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Random details: The resumption of convict transportation 1783: `Men unworthy to remain in this island' Part One: A business overview: Henry Dundas and attitudes of the East India Company: From the Bengal famine to Penang: The Larkins family of Blackheath: Secret plans for men unworthy: Part Two:

 

The Blackheath Connection

Chapter 25

 

Random details:

 

        On 12 July, 1783 was born Campbell's son Colin, who died young. In Campbell's other domains, his nephew Campbell Betham was at the college of Glasgow studying medicine. The medical student's sister, Mrs. Colden of New York in 1778, by October 1783 was thinking of going back to America - as a Loyalist she would make claims on the British government. ([1]) Duncan's son Dugald made his first voyage to Jamaica from January 1783, returning in 1785 with his sailor-brother John, who was taught by Bligh.

 

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The resumption of convict transportation:

 

The year 1783...

 

     From 1783 arose a story peculiar in the annals of British statecraft. Britain's government in 1783-1784 was prepared to countenance the landing of British "convict servants" on US territory, as a virtual undercover operation. These efforts were unsupervised, except by the hapless English merchant, George Moore, who dealt with an American Whig, George Salmon. ([2]) Duncan Campbell had nothing to do with those efforts, although he performed his hulks overseer's duty in delivering transportable convicts to the ships arranged by Moore. ([3]) What gives these undiplomatic debacles extra interest is that Moore's efforts were stopped partly by the agency of Matthew Ridley, Campbell's former agent in Baltimore. ([4])

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    Between 1776 and 18 August, 1786, Britain involved seven ships in futile efforts to transport convicts, not including ships sent from Ireland. Those ships were Den Keyser to Africa of 1782-1783, Recovery, to Africa associated with Camden, Calvert and King; Mackrel  to Africa; George Moore's Swift I  to North America/Nova Scotia, Moore's Swift II to North America/Nova Scotia, Moore's Mercury's to Honduras and Fair American, also associated with George Moore. ([5]) Since 1718, no convict contractor had ever suffered so badly from convict mutiny as Moore. In all, Moore suffered losses of £4500. ([6])

 

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`Men unworthy to remain in this island' Part One:

 

      During 1782, vague plans had been made to transport convicts to Africa, despite the official prejudice that transports should be sent to America. Lord Sydney on 12 and 18 July, 1783, communicated to George III his political distress arising from problems with transports. ([7]) George III replied to Lord North on 12 July, "Undoubtedly the Americans cannot expect nor will ever will receive any favour from Me, but the permitting them to obtain Men unworthy to remain in this Island I shall certainly consent to." ([8])

 

       George was still furious with his rebels. And since the disposal of a convict in the light of the criminological thought of the day, and under the legislation, necessitated that the state derive some benefit from the labour of the transport, Townshend was in effect faced with an insoluble problem of colonial development. This was his constant pressure during discussion of "the convict problem", which he considered almost weekly insofar as transportable convicts remained a major problem for the Home Office.

 

      Lord Sydney remained the recipient of all the plans concocted for the disposal of convicts, and his response to plans was always beggared by the duality in the status of a transportable convict. The word convict implied a colony where, under new legislation, government would supervise the convicts' labour - but a colony where? This duality later meant that when James Matra ([9]) produced a plan to make a colony for American loyalists at New South Wales, or in the Pacific, Lord Sydney immediately tacked onto it an idea to transport convicts to there. ([10]) Though Matra himself was dubious about transportation as a useful penal measure, he revamped his plans according to Sydney's suggestion that any settlement, as proposed, could be associated with convict transportation. Matra offered his revised ideas to government just as George Moore's first ship was getting away. In researching the additions to his plans, Matra looked also into the hulks and the monies paid to Campbell. ([11])

 

     The fact it had taken a war of independence to sever the previously existing links between the transportable convict and the idea of colony is the prime illustration of the nature of the problem confronting Lord Sydney, who must have been frustrated with the king's lack of any appreciation of the inner meaning of any excess number of transportable prisoners. The greater the number of prisoners, the larger became the non-existent colony suitable for their exile. This was all why Sydney once conveyed to the king, "The more I consider the matter the greater difficulty I see in disposing of these people in any other places in the possession of His Majesty's subjects". ([12]) Into the gap stepped George Moore.

 

        Moore's ships have provided enormous confusion for researchers. The back of the research problem was finally broken by the American historian, Roger Ekirch, who was assisted by an Australian, Gillen. Ekirch's research revealed that George Moore's activities amounted to creating a diplomatic incident between Britain and the new United States of America. The locations to be mentioned are as far-flung as Virginia and Maryland, Nova Scotia, Honduras, the Gambia River in north-west Africa. In some of this, government seems to have been manipulated as much as it was willing to manipulate certain men such as Moore. There was a certain craziness in the idea of sending convict labour to Nova Scotia, since when the defeated British quit their former American colonies in 1783, they took slaves with them, many of whom were later sent to Sierra Leone. ([13])

 

    For the British after 1783, and after the peace treaty with the new United States of America, there had been an "impetuous and disastrous burst of [British-US] trade in 1783-1784". The efforts of George Moore in Britain and a prominent Maryland Whig merchant, Salmon, were part of this. ([14]) Salmon was a leftover of the firm Woolsey and Salmon which had earlier imported Irish convicts to Maryland. There still exists a set of Woolsey-Salmon Letterbooks. ([15]) And still, the British remained loathe to relinquish their obsession, that convicts sentenced to transportation would go to America. The authorities in Ireland were even more reluctant to relinquish this assumption, and they continued to act on it after 1788. ([16])

 

     In April 1783, Britain ceded a complete independence of the USA. With the peace treaty, ([17]) the first British ambassador to US was George Hammond, son of an English-whaler owner. ([18]) Nova Scotia exerted an almost-strange magnetism on events. Major Robert Molleson in 1782 became wagon master for the British in America, and at the end of 1783 he led a group of Loyalists from New York to Nova Scotia, where he was a JP and colonel of the loyalist militia; but he only lasted there a year. ([19]) It is not known if there were ever any links between the former tobacco trader, William Molleson, any loyalists on Nova Scotia, and anyone such as Matra ([20]), his loyalist associates De Lanceys, John Call; or even George Macaulay. John Call in 1783 became a co-promoter of Matra's scheme, and William Molleson was associating with Duncan Campbell on matters of concern to British Creditors. It seems unlikely that merchants interested in sending convicts to Nova Scotia would lack links to Canadian trade, and in Canada, Loyalists from the revolution were settling down to new life. 

 

     Before he made his overtures to government, Matra had researched the hulks. Amongst the information he proffered to Lord Sydney on 23 August, 1783 were figures on the monies paid to overseer Campbell. (If Matra could find the information, so probably could the researchers working for London's aldermen!) Like so many others who had ideas on convict transportation, Matra woefully underestimated the real costs. But Matra argued for a cheap transportation to NSW and a consequent saving to government - if the hulks were dispensed with. Matra soon contacted Fox, only to find the North coalition disbanded by December 1783. Matra had to wait. Was it lack of money, or imagination, or both, which meant Britain did not see great potential in Matra's ideas, with or without convict transportation?

 

     Something then occurred which is also hard to square with the way Australian maritime history is usually seen. About August 1783, Capt. Henry Wilson was on the East India Company ship Antelope,  wrecked near Pelew Islands. George Keate's account of this was published in 1788, 1789, 1803. ([21]) Another little-known title is John Pearce Hockin, 1803, A Supplement to the Account of the Pelew Island,  compiled from the journals of the Panther and Endeavour; two Company ships sent to these islands in 1790. There was some basis here on the oral story of Capt. Henry Wilson. (London. Printed for Capt. Henry Wilson). Here, any East India Company interest in Australia has never since been followed up. By the 1990s, the historian will only find the East India Company remaining consistently negative to the Australasian region.

