Having missed the first meeting of the Dismal Swamp Company, John Syme in the following months chose not to remain a shareholder. He left his many debts unpaid, giving as his excuse the low price of tobacco and high rate of exchange. When his share of the expenses of starting to drain the swamp fell due, his inability to command cash would become obvious to his partners. By the first meeting or soon afterward, Syme found someone to take his share: Francis Farley.
Antigua suffered hard years in 1762, 1763, and 1764, years to make a planter think of leaving. Months of drought ruined sugar cane, yet the price of sugar remained low. Farley and his family fell ill in the fall of 1762, and one of his daughters died. After some refreshing rains in May 1763, another dry summer set in. Antigua was "miserable." Empty ponds showed cracked bottoms; the water level in reservoirs and cisterns dropped; rationing parched slaves. A mysterious disease spread among livestock, killing them quickly in large numbers. Smallpox returned to the island. At Christmastime, Farley lay confined in his chamber, weak with fever. Small wonder that planters should mention the falling value of land and regret that they could not sell, except at a low price.
Farley still believed in the Dismal Swamp. He sought a share in the new company, adding to his "valuable property" in Virginia and North Carolina. He had learned that he could not rely on Virginians to take care of his interests while he lived many miles distant. He might worry less, as well as confidently venture into the Dismal Swamp Company, because members of his family were moving to Virginia: his daughter, Eleanor, and her new husband, Captain John Laforey of the Royal Navy.
Captain Laforey was one of the young naval heroes of the war with the French. In 1755, Commodore Augustus Keppel promoted him from first lieutenant to commander and gave him the sloop Ontario Ontario. During the next two years he commanded the sloop Hunter Hunter in the fleet off Cape Breton Island and the French fort at Louisburg. HMS in the fleet off Cape Breton Island and the French fort at Louisburg. HMS Namur Namur, Admiral Edward Boscawen"s flagship, dropped anchor off Louisburg on June 2, 1758, and he soon gave Laforey an opportunity for glory.
General Sir Jeffery Amherst"s army besieged Louisburg. His most advanced works were enfiladed by fire from the last two French men-of-war in the harbor, La Prudente La Prudente and and Le Bienfaisant Le Bienfaisant. The harbor wall of the fort could be scaled if those vessels were gone. Boscawen decided to take them. He chose John Laforey and George Balfour to command the parties, giving them six hundred sailors, with boats, pinnaces, and barges from every vessel in the fleet. In the early hours of Wednesday, July 26, Sir Jeffery stood in the trenches with his men, keeping up heavy fire on the fort to distract its defenders" attention from the harbor. Concealed by night and heavy fog, Laforey, Balfour, and their two divisions of boats closed with La Prudente La Prudente and and Le Bienfaisant Le Bienfaisant, unseen until within hailing distance. The watch challenged them. They gave no reply, and the watch opened fire. Laforey and Balfour ordered their sailors to give way alongside and board. The men began to cheer. Led by their commanders, they boarded the ships, carrying cutla.s.ses, pistols, and muskets with fixed bayonets. French sailors rushed on deck. Fighting began, but everyone soon realized that French artillerymen ash.o.r.e were firing on their own ships. The crews surrendered.
Attaching lines to Le Bienfaisant Le Bienfaisant, Balfour and his boats began to tow her across the harbor, away from Louisburg. Laforey tried to tow La Prudente La Prudente but found that she had stranded, with several feet of water in her hold. He and his men set fire to her, abandoned ship, and joined Balfour"s boats in towing but found that she had stranded, with several feet of water in her hold. He and his men set fire to her, abandoned ship, and joined Balfour"s boats in towing Le Bienfaisant Le Bienfaisant. Lit by the burning man-of-war, the British boats pulled away with their prize, fired upon from an island battery at Point Rochefort, from the town, and from the fort of Louisburg. With a loss of 7 men killed and 9 wounded, they had taken one ship, destroyed another, and captured 152 prisoners. Later that day the French surrendered. Admiral Boscawen promoted John Laforey and George Balfour to the rank of post-captain. Laforey was twenty-nine years old.
