776, Morris warned Herries that unless Herries could undertake to have tobacco shipped reliably to France, Morris would have to organise it himself; that is, oust Herries from supplying the French Farmers-General, who were anyway notorious for beating down prices since they could command such a large market share. Herries managed to regulate his supplies so that he kept the contract. ([41]) And, (2) that the unresearched activities of Scots mariners in tobacco handling had much to do with support from Herries. Remarkably, in 1781, Herries suggested that the Americans be allowed to trade direct with India; which presumably the East India Company did not appreciate? Sir Robert Herries retired from business in 1798. ([42]) Herries' career as a "creative" tobacco dealer, banker and financier is fascinating... ([43]) He had a little-publicised role in the affair later known as the Boston Tea Party.

 

International background to the Boston Tea Party and the colonial tea trade:

 

     While financial circles in London, Glasgow and American colonies were rocked by financial instability partly caused by the East India Company and the Fordyce problem, (which in part arose out of administrative absurdities on the part of an officer of the crown), Britain closed its eyes to three great zones of suffering, which were:

(1) Bengal, with famine and several generations of upheaval in traditional Indian life due to commercial and military incursions by Europeans;

(2) The slave trade, a mainstay for the security of sugar revenues; and

(3) The felt political pain of the Americans, the best-educated people in these three zones of suffering.

 

     The government decided merely to back a plan to milk the Americans of tea revenue to prop up the Company, and so the Company could repay its recent loan from the government. When the Americans protested, British merchants became cautious and fearful, but the government became more arrogant. ([44])

 

       Bohea tea in 1767 cost 22 pence per pound, in Amsterdam (possibly as purchased from Hope Bros.?). Unnamed London merchants specialised in tea handling. ([45]) By  1754, the Boston merchant John Hancock was getting tea from St Eustatias, a Dutch-held island in the Caribbean, via Thomas and Adrian Hope, "Dutch merchants" in Amsterdam. By 1755 a New York tea smuggler was New York merchant John Ludlow. John Kidd a merchant of Philadelphia in 1757 informed his London correspondents that Dutch ships with Palatine immigrants to Pennsylvania also carried much Dutch tea. In 1757, the governor of New York, Charles Hardy, commented on the illicit Dutch tea trade.

 

    By March 1763 a tea handler in Plymouth was Meletiah Bourne, who hired Capt. Churchill's schooner Sally, and sent him to Amsterdam with rice, a forbidden commodity. In November 1759 a New Londoner, Nathaniel Shaw, with two New York firms got Bohea tea from Hamburg. Gottenburg had rockbottom prices for tea. By 1760 in Philadelphia a tea handler using Teneriffe was Tench Francis. By the mid-1750s, the New Yorker John Waddell sent tea to Thomas Wharton at Philadelphia, with one Marcus Hook handling the tea's final leg; officials here were corrupted. The Townshend Act of 1767 meant England had gotten tired of all this. ([46]) Colonial merchants objecting to British attitudes included John Hancock, Thomas Wharton and John Dickinson of Philadelphia. In 1770, Hancock had a ship Lydia handling tea cargoes in a manner designed to provoke British interests. ([47]) Attempts were made in England in the fall and winter of 1772-1773 by various figures including Rockingham, but all ideas expressed "suffered from short-term expediency."

 

    One idea came from John Almon in his pamphlet, "The Present State of the East India Company's Affairs", of late 1772. George Dempster, an MP and an East India Company director had a plan resembling Rockingham's. The deputy-chairman of the East India Company, Laurence Sulivan (the determined political enemy of Clive of India), planned to raise money with an issue of new stocks and bonds worth a final £1,300,000. ([48]) Mr. Bosanquet had yet another idea - and at this point in his narrative, a useful historian, Labaree, confesses he did not know who Robert Herries was... ([49])

 