 

*    *    *

 

A business overview:

 

     Historians refer to the period after 1783 as part of The Second Founding of the British Empire. Sometimes this second empire is jocularly referred to as having "grown like topsy". Dakin places the beginning of the South Whale Fishery, applying to the Southern Atlantic, as 1783. ([22]) Often it is difficult not to see the commercial tail wagging the imperial dog. What should be realised is that this is a legacy of the earlier days of England's "merchant adventurers" - quite simply - when freebooting was licensed by the crown, and later dignified with letters of marque allowing merchant ships to shoot and plunder. Hence, before 1800, the whalers Enderby were almost crazily proposing to harry the Spanish on western South America with a convict force sent from Sydney. Meanwhile, with the aid of the whaler Rotch, between 1783-1785, the French Government established at Dunkirk a colony of whalers with American "loyalists" from Nantucket. This would have relieved French dependence on oil bought from London merchants. ([23])

 

      After the Treaty of Paris, a son of Samuel Enderby went to Boston USA to engage Nantucketeer whalers to sail for Britain. ([24]) Enderby Senior's desire to employ Nantucketeers was to have a profound effect on maritime history because he had decided he would employ Nantucket whalers individually, not en masse. Whereas Rotch, with a decent view of family welfare, wanted his whalers treated as the human community they and their families represented. Enderby recruited his whalers individually by offering shares of catches as incentives, and by 1786 Enderby employed 30 Nantucket whalers on that basis. The Australian historian Margaret Steven writes, "Under Pitt the whalers of the southern fishery enjoyed an indulgence that has few parallels in British economic history". ([25]) This remark needs examination, since historians find it difficult to see how London whalers began carrying convicts to Australia. Steven's remark is correct - to suggest that it is incorrect is tantamount to saying Pitt and his cabinet did not know what they were doing between late 1786 and 1792! The problem with Steven's correctness is that the implications contradict traditional lore on political relations between Pitt, Cabinet and the East India Company. But in this, traditional lore on relations between Pitt and the East India is inadequate, since it has never embraced information on ship managers (such as George Macaulay, since Macaulay has been written OUT of the history.)

 

*    *    *

 

Henry Dundas and attitudes of the East India Company:

 

     One of the most powerful men in Scotland by now was Henry Dundas, a Scottish MP chosen not by the Kirk or the people, but by a few aristocratic houses, so that the great Scots chiefs kept their high authority despite competition from the Kirk. Out of a population of 1.5 million, 2662 voters in the counties had 30 MPs, and 1301 voters in the burghs had 15 MPs. Earlier, the Scottish interests had been grouped by Argyll, until Dundas set out from 1775 to re-organize matters. After 1784, with his Scots power organised, and in a position of authority of Board of Control, Dundas sought to induce the East India Company to distribute jobs as he desired, and so he sent energetic, talented young Scotsmen to India. ([26]) (And here, it can also be asked, why the British Government never sought to send more Scots from the overpopulated Highlands to the new Australian colony from 1788?)

 

    It remains odd that the East India Company was never asked, or ordered, to bear with having convicts landed in any territory under its control in, say, India. (After 1814, indigenous Indian convicts were being transported to Mauritius, when in theory, the infrastructure of New South Wales and Tasmania could have received them). The West Indies since 1717 had been against the reception of transports, and no serious attempt was made after 1782 to require the West Indians to receive transports. Sydney knew that if the disposal of convicts was uncongenial to the mode of Britain's possession of an area, then disposal of convicts there would one way or another be rendered ineffectual in practice.

 

The point here is that in London, two large merchant lobbies would have complained if convicts had been sent to territories from which they drew their wealth. This meant that politicians had to identify some destination where there was no merchant resistance which would give trouble in London. George Moore's efforts to transport were undone precisely because of resistance. Moore's engagement in convict contracting involved both Sydney and Evan Nepean. Administratively, it was Nepean who provided the equilibrium when the dual nature of the convict problem tended to tip matters one way or the other. Sydney was concerned primarily with the policy aspects, Nepean had executive powers and assessed information. Their partnership was crucial to what occurred in practice.

 

     The East India Company always managed to resist having convicts landed in its territories, and remained preoccupied with fending off reforms. From 1783, a secret government committee including Dundas and Jenkinson discussed issues such as the origins of the war in the Carnatic and worked on reform schemes. Dundas' views prevailed. Many friends of Burke had lost money in stock exchange disasters before North's reforms; Burke became convinced the Company was in the hands of corrupt men, who oppressed India, ignored honest merit, failed to give a return to the state or to shareholders. Proposed reforms, like many reforms of the day, all entailed more government regulation. It was recognised that due to the Company's influence on the money markets, stability in parts of the City might be at stake. Proposals for reform naturally ran into blockage from Whigs who felt they advanced the power of the executives of the crown. If so, how could the evils of India be relieved?

 

       Burke proposed that seven board members be given all the usual powers used by directors and the court of proprietors, who would be named in a Bill to parliament, to be removable by the king or the address of either house of parliament, rather as with judges. And under these seven, nine assistant commissioners would manage all commercial business. These would be voted-in by the shareholders and the court of proprietors. There was a communications problem - how to account for the delay in messages sent to or returning from India? Some names suggested for the experiment were friends of North and Fox, hardly impartial choices, so propaganda was raised against the idea. Yet it was agreed the Company was scandalous and insolvent. Fox's India Bill was apparently written by Burke. Dundas had his own policy on the Company; he came down from Scotland and talked the 24-yearr-old William Pitt into stepping forward, all to the end of 1783. ([27]) But whatever was government policy, where were the merchants who would become interested in shipping convicts?

 

    In 1783 the directors of the East India Company were: Chairman, Sir Henry Fletcher. Deputy chairman, Nathaniel Smith. Directors: Francis Baring, Charles Boddam, Jacob Bosanquet, George Curning [Curling?], William Devaynes, Richard Hall, John Hunter, John Manship, John Roberts, Joseph Sparkes, George Tatem, Jacob Wilkinson, William Bensley, Benjamin Booth, Thomas Cheap, Lionel Darrell, John Harrison, Stephen Lushington, James Moffatt, Henry Savage, John Smith, John Townson. Deputy secretary was Wm. Richardson. Treasurer was William Harris. Clerk for shipping was C. T. Coggan. Clerk to the military was John Hawkins Barnard. ([28]) None of these highly respectable names were investors in whaling (except perhaps, Curling). Otherwise, the names of the directors of London's major finance houses and trading companies were listed annually in The Royal Calendar, and many names - such as Neave - appear simultaneously on several boards of directors.

 

      The names of South whaling investors were not seen listed in connection with the Bank of England, the Lords Commissioners for the Lieutenancy of the City of London, except for the name Joseph Mellish; nor among banking directorships, except for a bank connected with alderman William Curtis. Nor with the Amicable Society for Perpetual Assurance, Royal Exchange Insurance, the Sun Fire Office (where David Pitcairn MD was installed). Nor with the Equitable Assurance, the Bank of England, the Million Bank, nor the South Sea Company. But they are associated with the maritime history of the "founding of Australia".

 

      In 1783 the board of the Africa Company was much as in 1782, and included: James Bogle French. John Shoolbred, Charles Cleland for Bristol, Thomas Farr, John Pedder, Henry Blundell. John Barnes, Robert Rolleston, Justinian Casamajor for Liverpool. Secretary was Thomas Ruthefoord. Messenger was Benjamin Potts. Government thought perhaps these might permit convicts at their Africa forts?