In command of the Echo Echo in 1759, Captain Laforey accompanied the fleet under Vice-Admiral Charles Saunders as it sailed up the St. Lawrence River with General James Wolfe"s army to take Quebec. In the West Indies in 1762 he served under Rear-Admiral George Brydges Rodney, cooperating with the army in the capture of the French island of Martinique in February. Laforey took command of the in 1759, Captain Laforey accompanied the fleet under Vice-Admiral Charles Saunders as it sailed up the St. Lawrence River with General James Wolfe"s army to take Quebec. In the West Indies in 1762 he served under Rear-Admiral George Brydges Rodney, cooperating with the army in the capture of the French island of Martinique in February. Laforey took command of the Levant Levant. She called at St. Johns, Antigua, where he met Eleanor Farley. They were married in St. Johns on February 15, 1763. Late that year they sailed for England in the Levant Levant.
Captain Laforey and Francis Farley apparently reached an agreement. Laforey suddenly possessed "a handsome fortune." He took a leave of absence from the navy to settle in Virginia. In London, Eleanor Laforey gave birth to a daughter, Julia, in March 1764. Two months later the family sailed for Virginia. In the meantime, on April 27, 1764, John Syme resigned his share in the Dismal Swamp Company to Francis Farley. Farley"s daughter, son-in-law, and granddaughter moved to Mayc.o.x, a plantation on the south bank of the James, directly across from Westover. Captain Laforey received payments from Farley. William Byrd befriended him. One could find them in Mrs. Jane Vobe"s tavern in Williamsburg, at a table among other gentlemen, with an active dicebox.
On the same day Syme pa.s.sed his share to Farley, William Waters resigned half his share to David Meade, son of the late David Meade, merchant of Suffolk. From the age of seven to seventeen David had attended school in England. His father died during that time. Just before his seventeenth birthday, he returned to Nansemond County, and the change did not please him. Instead of pleasure gardens he saw forests and the Dismal Swamp. Instead of his schoolmates and their t.i.tled parents, he met almost as many blacks as whites. He had forgotten the faces of his mother and sisters. Four months after his return, heavy rains flooded Nansemond and Norfolk counties, sweeping away bridges, further isolating scattered farms and plantations.
Having grown "accustomed to good company" in England, Meade found living with his mother, looking out the windows at the Nansemond River, "rather monotonous." He began to visit plantations farther up the James, where he found "more congenial" society. And he could attend b.a.l.l.s, plays, and races in Williamsburg during the public gatherings in April and October. David Dougla.s.s"s traveling "Company of Comedians from London," with its repertoire of old favorites-The Provok"d Husband, The Mourning Bride, The Gamester, and The London Merchant The London Merchant-played in the Williamsburg theater in November 1762 and April and May 1763. George Washington saw them three weeks before his ride around the Dismal Swamp. In Williamsburg, David Meade attracted the notice of William Waters. Meade described himself as "a youth brought up to no occupation" and "a great builder of castles in the air." Waters was nearing the end of such a life, as Meade was beginning. He, too, owned land in Nansemond County but would not live there.
Meade formed ties with "many gentlemen, the most distinguished for wealth, talents and worth." None showed him so much "partiality" as did William Waters. Waters signed over to him one-half share in the Dismal Swamp Company and paid a.s.sessments for the whole share. Others saw, as Meade eventually did, that Waters wanted the young man to ask for his daughter"s hand.
Though the estate of Meade"s father and the firm Meade & Driver owed thousands of pounds to Robert Cary & Company in London and the elder Meade"s will made all his estate liable for payment of these debts, David Meade thought of himself as "inheriting a good patrimony." He had not yet turned twenty when he began to buy land in Nansemond County. His first purchase came six weeks after he joined the Dismal Swamp Company. He acquired by inheritance and purchase about 5,000 acres and established himself as "one of the leading Men in that Country."
During the late spring and early summer of 1764, as George Washington prepared to collect slaves from members of the Dismal Swamp Company to begin work, the partners had many matters to think about. Fielding Lewis paid Washington 20 for the "Dismal Adventure." Thomas Walker"s oldest son, John, was married to Elizabeth, the beautiful daughter of Bernard Moore, at the Moore home, Chelsea, in King William County. Before the wedding Dr. Walker and Bernard Moore exchanged the customary letters, stating what each would give the couple. Walker said he could not be specific about the timing of his payments because "My affairs are in an uncertain state." Moore was in even more trouble, having invested "much too greatly" in "that terrible sinking Fund Indigo." His bills of exchange came back from London protested. His letter was vaguer than Walker"s. In the month of John"s wedding, Thomas and Mildred Walker had their tenth child, a son they named Francis.