    We find that ... Herries brought in new partners, Sir William Forbes, a landless baronet; and son of a merchant of Ayr, two clerks in the Edinburgh end of the firm, Sir James Hunter (later Sir James Hunter Blair, Bart), and in 1762, Robert Herries of Barcelona (shipping brandy to the Channel Isles and the Isle of Man for the smuggling trade), who had links to Amsterdam Scottish-Quaker firm, Hope and Co. Herries' grain handling business from America had brought him into contact with major firms such as Willing and Robert Morris of Philadelphia. By 1762 the London firm was known as Herries, Cochrane and Co., from 1766 it became Herries and Co. In 1773 its style changed to Sir William Forbes, James Hunter and Co. Herries later established a separate bank in St James' Street. The major Rotterdam correspondent of Herries was James Craufurd (sic). ([50])

 

       By about September 1772, two men named Robert Herries had each invested £500 in the East India Company - one Sir Robert Herries, and one Robert Herries Esq. There was another family member, Michael Herries who had had £1000 in Company stock since July 1769. ([51]) Robert Herries produced a plan, "The Present State of the East India Company's Affairs". (Robert Herries, banker and a Colonel of the City Light Horse Volunteers was knighted in 1774. By 1780, Sir Robert Herries as London banker had sat for Dumfries, Kirkcudbright, Sanquhar, Annan and Lochmaben. He died in 1815 aged 85 years.)

 

     Herries' plan suggested that the price of English tea be reduced and sold on the Continent as a dumping exercise. There was no early mention of America in this plan. Company directors learned of Herries' plan and he met with them and a Committee of Treasury and Warehouses of the Company at India House on 5 January, 1773. On 6 January the directors approved the combined committees' recommendations and the chairman of the Company would see Lord North. On 7 January the Company's General Court wholly adopted Herries' plan! On 8 January the Company wrote to Hope and Co. in Amsterdam, major suppliers of Dutch tea smuggled into America colonies, would they sell dumped English tea on the Continent?

 

    The Company asked Hopes for a remittance in advance if they agreed. Thomas and Adrian Hope replied discouragingly on the 12^th. They felt that if the Company dumped tea on the Continent, the price of tea in England would rise and encourage even more tea smuggling to England itself, rendering moves counterproductive. So Hopes suggested, why not dump the tea in America, not in Europe? Company directors also sounded out a European firm, Messrs Romberg and Co., about the Herries' dumping plan, and they liked the idea very much. Shortly the Company decided to try to undercut smuggled Dutch tea in America, and on 25 February the Company asked government for permission to sell tea duty-free to America, as well as sell to Europe via Rombergs as earlier suggested. (The Company was legally obliged to keep certain minimum inventories of tea on hand in England.) This went to Parliament on 2 March. Not till 26 April did prime minister North present his ideas on tea. ([52])

 

          Labaree notes that a London tea dealer, William Palmer, had objected to the Herries plan from the start. ([53]) Once the public became aware of the plan, Palmer (who was in regular touch with Governor Hutchinson in London) by 19 May had urged the Company to start planning its tea export to America. A Philadelphia merchant, Gilbert Barkley (and his partner also of Philadelphia, John Inglis), wanted the Company to establish warehouses in American towns, preferably their towns, to auction tea as was customary in England. An opinion came from Thomas Walpole, nephew of the famous Robert Walpole, a London merchant-banker, who wanted tea dealing centered in Philadelphia. He was associated with Benjamin Franklin and the Whartons, other prominent Philadelphians in the Vandalia Land Company interested in Illinois. By June and July 1773 in London, various London firms had been nominated by American firms to engage in tea deals. (Chairman of the East India Company was now Crabb Bolton.) ([54])

 