 

     The 1783 London aldermen included - (whalers are asterisked) - Mayor Nathaniel Newnham, with Robert Alsop, Rt. Hon Thos. Harley, Brass Crosby, James Townsend, Fred Bull, John Wilkes, John Sawbridge, Sir Tho Hallifax, Sir James Esdaile, Sir Watkin Lewes, Sir William Plomer, James Adair, Robert Peckham, Richard Clark, T. Woodridge, John Hart, Thomas Wright, Evan Pugh, Thos. Sainsbury, Henry Kitchen, John Burnell, William Gill, Barnard Turner, William Pickett, John Boydell, John Hopkins. Sheriffs are Robert Taylor and Benjamin Cole. Chamberlain, John Wilkes. Remembrancer, Peter Roberts. Solicitor, James Roberts. Swordbearer, Heron Powney. Some Common councilmen included Josiah Dornford, William Gifford, Benj. Hammett, William Wilson, William Champion*, George M. Macaulay, Wm. Chapman, Isaac Matthew, William Newman, Benj. Bunn.

 

      Rather as though the close of the American War had shaken out the weaker members or subscribers at Lloyd's of London, the Lloyd's Register for 1783 carried many crossings-out in the lists of both old and new members. Usually-appearing names included Abel and Macaulay, Angerstein Lewis and Crockatt, but James Bradley was crossed out. New members not crossed out included the whalers Alexander and Benjamin Champion; and Hibbert, Purrier and Co., Robert Milligan; with five new members crossed out.

 

      There was a brawl brewing over the waters of the Pacific. The South Sea Company and the East India Company both had monopoly rights over Pacific waters, but had no plans to exploit Pacific resources. London's whalers coveted the Pacific. The names of the whaling investors engaged in the struggle are listed in two chief sources - The Samuel Enderby Book and various lists of shipowners letting their vessels to carry convicts to early Australia. Both these sources are largely ignored by historians. But after 1783, whale oil became important enough to involve international politics. ([29]) Francis Rotch in London continued as an advisor to Madam Hayley as she continued her husband's whaling business. ([30])

 

      Other London merchants following the Enderby example were Alexander and Benjamin Champion, Thomas Dickason, John St. Barbe. Alexander Champion Snr had been associated with George Hayley. St. Barbe, also a contractor of shipping services to government, was an able entrepreneur reputed to have been a Lieutenant in the Royal Navy `also, an adventurer in [the] Whale Fishery... of a very active and enterprizing adventurous disposition, and seems very sanguine in the pursuit of it".

 

     By 1 February, 1783, the British governor of Cape Coast Castle, Richard Miles, had penned an oft-quoted observation about convicts... [the plan] "seems to be, to get them out of Europe at all Events." But it is still not clear how Miles would have known of this vehemence in London. ([31]) Presumably from newspapers, perhaps from his contacts at the Royal Africa Company? Miles had his own problems with convicts. In February 1783 he was writing to the Africa Committee about the convicts landed about Cape Coast Castle by Katenkamp, probably those sent on Den Keyser. He complained, no provisions were made for them, nor was Cape Coast Castle directed to receive them as soldiers. They had been left to shift for themselves, landed as it were naked and diseased on the sandy shore, poor wretches to be seen dying on the rocks, or the sandy beach, under the scorching sun. There were about 40 of them including two women. ([32])

 

     By 1783 there remained also a hangover from the 1780 Gordon Riots which had wrecked Newgate. During February 1783 the Committee for rebuilding Newgate Prison was requiring even more funds. The south quadrangle still had to be repaired; the Keeper's House as well. (On the last day of June 1785, the Committee was dissolved). ([33]) Expensive, these were matters internal to Britain's handling of convicts. Public hangings were reviewed in 1783. Fielding had disapproved of such institutionalised public sadism blessed with, of all things, public holidays, so that people could watch. Fielding reproved the "barbarous custom peculiar to the English, of insulting and jesting at misery". ([34])

 

     And in East India Company circles, there sailed on 26 March, 1783, Royal Admiral,  993 tons Capt. J. Huddart, St Hels, husband Sir R. Hotham. It seems that after this trip, Royal Admiral was sold to the Larkins family of Blackheath, who were related by marriage to alderman George Macaulay. ([35])

 

From the Bengal famine to Penang:

 

     According to information from Blackheath historian, Neil Rhind, by local repute, Alderman George Macaulay was related to the Larkins family by marriage of a sister, probably one of Macaulay's sisters (?).  ([36]) It remains a question of where to begin, since some relevant material could not earlier be entered in treatment of the Bengal famine preceding the Boston Tea Party, or the 1772 failure of Fordyce's bank. ([37]) Some information arising is surprising. During the 1772 credit crisis with the collapse of Neale, James, Fordyce and Down, who ceased trading on 8 June, 1772, later to be declared bankrupt, various other firms closed within a fortnight. Then closed the Ayr Bank (or, Douglas, Heron and Co.). The Bank of England was strained, the East India Company wanted  loans and had pressure to reduce its dividend. Tobacco importer Barlow Trecothick sat with others on a committee by April 1772. There were significant debates in parliament. ([38])

 

     But since the military successes of Clive of India, there had been some instability and a power struggle within the East India Company which has not been well explained. ([39]) As noted earlier, Laurence Sulivan, an enemy of Clive, rose within the Company, while the then chairman, Payne, left the Company to begin afresh with a new merchant bank, Smith, Payne and Smiths. ([40]) An Indian historian, Chand, suggests that much money coming into England after Clive's triumphs helped provide venture capital "for the industrial revolution". Would fresh research make this suggestion useful? Whether or not, Sulivan remains a conundrum. Sulivan had helped organize a revolt of East India  proprietors in 1758 and then "waged constant electoral warfare on Clive in the 1760s". Sulivan wanted reform which curbed the Court of Directors' powers. (But we are not told why, or what his own aspirations were.)  ([41]) Accusations were made about the crimes of Company men in India. ([42])

 

      In May 1773, at same time as the ill-fated American tea deal was being cobbled together, Sulivan callously declared the native population of Bengal would never part with their money except by compulsion. ([43]) One can easily raise a theory, thus: after financial troubles in London in 1772-1773, and the East India Company's 1773 tea deal, after Sir Robert Herries had made his first suggestions on disposing of excess tea, there were two "outgrowths" in history. ([44]) The western "outgrowth" was the Boston Tea Party, the later American Revolution, well treated by historians. The eastern "outgrowth", greatly ignored, beset with guilt feelings about the Bengal famine, was partly due to London arguments about East India Company trade, which in turn helped prompt the establishment of Penang and Singapore, which were both novel ventures at their inception. ([45]) The "eastern outgrowth" was split into two wings: one party wanted the East India Company to be involved in more responsible "administration" in India, while merchants (some interested in opium) with strong views of free trade wanted more freedom and less tie to administrative responsibilities. They were the eastern "country traders", financially, they were floating loose cannons, and their inheritors had some influence on importing to New South Wales after 1800.

 

     One might surmise that Sulivan's motives for enmity with Clive were related to Sulivan's wish to promote the activities of not East India Company traders, but free-ranging country traders, in waters between eastern India and China. ([46]) As we know from the establishment of "the East India Company's first bank at Canton", financial dealings for country traders would become more sophisticated, and aid the rise of mostly Scots-managed "agency houses" in India. Further, Sulivan, noting that Clive's successes were against the Moghuls, may well have wished to remove his own Company-trading operations from the constraints proposed by dealing in terms of Muslim customs, which constraints had been strengthened by Clive's successes.  ([47])  ([48]) This would be consistent with what is known about Sulivan's promotion of country traders in eastern waters. For, what English observers of East India Company politics in London have overlooked is the history of the establishment of Penang, which was the result of a consistent trend in regional dealings that seems to have been promoted mostly by Sulivan and partners. ([49]) And oddly enough, it is as though the Larkins family and some other Blackheathites decided to ride on the coat-tails of this trend. ([50])

 