In Norfolk, Robert Tucker was planning a shipment of wheat and flour to Spain. Joanna Tucker got pregnant.
During a stay in Williamsburg, Secretary Thomas Nelson, suffering from gout, added to his substantial library a translation of Simon Paulli"s A Treatise on Tobacco, Tea, Coffee, and Chocolate A Treatise on Tobacco, Tea, Coffee, and Chocolate. Written by a former smoker, it warned him against the "narcotic Sulphur" of tobacco smoke. It urged rulers of all nations to prohibit the use of tobacco. In Paulli"s list of dangers, use of tea was only slightly more tolerable "than that of Chocolate Chocolate, and Coffee Coffee, which is of all others the worst."
Secretary Nelson, William Nelson, Robert Burwell, some of their colleagues on the Council, and leading men of the House of Burgesses-Speaker Robinson, Peyton Randolph, George Wythe, and Robert Carter Nicholas-were drafting a letter to the colony"s agent in London. It conveyed their thanks for his help in obtaining a bounty on hemp, their a.s.surance that the colony had resorted to paper currency only out of necessity, and their report on the Council"s refusal to award damages to the Reverend John Camm for salary lost under the Twopenny Act. The letter also called "truly alarming" a proposal that Parliament enact a stamp tax. Such a tax would violate "the most vital Principle of the British Const.i.tution" by subjecting colonists to levies made without the consent of their representatives.
In London, Anthony Bacon, with two other merchants, was pet.i.tioning the Board of Trade for a grant of land and a thirty-year lease of coal mines on Cape Breton Island. These happily had come into His Majesty"s possession through heroic efforts by many men, including Captain John Laforey.
In Hanover County, Samuel Gist bought a copy of Thomas Hale"s A Compleat Body of Husbandry A Compleat Body of Husbandry. Book III of this work encouragingly described "the Improvements of Land by Inclosing and Draining." In the sixth chapter, "Of draining boggy Lands," Gist could find this advice: "he must have Resolution to go through what he has undertaken, for all will be sure Profit in the End." In May, Gist had placed an advertis.e.m.e.nt in the Virginia Gazette Virginia Gazette, warning his debtors to pay. Two months later he prepared for their response by purchasing twelve blank bills of exchange and twelve blank penal notes, used to demand forfeit of debtors" bonds. Gist had in mind a large new store, built with brick.
Speaker Robinson wished to get t.i.tle to the lead mines he and his friend and father-in-law, John Chiswell, were developing. The land lay within the grant of the Loyal Company. The speaker paid the company"s agent, Dr. Walker, 1,794 17S. 4d. in cash.
Robinson was preparing his report on the colony"s paper currency: a list of past emissions and of taxes levied to retire the currency. His report said that provisions for removing treasury notes from circulation went far beyond the measures needed. He denied that the high rate of exchange, by which 100 sterling bought 160 currency, arose "altogether" from the quant.i.ty of notes in circulation. He attributed it to "the great scarcity of good Bills of Exchange owing to the poor distressed condition this Colony is at present in."
The Dismal Swamp Company"s preparations attracted notice. David Campbell obtained from Governor Fauquier, on August 15, a grant of 111 acres bordering the site of the company"s first work.
From Mills Ridd.i.c.k the company rented a plantation of 402 acres, soon known as "Dismal plantation," six miles from Suffolk on the margin of the swamp. There slaves would build houses, grow corn, and tend livestock for their own support. The managers made George Washington"s young kinsman John Washington the resident overseer.
George Washington received fifty-four slaves at Dismal Plantation in July: forty-three men, nine women, a boy, and a girl. He set a value on each. By this measure of a slave"s capacity to produce profit, Washington saw that his partners had contributed less than he. The five adults he furnished were valued at 365. The five Samuel Gist sent had a value of 260. For William Nelson"s five, the figure was 275. Speaker Robinson sent not five but three. The ten provided by Fielding Lewis for himself and Anthony Bacon were worth 635. Owners of half-shares each sent only two slaves. Robert Burwell offered a couple in their twenties: Jack and his wife, Venus. Jack was tall and slim, Venus short and stout. They had in common a gift for fast, smooth talk. They did not look like people who would devote themselves to draining a swamp; they looked like people Burwell wished to get rid of at his partners" expense. A resident of York Town saw the company"s first workforce. He thought these slaves "the worst collection that ever was made-they seemed to be the refuse of every one of the Estates from whence they were sent." Virginians knew that Nansemond and Norfolk counties, especially the Dismal Swamp, were an unhealthy place to send valuable workers.