     Boston firms intending to make a deal were Thomas and Elisha Hutchinson, Richard Clarke and Sons, and Benjamin Faneuil and Edward Winslow (there was also a Joshua Winslow), all engaged with one single London name (who was possibly Abraham Dupois). On the advice of William Palmer, the number of chests for America expanded from 1700 to 2000. For ships, Jonathan Clarke offered his firm's brig William (probably owned by Clarkes). George Hayley of London offered American-owned ships, one being  Dartmouth (Capt. Hall) (for Boston, owned by Joseph Rotch, formerly of Nantucket but now a rich whale oil merchant (of Dartmouth, Massachusetts, the father of Francis). Hayley also offered the ship London (Capt. Curling), for Charlestown. A ship Polly (Capt. Ayres with Gilbert Barkley from Philadelphia aboard) was for Philadelphia; Nancy (Capt. Lockyer) for New York. Intended for Boston would be ships Dartmouth (which would reload whale oil); and some merchants earlier had begun considering importing spices and silks from the East  India Company. Other ships mentioned included Eleanor (Capt. Bruce a hot-headed Tory, owned by John Rowe), and the brigs William, and Beaver (Beaver brought smallpox as well as tea to Boston).

 

           One London merchant long experienced in American trade, Richard Reeve, wrote to Lord North that the terms of the deal - especially the timing by which the tea duties were to be paid and other monies remitted to England - might be regarded as inflammatory in the colonies. His warnings, like other warnings, were not heeded. ([55]) In dealing with the East India Company, North included an ingenious way for the Company to dispose of excess tea inventory, still under Townshend duties - the Company had to pay a 3d duty on entering the tea to America but not the 12d English duty formerly payable. They could also send tea direct to America on their own account, instead of having middlemen in England handle it, so this reduced costs. It was thought the tea would sell at 10/- per pound, instead of the former 20/- per pound price for legal tea. So with a greater volume of sale hoped for, 298 chests of tea worth £10,994 were sent to Boston. In all, the Company would assist with measures against smugglers now that it could ship tea direct to smuggling centres in America, such as New York and Philadelphia.

 

     A young Boston merchant, Jonathan Williams Jnr., wrote to his relative in London, Benjamin Franklin. Another Boston merchant was Henry Bromfield, who was told of matters by his brother Thomas in London. On 26 May, 1773, the London merchant and East India Company director Frederick Pigou Jnr., ([56]) wrote to the Philadelphia merchants, James and Drinker. In New York was a firm, Pigou and Booth (with Benjamin Booth, lately from London and a long-experienced London merchant). Booth was a senior partner of Pigou Snr. of London, who had earlier had experience as an East India Company supervisor at Canton. Samuel Wharton in London sent news to his brothers in Philadelphia. By August the Americans had learned of the Company's actual intentions. Pigou and Booth would sell tea to James and Drinker of Philadelphia, and in New York, Pigou and Booth became spokesmen of all New York consignees for the tea deals being drawn. ([57])

 

     Tea for Philadelphia was jointly for James and Drinker, Thomas and Isaac Wharton, Jonathan Browne (with a brother George in London) and Gilbert Barkley. Quaker merchants of Philadelphia were Abel James, Henry Drinker (who had deals with Fred Pigou Jnr in London), Thomas and Isaac Wharton (plus their brother Samuel in London). The hard-to-research London firm, Lane Son and Fraser, also reappears here. ([58])

 

     (As for later tea dealings? In early March 1774, the brig Fortune (Capt. Gorham, owned by Thomas Walley) arrived in Boston with tea consigned to Henry Lloyd from the London firm Davidson and Newman. In late June 1774 the tea ship arrived,  Grosvenor, owned by Edward Parry. In London on 18 March 1774, a merchant committee headed by Champion (Richard, of Bristol?) and Dickinson, Hayley and Hopkins, plus Lane Son and Fraser, to discuss Boston matters and they offered a surety of £16,000 to cool things down; an offer not taken up.) ([59])

 

    In autumn 1773, seven vessels with 600,000 pounds of tea would sail to small groups of merchants at Boston, New York, Philadelphia and Charlestown Carolina. The tea was priced, plus the Townshend duty of three pence per pound, to be competitive with smuggled Dutch tea. Boston colonists determined the tea would not be landed, and customs officials at Charlestown impounded and stored tea consignments. At Philadelphia and New York the ships were turned back. On 16 December, 1773 the Boston "patriots" dumped 340 chests of tea. ([60])

 

*    *    *

 

[Finis Chapter 14]

Chapter 14 words 5180 words with footnotes 9652 pages 16 footnotes 60