      Laurence Sulivan was part of the little-known firm, Jourdain, Sulivan and De Souza. ([51]) And by the 1760s, more British ships were carrying opium east from India, although, officially, the East India Company forbade this. The French in 1776 appointed a consul to Canton, and three seasons later a Scot, John Reid, who had worked for the East India Company in Bengal, became consul for Austria, or, his Imperial Majesty of Vienna. ([52]) Oddly enough, an emissary on trading matters in this period was John Shakespear, from  the extended family of alderman John Shakespear of London (with whom members of Duncan Campbell's family had become linked). ([53]) Otherwise, soon after he arrived in India, Francis Light secured command of a country ship owned in India, belonging to the Madras firm, Jourdain, Sulivan and De Souza, who wanted to create agencies at Acheen and Kedah. Light was first sent to Acheen as a joint agent. Light was later held in esteem by chiefs of southern Malaya, and became instrumental in establishing Penang, as is known. ([54]) Less known is the career of  Jourdain, Sulivan and De Souza, and how they achieved their ambitions. Light could not have established Penang without their consistent backing. ([55])< /p>

 

     Francis Light entered the navy in 1759, as midshipman, then went into East India Company service. Shortly he got command of country ship for Jordain, Laurence Sulivan and De Souza (probably dealing in opium and cotton). Light and a Mr. Harrop went to Achin, unsuccessfully, to make a depot, Light had a fort at Kedah harbour by 1771, and by then he was writing to Jourdain, Sulivan and De Souza about bringing in sepoys, but they as country traders could engage in no military activity, and Warren Hastings could not assist either.  ([56]) One Light associate at Kedah was Hon. Edward Monkton, and his mission also was a failure. Light however maintained a long-term commercial friendship with James Scott. ([57]) Hon. Edward Monckton (1744-1832) was an East India official who ([58]) married Sophia Pigot, daughter of a rambuctious governor of Madras, George Pigot. ([59]) Edward Monckton became tangled up with the Penang ventures promoted by Light, having joined the East India Company in Madras in 1762-1768, "the Clive period". ([60])

 

        While Clive achieved his successes in Bengal, (or rapacity, depending on opinion), he had the support of the chairman of the East India Company, John Payne. ([61]) Sulivan was then an ambitious director waiting in the wings and would harry Clive - but we are not told why. In fact, Sulivan only comes to the notice of historians since he opposed Clive, he is not noticed in London business histories as a businessman in his own right. ([62])  ([63])

 

     John Payne, banker and director of the Bank of England,  had brothers, Edward, and René Payne (1716-1795). There was also a firm, J. E. and R. Payne, East India merchants. It appears there is a father and son firm, Edward(s) Payne? ([64]) Edward Payne had his own family firm, E. and R. Payne, himself and René, after Edward's brother John died. ([65]) It is not impossible that Payne collected investment funds from Clive's associates, then moved out of reliance on East India Company trade, and invested the money in his partnership with Smiths.

 

The Larkins family of Blackheath:

 

     Meanwhile, in 1770 was born William Larkins, son of Capt. Thomas Larkins (of Blackheath?). The IGI provides a date of 13 February, 1781, for John Pascal Larkins at St Marylebone, London. John Pascal Larkins (1765-1818), son of dockowner Thomas Larkins, ([66]) was a shipowner associated with the East India Company. John Pascal Larkins (1765-1818) was spouse of  Mary Ann Sampson. ([67])  John Pascal Larkins was uncle of Captain Thomas Larkins on the Larkins' ship Warren Hastings in 1786, when that Capt. Thomas Larkins found his own eldest son William, born 1770, had not long died in the wreck of the Larkins' ship Halsewell with Capt. Richard Peirce. The managing owner of Halsewell was Peter Esdaile (a little- known name) who was presumably of London.

 

   By about 1786, the Larkins family had links with India trade, and were somehow connected with Warren Hastings, who was impeached from 1788. (They still had a ship named Warren Hastings after 1800.) And alderman George Macaulay wrote various letters to Warren Hastings which are now with the British Library. ([68]) A conjecture is, that the Larkins family had ambitions to enter the kind of free-ranging country trade earlier espoused by Lawrence Sulivan. Evidence on many family and business connections points to the Larkins family being just one set of traders resident at  Blackheath who became connected with shipping sent to eastern Australia, or, "the Pacific".

 

     Also linked to the Larkins family was Rev. Sir Frederick Larkins Currie, Bart2 (born 1823), son of Sir Frederick Currie Bart1 and Susannah Larkins; his first wife was Eliza Reeve Rackham, his second wife was Mary Helen Corrie. ([69]) Sir Frederick Currie Bart1 became secretary of the India government. He was born 3 February, 1799 - died 1875); his first wife was Susannah Larkins, his second wife was Lucy Elizabeth Bird. ([70])

 

An odd matter of a ship name arises. When Penang was officially established during August 1786, there was present a ship Valentine,  Capt. Thomas Wall. which was probably the ship of that name later bought by Duncan Campbell. ([71]) Capt. Wall later in 1792 at Penang was on the East India Company ship Duke of Buccleugh.  Honourable East India Company ships associated with  Light's occupation of Penang were Vansittart and Valentine.  ([72])

 

What has such information to do with any mysteries of Britain's "founding" of Australia? The proposition is that the involvement of whalers resident at Blackheath in shipping convicts to Australia is not well-recognised by historians. Behind the whalers' involvement were linkages to East India Company traders who espoused Sulivan's hopes to create new, free-trade varieties of trading in the east. These traders benefited from the establishment of Penang, and may also have had useful connections with the East India Company's "first bank at Canton". It almost seems as if they acted as "moles" within the East India Company while government officials were finally driven to land convicts at Botany Bay. This helps explain how and why their relative and neighbour, alderman Macaulay acted as he did after George Moore's debacles, to which we return.   

 

*   *   *

 

Secret plans for men unworthy: Part Two:

 

Note: This version of the confusing entry in 1783 ([73]) of George Moore into transportation and the uncanny results leans heavily on information kindly supplied by Mollie Gillen, apart from her published material including, Convicts, not Empire. ([74])

 

From 1783...

 

       Duncan Campbell continually received queries from gaolers and other minor functionaries in the judicial hierarchy who still imagined that convicts would be sent to America, and could not imagine any other destination. Any such outlook held by anyone, the king included, was indication of a lack of appreciation of the extent to which times had changed. ([75])

 

     The Home Office never had any power to order Duncan Campbell to re-enter the convict shipping business. If they had, he would have refused. Here, the irony is that just as the British government was preparing to abridge American sensibilities about receiving British convicts, and do so secretly, and to countenance the subterfuges of Moore and his Bristol friends, the Americans had gathered their breath and were again willing to consider paying their debts to British merchants. There is an oft-cited letter of 6 May, 1783, from George Mason to Patrick Henry, ([76]) concerned with a reasonable time to repay debts to the British, denying that the Americans had fought to avoid paying their debts, as the Tories had insultingly insisted, suggesting that failing to pay debts would be a breach of the peace and a dangerous risk to the peace. (Henry was greatly opposed to paying back the debts - he came from a heavily indebted area of Virginia).

 

     But meanwhile, the Americans were irritated by various still-plundering British soldiers, a British refusal to return slaves carried away during the war, and the Virginian economy worsened. (These matters all remained on Jefferson's mind.) Britain by April 1783 had recognised the complete independence of the USA. On 3 April, Campbell had provided to Lord Sydney an account for £886/6/- relating to his provision of the hulk Censor, then used for the temporary reception of up to 250 convicts ordered for transportation to North America. At the time, the notion that convicts could still be sent to North America was simply the result of administrative inertia, or worse, fantasy. It was this April when one of Maryland's prominent merchants, George Salmon, began writing to George Moore in London about a clandestine scheme to ship convicts to Maryland as "servants". ([77]) Salmon acted partly at the instigation of Moore's brother Phillip, a merchant in Philadelphia. There was at the time, no law prohibiting such convicts being brought to Maryland. The first ship to be used was George, which was to be renamed Swift.

 

*  *  *

 

[Finis Chapter 25]

Words 5997 words with footnotes 10726 pages 31 footnotes 141



[1] The Parish Register, St Dunstan's in the East. G. Palmer, Biographical Sketches of Loyalists of the American Revolution. London, Meckler Pub., Westport, 1984., entry on Henrietta Colden, p. 165, citing AO12/101/186. She was in England in 1784 and 1785, and estimated the value of her husband's estate (in New York) at £21,790 sterling. Campbell helped her obtain a stipend for her sons' education at Edinburgh.