George Washington stayed briefly at Dismal Plantation to "set the People to work." Before them lay a white marsh; beyond it stretched a sector of the swamp in which old cypress and cedar trees were fewer than large gum trees, red and white oaks, maples, and elms. Newer growths of these made the woods denser. Moving into the swamp, one waded in standing water the color of tea. Farther in, bamboo among the trees grew more thickly. Vines climbed trunks and hung from branches above huge, intricate ferns. Clouds of mosquitoes were so large as to make it hard to guess what kept all of them alive.
The slaves were to dig a ditch, beginning in sandy soil near Dismal Plantation and moving into black peat. Three feet deep, ten feet wide, and almost five miles long, running from the plantation to Lake Drummond, it was supposed to drain water from arable land into the lake. To provide some immediate income for the company the slaves felled the oldest white cedar trees and shaved tens of thousands of 18-inch shingles.
Five months after work began, the partners met in Williamsburg. They voted to a.s.sess themselves 40 more per share. Each was also to provide five more slaves; four men and one woman. Perhaps the presence of twelve more women would reduce the inclination of men at Dismal Plantation to "run about" in the night, visiting other slaves in Nansemond County. If any founders of the Dismal Swamp Company had gone to Westover to read the elder William Byrd"s original proposal for draining, they had ignored his advice on this subject, and they met with the consequences he had predicted.
Days before the meeting of December 15, George Washington apparently visited Norfolk and Suffolk, perhaps accompanied by Dr. Walker. The three managers of the company-Washington, Walker, and Fielding Lewis-had agreed to buy land in Nansemond County in partnership. From several sellers they bought a little more than 1,000 acres along the road from Suffolk toward Norfolk, along the Nansemond River, and in the swamp. For one tract of 120 acres they paid almost 1 per acre. They envisioned a ca.n.a.l connecting the company"s land to the Nansemond River, easing movement of supplies and shingles. A visit to Dismal Plantation showed anyone that work moved slowly. Faster progress required more slaves. The managers expressed confidence in the undertaking by spending their own money for the company"s future benefit. One of Washington"s English correspondents, who took an interest in news of the Dismal Swamp Company, congratulated him on "that truely great enterprise, not less calculated for public utility than your private Emolument."
Robert Tucker also antic.i.p.ated success for "the intended good purposes" of the company. His wife was carrying their eighteenth child. The baby, if healthy, would be the ninth to survive. Tucker foresaw that, upon his death, he would leave behind him several young children. He wrote his will, bequeathing the bulk of his property to his son, Robert. If the baby not yet born turned out to be a boy, he was to inherit one-half of Tucker"s share in the Dismal Swamp Company. "The other half of said Share," Tucker wrote, "I appropriate the Profits of toward the better Education and support of my unmarried Children who are under Age." If the company called on Tucker"s share for more money to continue its work, that money must come from the younger children"s portions of Tucker"s estate. Joanna Tucker gave birth to a girl. So the young Tuckers would have all of their father"s share in the Dismal Swamp Company set aside for their benefit.
Throughout 1764 and 1765, Virginia planters complained of low prices for tobacco, high prices for merchandise, scarce cash, protested bills of exchange, and lawsuits to collect debts. British merchants responded to the depression by squeezing their debtors in Virginia. Suits filled the calendars of county courts. Merchants no longer extended generous credit by accepting bills of exchange for sums far greater than tobacco or other commodities shipped to Britain would bring. William Byrd sold four hundred slaves in April 1765, a desperate act for any planter. The price of slaves had fallen almost to half the level of three or four years earlier. Samuel Gist tried to profit from tight credit by letting people know that he could get a more favorable rate of exchange than the prevailing one, meaning that their Virginia currency would buy more in his store than in others, a claim his compet.i.tor denied. With goods selling retail at a markup of 200 percent, merchants had to think fast to attract customers.
Beginning in May, drought dried Virginia through the summer. Beautiful, cloudless days became a curse. Turpentine makers in Nansemond County and in North Carolina got no yield from pines. Oaks produced too few acorns for hogs. Newly planted tobacco withered and died. People worried that grain and other crops would fall short of the colony"s need for food.
Virginians learned in April that George Grenville and his supporters in Parliament, rejecting advice from Anthony Bacon and others, had enacted a stamp tax. It required that legal doc.u.ments, newspapers, and pamphlets be produced on paper bearing a stamp which indicated that a tax, ranging from twopence to 10, had been paid. The law was to take effect on November 1. Grenville sought to bring more order to the government"s finances and to colonists" behavior. He felt especially distressed by smuggling. Colonists were not supposed to trade directly with other nations; yet they did so, by way of islands in the West Indies and other routes. Half a million pounds sterling per year: Grenville could not get that sum out of his head-the value of North Americans" clandestine trade with Europe. Of course, they paid no taxes on it. Britain lost twice: merchants lost business; the government lost revenue. Grenville meant to tighten enforcement of Customs regulations and to tax something colonists must use and could not hide. He "fondly persuaded himself he could easily make it go down," a London printer wrote, "in any way he chose to administer it."
As enactment of the tax became certain, applicants sought the position of stamp distributor in each colony. Richard Henry Lee, having failed to win a seat on the Council, saw this newly created post as "a beneficial employment" and hastily offered himself. Peter Francklyn asked for the distributorship of Jamaica, giving as references his brother, Gilbert, and Gilbert"s partner, Anthony Bacon. The government relied as usual on advice from merchants and colonial agents. Bacon and other merchants chose distributors for Quebec, Barbados, and New York. The Virginia appointment went to George Mercer, who had spent the last two years in London, representing the Ohio Company.
On March 1, some of Virginia"s paper currency expired. People holding notes emitted in 1757 and 1758 were supposed to exchange them for notes of later emissions. After these old notes arrived in Williamsburg during court days in April, Speaker Robinson announced that the treasury did not have enough newer notes to replace them. More recent ones ought to have been preserved as they came in through collection of taxes, but "considerable sums," he said, had instead been burned. This explanation seemed odd, since the law did not call for burning the latest emissions. Only currency due to be retired by 1765 was to be destroyed. Hardly anyone believed Robinson. In the past, he had been too slow in destroying currency, not so hasty as to burn too much. People were more willing to believe that the speaker had shown unwise leniency toward sheriffs and inspectors of tobacco who did not promptly send the proceeds of taxes and fees to the treasury. The speaker was good-natured and kindly, everyone knew. That same month he sold Henry Fitzhugh "very valuable" land for 1,160, telling Fitzhugh to take as much time as he liked before paying. A committee of burgesses later approved Robinson"s accounts as treasurer, as did the House of Burgesses and the Council. At least 50,000 of expired currency remained in circulation.
Patrick Henry, Thomas Sully. Courtesy of the Virginia Historical Society. The patriot spoke eloquently about liberty, law, and land.
Before the burgesses convened on May 22, Robinson, Peyton Randolph, and their allies devised a way to retire the colony"s currency. Virginia would borrow 240,000 sterling from merchants and financiers in London at an annual interest of 5 percent. With 100,000 of this money, the treasury would redeem circulating currency and destroy it. With 140,000 in specie as a reserve, the colony could lend its own bank notes to borrowers at an interest of 5 percent. A new poll tax and tobacco tax would repay the London lenders. Who would borrow the colony"s new bank notes and pay 5 percent to do so? Planters deeply in debt, pressed by their British creditors. In the eyes of its supporters, this could "extricate our Country out of its present deplorable Circ.u.mstances." To its opponents, it was a scheme to tax those not deeply in debt in order to rescue reckless debtors and "to help the [speaker] out of the mire, in which he has plunged himself."
During court days in April, more than 5,000 people filled streets and taverns in Williamsburg. Drinking rum punch and madeira, they caroused until dawn. The stamp tax was their favorite subject of conversation. Throughout the American colonies it excited resentment and determination to prevent enforcement. Much against the wishes of Speaker Robinson and his friends, Virginia gained a reputation as a leader of defiance.