[2] I mention this matter particularly as Duncan Campbell was not directly involved in these strange events. Roger A. Ekirch, `Great Britain's Secret Convict Trade to America, 1783-1785', American Historical Review, Vol. 89, No. 5, December, 1984., pp. 1285-1291. Also, Kenneth Morgan, `The Organisation of the Convict Trade to Maryland: Stevenson, Randolph and Cheston, 1768-1775', William and Mary Quarterly, Vol. 42, No. 2, April, 1985., pp. 201-227.

[3]  On the hulks: W. T. Vincent, The Records of the Woolwich District. Two Vols. London, nd. Angry fulmination about Campbell and the hulks is contained in Douglas Parode Capper, Moat Defensive: A History of the Waters of the Nore Command 55BC to 1961. London, A. Baker Ltd., 1963. And in W. Branch-Johnson, The English Prison Hulks. London and Chichester, Phillimore, 1957. More balanced views, criminologically speaking, are available in Charles Campbell, The Intolerable Hulks: British Shipboard Confinement, 1776-1857. Bowie, Maryland, Heritage Books, 1994.

[4] I have never read if Thomas Jefferson knew enough about these strange events to have ever had an opinion! Herbert E. Klingelhofer, `Matthew Ridley's Diary during the Peace Negotiations  of 1782',  William and Mary Quarterly, Series 3, Vol. 20, January, 1963., pp. 95-133. Ridley kept regular diaries; his writings are now with the Massachusetts Historical Society. He may have been from the Ridley family of Northern England bankers, but this has not been ascertained.

[5] HO 42/9, annotated 13 July, 1786, is a later, bitterly-worded Memorial from George Moore to the Treasury.

[6] Oldham records, Moore received over £1512/17/6d for his debacles.

[7] Shaw, Convicts and the Colonies, p. 45. Ekirch, `Secret Trade', p. 1285.

[8] Sir John Fortescue, (Ed.), The Correspondence of King George III. London, 1928.

[9] Matra (See Clune, Rascals, p. 31) in 1767 was a midshipman with Cook on Endeavour's voyage 1767-1770. Matra later became British Consul at Teneriffe. In 1777 he visited New York to try to recover his family property, seized by Revolutionaries. In 1778 he was Secretary to the British Embassy in Constantinople. In August 1783 he memorialised the British Government about a settlement of NSW. (The suburb in Sydney, Matraville, is named for him). In 1786, Matra became Consul-General at Tangier, Morocco, where he died in 1806.

[10] For 23 August, 1783, see Matra to Lord North, secretary of state for Home and Colonial Affairs, re government support for an alternative plan. Also Mackay, Exile, p. 28. See G. Palmer, Biographical Sketches of Loyalists of the American Revolution. London/Westport, Meckler Pub, 1984. One page of entries on Delanceys, p. 214. James Mario Matra the promoter of the idea that Canadian loyalists could settle in the Pacific, maintained links with the Delanceys. Delanceys were descended from Huguenots: Oliver Delancey (1749-1822) was a brigadier general of the loyalist forces in the American Revolution. Watson, Geo III, p. 177.

[11] Martin, Founding, Chapter 2.

[12] Martin, `Alternatives to Botany Bay', in Martin, Founding, p. 158.

[13] Walvin, Black Ivory, p. 295.

[14] Merrill D. Peterson, Thomas Jefferson and the New Nation. London, Oxford University Press, 1970. p. 290; a crippling blow July 1783, when Britain excluded American ships from West Indies trade, being determined to hold US in economic vassalage, as adumbrated by the Earl of Sheffield in his 1783 Observations on the Commerce of the United States. Also, C. Northcote Parkinson, (Ed), The Trade Winds: A Study of British Overseas Trade during the French Wars 1793-1815. London, Allen and Unwin, 1948. In Parkinson here, see Herbert Heaton, `The American Trade', p. 194.

[15] Cited in T. Thompson, `Personal Indebtedness', Note 85.

[16] Ged Martin in Martin, Founding, pp. 153-163, in illuminating here in his article, `The AlternativestTo Botany Bay'... p. 155, "As late as June 1788... 140 convicts were `taken out of the British jails' and later unloaded at New London, Connecticut", citing Providence Journal, Rhode Island, 12 July, 1788. The ownership of the vessel concerned has not been traced. The ship would presumably have sailed about late May, 1788.

[17] Details are in Kellock, `London Merchants', p. 112. Some merchant names of the era are also noted in Lewis Namier, England in the Age of the American Revolution. London, Macmillan, Edition 2, 1961.

[18] Jackson, Whale, pp. 70ff.

[19] Jacob Price, One Family's Empire, p. 197.

[20] Matra is indexed 40 times in Martin's Founding; Duncan Campbell is indexed only five times. Martin's anthology is sans Molleson-Campbell and their connections through the tobacco trade and their efforts to obtain debt recovery. Delanceys descended from Huguenots, Oliver Delancey (1749-1822) a brigadier-general of the Loyalist forces in the American Revolution. Watson, Geo III, p. 177. Delanceys were descended from Huguenots, Oliver Delancey (1749-1822) was a brigadier general of the Loyalist forces in the American Revolution. Watson, Geo III, p. 177. G. Palmer, Biographical Sketches of Loyalists of the American Revolution. London, Meckler Pub., 1984., Entries on Delanceys, p. 214.

[21] H. E. Maude, Of Islands and Men - Studies in Pacific History. Melbourne, OUP, 1968., p. 173, p. 383.

[22] Dakin, Whalemen Adventurers, intro.

[23] Dallas, Trading Posts, pp. 46, 36.

[24] Steven, Trade, Tactics and Territory, pp. 66-67: Stackpole, Whales, pp. 16-17.

[25] Steven, Trade, Tactics and Territory, p. 67.

[26] Watson, Geo III, p. 280.

[27] Watson, Geo III, pp. 262ff.

[28] Source: The Royal Calendar, 1783.

[29] Stackpole, Rivalry, pp. 16-17.

[30] Stackpole, Rivalry, pp. 24-25. Olson, Making the Empire Work, p. 246, Note 4, p. 250, Note 60, citing Mary Hayley's business letters to Christopher Champlin, 1 Feb., 1783, 22 May, 1783, Commerce of Rhode Island, 1776-1880, Boston. 1915. II, p. 170.

[31] Richard Miles was governor there by 1 Feb., 1783, PRO Treasury Papers, 70/33/53; Ekirch, `Great Britain's Secret Convict Trade', pp. 1286ff.

[32] Gillen, `Botany Bay Decision', p. 746. Oldham, Britain's Convicts, pp. 70ff.

[33] A detail from Reginald R. Sharpe, Memorials of Newgate Gaol, earlier cited.

[34] Williams, Whig, p. 129.

[35] In Blackheath's local history, the Larkins family appear as a sedate "East India Company family", but delving provides unexpected surprises. E. W. Bovill, `Some Chronicles of the Larkins Family - The Convict Ship 1792', The Mariner's Mirror. Vol. 40, No. 2, 1954., pp. 120-121. In 1770 was born William Larkins, son of Capt. Thomas Larkins (of Blackheath?). See E. W. Bovill, `Some Chronicles of the Larkins Family: The Loss of the Warren Hastings, 1806',  The Mariners Mirror, Vol. 42, No. 3, August, 1956., pp. 188-200.

[36] Rhind, The Heath, p. 63. Burke's Peerage and Baronetage for Currie and for Dyke. Some members of the Larkins family circa 1850s are noted in Youssef Cassis, 'Bankers in English society in the late nineteenth century', Economic History Review, Series 2, Vol. 38, No. 2, May 1985., pp. 210-229., here, p. 222.