Robinson and almost all burgesses thought the tax a breach of the British Const.i.tution and an infringement of colonists" liberty, as well as a financial blow on top of a depression. They had said as much in their remonstrances to the king, the House of Lords, and the House of Commons the past December. The speaker, Secretary Nelson, and others estimated the annual cost of the tax in Virginia. Their lowest figure was 35,000. The speaker set it at 45,000. Merchants said that the colony held only a fraction of that sum in coin. Nevertheless, Robinson and his friends disapproved of defiance of Parliament and the ministry. They had faith in less overt ways of changing the British government"s conduct.
In the session of late May, most burgesses regarded their work as finished after they had pa.s.sed bills, including one for the loan office, and approved Robinson"s treasury accounts on May 29. The Council, including such firm opponents of all paper money as Richard Corbin and the Nelson brothers, rejected the loan office. By May 30, as two burgesses who had ridiculed the loan office, George Johnston and Patrick Henry, urged opposition to the stamp tax, only 39 of 116 members remained in the chamber. With narrow majorities they pa.s.sed four resolutions a.s.serting elected representatives" exclusive right to tax. Peyton Randolph and the speaker"s friends opposed these as redundant, a repet.i.tion of the colony"s earlier remonstrances. Johnston and Henry"s fifth resolution said that colonists were not bound to obey any law taxing them except laws enacted in Virginia. It aroused "very strong" debate, during which Robinson accused Henry of speaking treason. The resolution pa.s.sed by one vote. The next day, after Henry left Williamsburg, Peyton Randolph moved that the resolutions be stricken from the journal. He could not get a majority to expunge all of them, but he won a vote to expunge one. The printer of the Virginia Gazette Virginia Gazette did not publish things to which Governor Fauquier objected, but newspapers in other colonies printed not only all five resolutions, but also the draft of a sixth, declaring that anyone who a.s.serted Parliament"s right to tax colonists was an enemy. George Grenville, after reading them, said they "exceed any notions which I could entertain of that extravagance." did not publish things to which Governor Fauquier objected, but newspapers in other colonies printed not only all five resolutions, but also the draft of a sixth, declaring that anyone who a.s.serted Parliament"s right to tax colonists was an enemy. George Grenville, after reading them, said they "exceed any notions which I could entertain of that extravagance."
Much more extravagance followed throughout the continent. Colonists promised to press British merchants by refusing to buy goods and by beginning compet.i.tive American manufacture. Crowds destroyed property of officials and of friends of government. No stamped paper was safe, and all distributors must be forcibly invited to resign. George Mercer arrived in Williamsburg on October 30, about thirty-six hours before the tax was to take effect. Just outside the capitol almost all the leading planters and merchants in town for court days demanded that he resign. A crowd outside the coffeehouse seemed to menace him, but Speaker Robinson, members of the Council, and Governor Fauquier stood with him. He went home with the governor. In another part of the colony Richard Henry Lee denounced Mercer as a betrayer of Virginians" liberty by his acceptance of the distributorship, and burned him in effigy. By November 1, Mercer had decided to resign and return to England. The governor and Council unanimously adjourned the General Court because they had no stamped paper and could not lawfully act without it.
Late in 1765 and early in 1766, Virginia"s courts remained closed. Suits for debt stood still. Vessels could not be cleared in or out. Trade partially resumed, risking confiscation of any vessel sailing without stamped doc.u.ments. Planters in Antigua, who opposed but did not defy the tax, ran short of supplies from the mainland. They feared famine among slaves and a lack of staves for hogsheads. In Virginia, after many people stopped paying their British debts and reduced their purchases of goods, the rate of exchange fell sharply. By the end of 1765, 100 in currency bought 100 sterling.
Somewhere at sea in mid-October 1765 two vessels, probably far out of each other"s sight, crossed the same line of longitude at the same time, sailing opposite courses. One bore George Mercer and stamped paper from London to Virginia. The other bore Samuel Gist from Virginia to London. Gist had visited Williamsburg during the April and May court days. He had seen the usual "vast Concourse of people" hurrying between the taverns and the capitol, thronging the street known as the Exchange just beyond the capitol. He could not avoid hearing about Speaker Robinson"s embarra.s.sing shortage of treasury notes or watching the fiasco of the loan office. Everywhere people had talked about the stamp tax. Gist had bought some blank bills of exchange.