[37] On Laurence Sulivan: H. V. Bowen, Revenue and Reform: The Indian Problem in British Politics, 1757-1773.   Sydney, Cambridge University Press, 1991., p. 126, p. 135, pp. 172ff, p. 179.

[38] Bowen, Revenue and Reform,  p. 135, pp. 172ff. H. V. Bowen, '"Dipped in the Traffic": East India Stockholders in the House of Commons, 1768-1774', Parliamentary History, 5, 1986,  pp. 40-42.

[39] Here I rely on Tara Chand, History of the Freedom Movement in India. Vol. 1. New Delhi, Publications Division, Ministry of Information and Broadcasting, Government of India, 1970.

[40] The definitive account of the Clive-Sulivan power struggle is to be found in Lucy Stewart Sutherland, The East India Company in Eighteenth Century Politics. Oxford at the Clarendon Press, 1952., chapters 4-5. However, Sutherland, and indeed all historians,  fail to provide information on just what trade Sulivan actually conducted in the East. It therefore remains difficult to read Sulivan's motives, yet one outcome of the influence of Sulivan and his partners was Britain's settling of Penang. Lucy Stewart Sutherland, The City of London and Opposition to Government: A Study in the Rise in Metropolitan Radicalism.  London, Athlone Press, 1958.

[41] Bowen, Revenue and Reform, p. 46, p. 64, p. 68, and his Note 46, on Sulivan's paper to Lord Shelburne on the condition of East India Company and an outline plan for reform, 1767, Clements Library, Landsdowne MSS 90, f.84.) By 1767, Sulivan warned that Company directors might be tempted to extend conquests to China. (Bowen, Revenue and Reform, p. 68. A useful article is:  Barry M. Gough, `William Bolts and the Austrian Attempt to establish an Eastern Empire', pp. 75ff in John Hardy and Alan Frost, European Voyaging Towards Australia.  Occasional Paper No. 8. Canberra, Australian Academy of the Humanities, 1990.)

[42] Bowen, Revenue and Reform, p. 95. Bowen [p. 105] treats the Bengal famine, caused by drought and crop failures of 1768 and 1769, which cost the lives of about one third of Bengal's population. Bowen [p. 108] notes London's concern at the volume of specie being sent to China by November 1767).  (Bowen, Revenue and Reform, p. 46, p. 54.) The East India Company chairman of directors 1772-1773 was Sir George Colebrooke: see Lucy Sutherland, `Sir George Colebrooke's World Corner in Alum', Economic History, supplement, Economic Journal, Feb, 1936, pp. 237ff. Colebrooke supported Clive's ambitions.

[43] Bowen, Revenue and Reform, p. 179.

[44] Mui Hoh-cheung and Lorna M. Mui, `William Pitt and the Enforcement of the Commutation Act, 1784-1788',  English Historical Review, Vol. LXXVI, No. 300, July 1961., pp. 447-465; Mui Hoh-cheung and Lorna M. Mui, `The Commutation Act and the Tea Trade in Britain, 1784-1793',  Economic History Review, Series 2, Vol. XVI, No. 2, December 1963., pp. 234-253; Mui Hoh-cheung and Lorna M. Mui, `Smuggling and British Tea Trade before 1784', American Historical Review, Vol. LXXIV, No. 1, October 1968., pp. 41-73.; Mui Hoh-cheung and Lorna M. Mui, `Trends in Eighteenth Century Smuggling Reconsidered', Economic History Review, Series 2, Vol. XXVIII, No. 1, Feb 1975., pp. 28-43; Horsea Ballon Morse, `The Provision of Funds for the East India Company's Trade at Canton during the Eighteenth Century', Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society, April Part 2, 1922., pp. 227-254.

[45] Useful background is given in C. M. Turnbull, The Straits Settlements, 1826-1867: Indian Presidency to Crown Colony. London, Athlone Press, 1972. Conrad E. Wright,  Merchants and Mandarins: New York and the Early China Trade. New York, New York Historical Society, 1984., pp. 17-54.; Earl Hamilton Pritchard, `The Struggle for Control of the China Trade during the Eighteenth Century',  Pacific Historical Review, Vol. III, 1934., pp. 280-295.

[46] Dianne Lewis, `The Growth of the Country Trade to the Straits of Malacca, 1760-1777', Journal of the Malaysian Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society, Vol. 43, Part 2, 1970., pp. 114-129. Jean Sutton, Lords of the East: The East India Company and its Ships.  London, Conway Maritime Press, 1981. W. E. Cheong, `Trade and Finance in China, 1784-1834',  Business History, Vol. 7, No. 1, January 1965., pp. 34-47. W. E. Cheong, `The Beginning of Credit Finance on the China Coast: The Canton Financial Crisis of 1812-1815',  Business History, Vol. 13, No. 2, 1971., pp. 87-103. W. E. Cheong, 'China Houses and the Bank of England Crisis of 1825',  Business History, Vol. 15, No. 1, January 1973., pp. 56-73. W. E. Cheong, Mandarins and Merchants: Jardine Matheson and Co:  A China Agency of the Early Nineteenth Century. London, Curzon Press, (Scandinavian Institute of Asian Studies, Monograph Series, No. 26), 1979.

[47] N. C. Chaudhuri, Clive of India: A Political and Psychological Essay. London, Barrie and Jenkins, 1975., p. 57.

[48] On Clive of India: Robert Clive (1725-1774), first Baron Clive, Burke's Peerage and Baronetage, for Powis. Some of his descendants are listed in entry in DNB for Earl1 Plymouth. GEC, Peerage, Saint Germans, p. 311; Powis, p. 652; Clive, p. 324. Lucy Sutherland, East India Company In C18th Politics,  p. 117.

[49] Background here is provided in: H. P. Clodd, Malaya's First British Pioneer: The Life of Francis Light. London, Luzac and Co., 1948.  A. Francis Steuart, `The Founders of Penang and Adelaide, 1901',  Journal of the Indian Archipelago, with, e.g. `Notices of Penang', edited by J. R. Logan. Francis Light is mentioned in the Malayan Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society, 1925; see an article by Mr. L. A. Mills writing on `British Malaya, 1824-1867', with a tribute to Francis Light. Royal Asiatic Society also published in 1894, `A Memoir of Capt. Francis Light' by A. M. Skinner, CMG. Rev. Keppel Garnier, `Early Days in Penang', 1929.

[50] Austin Coates, Macao and the British, 1637-1842: Prelude to Hong Kong. Hong Kong, OUP, 1988., pp. 62ff.

[51] Laurence Sulivan, (1713-1786), East India Company director, parents unknown, married Elizabeth  Owen.

[52] For background on "European consuls" working in the East: John Henry Cox, whose father, a maker of automatons popular in China, remained in London, (J. H. Cox, gatherer of furs from Nootka Sound, had a firm which became the forerunner of Jardine-Matheson). On Cox and "European consuls" see also, Barry M. Gough, `William Bolts and the Austrian Attempt to establish an Eastern Empire', pp. 75ff in John Hardy and Alan Frost, European Voyaging Towards Australia.  Occasional Paper No. 8. Canberra, Australian Academy of the Humanities, 1990.

[53] J. Shakespear, John Shakespear of Shadwell and his Descendants, 1619-1931. Newcastle, UK, Self-published, 1931., pp. 42-46 in Chapter, India, 1767-1781. In 178,1 one John Shakespear brought papers from India, and had to speak on matters Indian, including Warren Hastings, and Sir Elijah Impey, etc., Mr. Sulivan was closely examined by a committee on the papers Shakespear had brought. After John Shakespear was examined, his connections with India ceased, but his son Arthur later observed that the Prince of Wales had backed John Shakespear as an aspiring East India Company director, but Shakespear lost.  Later, Lord Moira as Governor-general, India, wanted John Shakespear to go out to India again for a situation in Bengal worth £10,000 per year, but Lord Liverpool as prime minister insisted on the Home Government's right to make that particular appointment,. (Namier-Brooke, The History of Parliament: House of Commons, 1754-1790, Vol. 3, p. 509.)

[54] H. V. Bowen, Revenue and Reform, variously. Coates, Macao, pp. 62ff. J. Shakespear, Shakespear, pp. 42-46. Lucy Sutherland, East India Company in C18th politics, p. 66. H. P. Clodd, Light, p. 6. Jourdain, Sulivan and De Souza - Sippanah Arasaratnam, 'Trade and political dominion in South India, 1750-1790: changing British-Indian relationships',  Modern Asian Studies, Vol. 13, No. 1, 1979., pp. 19-40 mentions, p. 31, a cloth merchant of Madras circa 1771 , Anthonio De Souza, who may or may not have been a partner of Laurence Sulivan; and pp. 36-37 mentions pressures expanding British private trade leading to the establishment of Penang, and also more dependent forms of collaboration for India merchants.

[55] D. K. Bassett, `British Trade and Policy in Indonesia and Malaysia in the Late Eighteenth Century',  Ch. 3 of British Commercial and Strategic Interest in the Malay Peninsula during the Late Eighteenth Century. Inter Documentation Company, Zug, Switzerland., August 1971., pp. 50-71.

[56] In 1766, Jourdain of the firm Jordain, Sulivan and De Souza sent the Indian Trader to Achin, their man was Gowan (sic) Harrop, factor for Madras at Achin, used bills of exchange to be drawn on Jourdain; JSDS sent Light to Achin to Kedah in 1770 and got tin in their own ships. By early 1772 they had sent goods worth nearly £120,000 to Achin, most to go to Canton.  In November, 1781, Lawrence Sulivan and William James as East India Company directors approached Lord Hillsborough, secretary of state for the Northern Department, with a proposal to destroy Pondicherry as a French stronghold in India. The situation was complex. Hillsborough sent Sulivan's and James' views to George III and then circularised India on the need to establish a British base at Achin. Light's friend James Scott was a famous country trader who promoted the establishment of Penang from about 1780.

[57] ADB entry on his son, William, later of Adelaide, South Australia. Francis Light could be regarded as an example of the "British pirate" and "comprehensivisit thinker", as in p. xiii and p. 3 of Dutton's book, Francis Light, we find, Light is a "tough, practical sailor and trader", and, "was of the true character of the empire-builder, in which personal interest and patriotism, an eye for profits and 'vision', love of adventure and honest administrative ability are so astonishingly mixed". Geoffrey Dutton, Founder of a City: The Life of Colonel William Light, First Surveyor-General of the Colony of South Australia, Founder of Adelaide, 1786-1839.  Melbourne, Cheshire, 1960.

[58] Edward Monckton, son of John Monckton (1695-1751), first Viscount Galway. First Viscount Galway was son of Robert Monckton and Theodosia Fountaine, and married as first wife,  Elizabeth Manners, secondly, Jane Westenra. (Bowen, Revenue and Reform, variously, and Valentine, British Establishment, Vol. 2, p. 606 and p. 702, Vol. 1, p. 98. GEC, Peerage, Galway, p. 611; Cork, p. 424.

[59] Sophia Pigot: Illegitimate daughter of George Pigot (1719-1777), first Baron Pigot, Governor of  Madras, 1753-1763, who in India gained a fortune estimated at £100,0000. The Pigot family developed links with the Dukes of Grafton, and thus, with descendants of Sir Josiah Child. George's brother, Major-General, second Baron Pigot, Robert (1720-1796), commanded a regiment at Bunker Hill. Valentine, British Establishment, Vol 2, p. 703. Burke's Peerage and Baronetage, Pigot.

[60] His brother was Robert Monckton, (1726-1782), MP, who in 1767-1768 speculated heavily in East India Company stock, losing heavily. Robert administered Nova Scotia and was governor of Annapolis. On first Viscount Galway: H. V. Bowen, Revenue and Reform, variously. Valentine, British Establishment, Vol. 1, p. 98, Vol. 2, p. 606, p. 702. GEC, Peerage, Galway, p. 611; Cork, p. 424. Monckton was the fifth son of Viscount Galway, and he'd joined the Madras civil service in 1762. Monckton became a partner of Madras free merchant George Smith, who wanted tin for China ships, Monckton married the daughter of the Gov. George Pigot, first Baron Pigot, in 1776. He died in 1832. H. D. Love, Vestiges of Old Madras, 1640-1800.  London, 1913.

[61] John Payne: Burke's Landed Gentry for Lane formerly Pickard-Cambridge of Poxwell. The family firm of linen drapers by 1758 had a capital of £48,000. J. A. S. Leighton-Boyce, Smiths the Bankers, 1658-1958. London, National Provincial Bank Ltd., 1958., p. 1, p. 53, pp. 68ff. The Smith-Payne bank opened with a capital of £16,963/8/71/2d. Pemberton, Australian Agricultural Company, p. 389. Price, `Different Kind', p. 35, on Paynes dealing with Buchanan and Simson the tobacco-cum-slaving firm. Kellock, `London Merchants', p. 139. John Payne, (1708-1764), No. 9 Lothbury, London, off Coleman Street; Governor East India Company, later bankers with Smiths, Payne and Smiths. His father was a successful haberdasher. His spouse is unknown.  He had a brother, Edward (On West Indian merchants, Braund, see Lucy Sutherland, A London Merchant, 1695-1774. London, Frank Cass, 1962., p. 117.) The Smith-Payne bank was probably a founder or co-founder of the London Bankers Clearing House in 1770, with fair sums circulated there in 1777 by Smith and Payne. After John Payne died the family firm moved to 18 Lombard Street, a site purchased in 1782 by Phoenix Fire Insurance Co. Smith Payne and Smith as bank ended at No. 1 Lombard Street. The Payne firm of linen drapers by 1758 had a capital of £48,000. Smiths the Bankers, pp. 68ff and p. 122. The Smith-Payne bank opened with a capital of £16,963/8/71/2d., p. 53. See Smiths the Bankers, p. 1. Payne became linked with Abel Smith re the London bank,  Smith, Payne and Smiths, from 1758. In all, there were four men of this banker family named Abel. The family member most notable for later Australian history was John Abel Smith (1801-1879), Banker, MP, a first son, associated with the New Zealand Co., son of John II Smith, MP, of Blendon Hall and his second wife. John Abel Smith died 1879 was a co-founder of Smith-Magniac, the forerunner of Jardine Matheson, and a partner of Hollingworth Magniac. He was a chief partner of Smith-Payne-Smiths from 1835-1845. In March 1840 when Jardine was back in London, John Abel Smith asked him to leave the China house and join Magniac and Smith. John Abel Smith died 1879 assisted Baron Lionel de Rothschild into the House of Commons in July 1858. His family did not appreciate his involvements in Far Eastern trade, and he was with the family bank for only 10 years. He was of 37 Chester Square, London. His temperament was "unsuited" to the family bank, which took the view that he dissipated his family fortune on the "fringes of empire" in the east, in the Antipodes, in railway and colonial development. He had interests in Australia and New Zealand, He left the family bank in 1845. His career as an investor in Australia has been insufficiently recognised. Stenton, British Parliamentarians, Vol. 1, pp. 352-353. Adams, Fatal Necessity, Listings on New Zealand Company. Keswick, Jardines, pp. 24ff. Kynaston, City of London, p. 112. Broeze, Imperial Axis, in Push from the Bush; and Broeze, Brooks, pp. 32ff. W. E. Cheong, Jardine/Matheson, p. 243 and p. 258, Note 20. S. B. Singh,  Agency Houses, variously. Michael Greenberg, British Trade and the Opening of China, 1800-1842. Cambridge University Press, 1951. Leighton-Boyce, Smiths the Bankers,  p. 272. Pemberton, The London Connection, p. 389. Steven Runciman, The White Rajahs: A History of Sarawak from 1841 to 1946.  Cambridge University Press, 1960., p. 148. The line of Smith's the bankers produced a governor of Western Australia... Sir Gerard Smith, (1839-1920), governor of Western Australia 1895-1900, KCMG, son of MP Martin Smith (1803-1880) and Louisa Ridley. His wife was Isabella Chatelaine Hamilton. (His own ADB entry). J. A. S. Leighton-Boyce, Smiths the Bankers, 1658-1958. London, National Provincial Bank Ltd., 1958. He arrived in Western Australia as Coolgardie and Kalgoorlie enjoyed a gold boom. He invested unwisely in mining and other speculation and was unfortunate in his choice of partners. Scandals resulted and London disapproves. Stenton, British Parliamentarians, Vol. 1, pp. 352-353. Gerard Smith's father, banker Martin Tucker Smith was an investor in the Australian Agricultural Association, a director of the East India Company, and of the Canada Company.  Pemberton, The London Connection, p. 389. Leighton-Boyce, genealogical table, Smiths the Bankers, p. 273.