When Gist came back to Williamsburg late in September, he stayed only briefly and never returned. He was bound for London at last. In that city he expected, as his wife wrote him, to "injoy all the health and satisfaction you often promised yr self when you got there." He placed an advertis.e.m.e.nt in the Virginia Gazette Virginia Gazette, naming the men who held his power of attorney and announcing his imminent departure. By October 9 he booked pa.s.sage. His wife asked him to send her a good bra.s.s kettle and some magazines, apparently not expecting to follow him. She added that their daughters often had cried over his departure. Six or eight weeks after Gist reached England, George Mercer arrived back in London. He estimated his expenses as stamp distributor for Virginia at 1,113 0s. 8d.
III.
THE LAND OF CAKES.
TO A FRIEND BOUND FOR LONDON from Virginia in August 1765, John Hook, a Scottish merchant in Virginia, wished a swift arrival "safe in the Land of Cakes...quite free from the noise and Impertinance of the Dd planters." London was the greatest metropolis in Europe. Visitors from the Continent marveled at it almost as much as did provincials from the colonies. Struck by the city"s "immense Scale," a Ma.s.sachusetts man wrote: "whatever I have seen in my own Country, is all Miniature, yankee, puppet-shew." Spreading out from both banks of a broad bend in the River Thames, London embraced new arrivals, making all but the most confident feel small. Shipping rode in the river, moored so thickly by the quays near the Tower and elsewhere that a forest of masts seemed to surround the sprawling old fortress. Near the west base of the Tower, customs officers waited in the long hall of their colonnaded customhouse. Farther upriver, beyond London Bridge, recently repaired, a new bridge was under construction. from Virginia in August 1765, John Hook, a Scottish merchant in Virginia, wished a swift arrival "safe in the Land of Cakes...quite free from the noise and Impertinance of the Dd planters." London was the greatest metropolis in Europe. Visitors from the Continent marveled at it almost as much as did provincials from the colonies. Struck by the city"s "immense Scale," a Ma.s.sachusetts man wrote: "whatever I have seen in my own Country, is all Miniature, yankee, puppet-shew." Spreading out from both banks of a broad bend in the River Thames, London embraced new arrivals, making all but the most confident feel small. Shipping rode in the river, moored so thickly by the quays near the Tower and elsewhere that a forest of masts seemed to surround the sprawling old fortress. Near the west base of the Tower, customs officers waited in the long hall of their colonnaded customhouse. Farther upriver, beyond London Bridge, recently repaired, a new bridge was under construction.
For decades London had stunned newcomers, even longtime residents, with its damp, smoky darkness. The city knew windy, clear days and snowy winter days. But every place had some of those. London had stagnant fog and constant smoke rising from countless chimneys, wrapping buildings and streets in dense clouds and black grime. The city was busy and noisy. In broad thoroughfares lined with old churches and new public buildings in the Italian style, as in crooked streets and narrow lanes, coaches and wagons and carts moved quickly, threatening to run down the unwary. A Royal Navy officer walking along Thames Street behind the quays "narrowly escaped being killed by a Dray-horse." Newly laid sidewalks were crowded with busy pedestrians who jostled anyone in their hurry. The people not in a rush were maimed beggars, vagrants, peddlers, hawkers crying strange wares-old clothes, old books, old iron-"ragged and saucy Jacks and Jills." Mountebanks played hurdy-gurdies and sold quack cures. Shop windows offered a profusion of gleaming goods to buy, or tempting food to eat. A pickpocket darted away from his victim. A prost.i.tute standing not far from St. Paul"s Cathedral said to a pa.s.sing gentleman from the colonies: "my Dear do you want any?" Much of London looked new. The Lord Mayor"s Mansion House was only twenty years old. The rotunda of the Bank of England had just been finished. Vacant lots vanished under rows of symmetrical, connected, brick houses. Old houses were pulled down to make way for grand additions to already grand buildings. A German visitor wrote: "Everything in the streets through which we pa.s.sed seemed dark even to blackness, but nevertheless magnificent."