[62] N. C. Chaudhuri, Clive of India: A Political and Psychological Essay. London, Barrie and Jenkins, 1975., p. 57.

[63] On Clive of India: Robert Clive (1725-1774), first Baron Clive, Burke's Peerage and Baronetage, for Powis. Some of his descendants are listed in entry in DNB for Earl1 Plymouth. GEC, Peerage, Saint Germans, p. 311; Powis, p. 652; Clive, p. 324. Lucy Sutherland, East India Company In C18th Politics,  p. 117. Lucy Sutherland, `Sir George Colebrooke's World Corner in Alum', Economic History, supplement, Economic Journal, February 1936., pp. 237ff, Colebrooke being pro-Clive in 1766 and later.

[64] Lucy Sutherland, on Braunds, A London Merchant, pp. 117ff. Kellock, `London Merchants',  p. 139. He had a house at Ealing House, Middlesex.

[65] On Edward Payne: His daughter is noted in Burke's Landed Gentry for Lane formerly Pickard-Cambridge of Poxwell. Sutherland on Braund, pp. 117ff. Kellock, `London Merchants', article, p. 139. Leighton-Boyce, Smiths the Bankers, pp. 68ff, p. 122, p. 153.

[66] Dockowner and East India Company ships husband Thomas Larkins  (1746-1794). See E. W. Bovill, `Some Chronicles of the Larkins Family: The Loss of the Warren Hastings, 1806',  The Mariners Mirror, Vol. 42, No. 3, August, 1956., pp. 188-200. See Rhind, The Heath, p. 63. Thomas was a Blackheath golfer (per Neil Rhind of Blackheath), and owned a ship Warren Hastings. He lived at Hyde Cliffe 1789-1794 at Blackheath. Thomas owned Brunswick Dock at Blackwall, where Providence of the second breadfruit voyage was launched.

[67] Mary Anne Sampson was sister of Harriot who married George Enderby (1762-1829) of Blackheath, a convict contractor. Mary Anne had at least five children (according to the IGI) one of whom was Susanna who married a secretary to the Indian government, Sir Frederick Currie Bart1, (1799-1875). Burke's Peerage and Baronetage for Currie, p. 648.

[68] Captain Thomas Larkins of London was active by 1805, a nephew of J. P. Larkins. In November 1826, the London correspondents of Yrissari and Co. in the east were Thomas Larkins Jr; Thomas Saunders; Hunter, Morgans and Paton; Cole, Nichols and Co; Gregsen, Melville and Knight; Rickards, McIntosh and Co; Fletcher, Alexander and Co. W. E. Cheong, Jardine/Matheson, p. 76, p. 189.) Cheong, p. 189 sees Larkins known as "Tom" and another old friend of Jardine establishment, who could be considered "a 50,000 pounds man".

[69] Currie and Co.: in Youssef  Cassis, `Bankers in English Society in the late eighteenth century', Economic History Review, Series 2, Vol. 38, No. 2, May 1985., p. 220. Burke's Peerage and Baronetage, for Currie, p. 649. Also, Roger Fulford, Glyn's, 1753-1953: Six Generations in Lombard Street. London, Macmillan, 1953.

[70] See Katherine Louisa Dyke in Burke's Peerage and Baronetage, Currie, p. 648; Dyke, p. 809. There seems no reason to connect this Lucy Bird with the family involved in the financiers' firm, Bird, Savage and Bird, treated elsewhere.

[71] On the ship Valentine: Clodd, Light, p. 75, p. 133. A ship named Valentine Capt. Wall was present in Penang anchorage on the August 1786 date when Penang was founded.

[72] Geoffrey Dutton, Founder of a City: The Life of Colonel William Light, First Surveyor-General of the Colony of South Australia, Founder of Adelaide, 1786-1839.  Melbourne, Cheshire, 1960., p. 25. J. C. Pasqual, `An Historical Memoir of Penang', Penang Gazette, May 25, 1922, cited p. 46 in Clodd, Malaya's First British Pioneer: The Life of Francis Light. London, Luzac and Co., 1948. Here matters become confusing because they link to an East India Company's ship's husband, D. Cameron, employed by Duncan Campbell to manage ships handled by Campbell's son John. Lloyd's Registers for 1791-1796 note a ship Duke of Buccleuch with a husband, D. Cameron, sailing always for the East. While she may have been an India navy ship, she appears (with one sail-by date of 8 March, 1792) to be a commercial ship ultimately managed by Duncan Campbell. It is of course feasible that Campbell linked eastern trade with Blackheath names such as Larkins,  I have no information this was the case. Campbell's descendant WDC thought that Campbell's son "Little Duncan" was on Duke of Buccleuch bound for St Helena in 1793; in 1794-96 he was on Princess Charlotte.  Be as that may, Duncan Senior in London ; Duncan Campbell Business Letterbooks, Vol. 6, p. 401, on 4 December, 1793, wrote to his son John Campbell, then fifth mate of the Brunswick, of the death of Duncan's son by Mary Mumford, little Neil, who died on 13 June, 1793. While it is uncertain here how much commercial eastern shipping D. Cameron here managed for Duncan Senior, it also seems mysterious and complicating that some ships later managed by Cameron began using Penang so early in its history as a British port.  

[73] J. E. Gillespie, `The Transportation of English Convicts after 1783',  Journal of Criminal Law and Criminology, Vol. XIII, 3, Nov., 1922 (Chicago)., as cited in O'Brien, Foundation,  (1950 edn), pp. 115ff.

[74] Other writers are already herein cited, A. Roger Ekirch, `Great Britain's Secret Convict Trade to America',; Oldham, Britain's Convicts, pp. 54, 59, 84ff and elsewhere; Alan Frost, Convicts And Empire, A Naval Question; John Cobley, Crimes of the First Fleet Convicts, and Ged Martin. Year 1783: On George Moore and subsequent events, see John Cobley, op cit. Kenneth Morgan, `The Organisation of the Convict Trade to Maryland: Stevenson, Randolph and Cheston, 1768-1775',  op cit; And, Ged Martin in Martin, Founding, `Alternatives to Botany Bay', p. 158.

[75] On George Moore's ventures, see A. Roger Ekirch, `Great Britain's Secret Convict Trade to America', and John Cobley, The Crimes of the First Fleet Convicts, earlier cited; Mollie Gillen, `The Botany Bay Decision'; Alan Frost, Convicts And Empire, earlier cited; Also, Alan Frost, `Botany Bay: An Imperial Venture of the 1780s', English Historical Review. 1985., in rebuttal of Mollie Gillen, 'The Botany Bay Decision, 1786: convicts, not empire', English Historical Review, Vol. 97, No. 385, October 1982., pp. 740-766.References to Moore are contained in Ged Martin, (Ed), Founding, earlier cited.

[76] Given in Emory Evans, `Planters Indebtedness', p. 359.

[77] Ekirch, `Secret Trade', p. 1287.




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