Several years before Samuel Gist reached London, his partner in the Dismal Swamp Company, Anthony Bacon, had established an office and a residence at Number 12, Copthall Court, on the west side of a narrow lane opening into Throgmorton Street, a short walk from the Bank of England and the Royal Exchange. Bacon and his wife, Elizabeth, worshipped at the Church of St. Bartholomew, which looked across Threadneedle Street at the back of the Exchange. To the church"s side, across Bartholomew Lane, stood the Bank. The Bacons" only child, Anthony Richard Bacon, turned seven in 1765. His parents felt "the tenderest affection" for him, and the boy seemed to be on the path to a rich inheritance.
Bacon had secured the interest of Sir Samuel Fludyer, member of Parliament and former lord mayor, a man said to be worth almost 1,000,000. The Duke of Newcastle thought Sir Samuel "the most considerable trader in the City of London." Bacon apparently owed his contract for shipping money for soldiers" wages in the West Indies to Sir Samuel"s influence. Sir Samuel and his a.s.sociate, Adam Drummond, brought Bacon into their pet.i.tion to lease coal mines on Cape Breton Island. In 1764, Bacon also won other contracts: to ship provisions to the troops in the islands ceded by France; to lease ships to the government for use there; to lease to the government slaves to work for British surveying parties. Bacon often traveled along Fleet Street and the Strand, pa.s.sing back and forth between Copthall Court and the offices of the Treasury in Whitehall.
Coming out of Copthall Court and turning left into Throgmorton Street, rather than toward the Bank, Bacon saw Drapers" Hall, the ornate expression of the power and prosperity of one of the worshipful companies whose leaders dominated the City. Elegant, wainscotted rooms behind columns joined by arches opened inward onto gravel walks and gardens.
Bacon, of course, more often turned right, toward the Bank and the Exchange. The Bank, built of stone ornamented funereally, enclosed a courtyard, the great hall, and offices. The building was safe and dark but not quiet. At midday the rotunda behind the vestibule filled with bulls and bears-noisy, rude brokers trading government securities. In the afternoon, men of business spent a few hours in the Exchange or, as they said, walked on "Change. Behind the clock-tower and an imposing facade, a large quadrangle of upper rooms looked down on a courtyard lined with columns and oak benches. In the arcades, surrounded by advertising bills posted everywhere, men cl.u.s.tered with others trading to the same part of the world. Merchants concerned with Virginia walked in from Cornhill, turned left, and congregated in the southwest corner of "Change. There they heard the latest news of sailings, prices, disasters, and opportunities. The regulars knew one another, estimated one another"s credit, and closed agreements quickly. A Virginian setting out as a London merchant said: "it is inconceivable what great strokes may be made here." By walking on "Change, retired ship captains still shared the excitement of voyages about to get under way to distant ports and of laden vessels just returned to moorings along the quays. News was the blood of the Exchange. Before entering, many men stopped at an always crowded shop. For a penny or a halfpenny one could quickly scan current newspapers. The Exchange, impressive in its proportions, presented outer walls black with grime, showing signs of decay. It needed cleaning and repair. Parliament in 1767 agreed to pay for the work.
A View of London and Westminster. Courtesy of the Henry E. Huntington Library Anthony Bacon"s neighbors in Copthall Court, in Throgmorton Street, and in other courts nearby were merchants, insurance brokers and underwriters, directors of the Bank of England, and owners of stock in the East India Company. A visitor in search of a merchant in Copthall Court, not finding him in his office, of course waited for him on "Change. The visitor might accompany the merchant, a proprietor, into the grand courtroom of East India House, not far east of the Exchange. There, surrounded by Corinthian columns, looking up at an allegorical bas-relief of Britannia seated on a globe receiving tribute from attendant female figures representing India, Asia, and Africa, the visitor observed the gathering of the proprietors-"the most riotous a.s.sembly I ever saw."
South of the Exchange, across Cornhill, stood a group of low buildings, facing one another across irregular lanes. These structures had almost as much fame as the great edifices with fronts of Portland stone. They were the coffeehouses of "Change Alley, especially Jonathan"s and Garroway"s. Their crowded, dark, paneled rooms with long tables and rows of booths were the London stock exchange, as well as places to eat, drink, smoke, read the papers, and trade news. Though the food might be overpriced and bad, as it was in the Exchange Coffeehouse, no man of business could ignore these establishments, lest he go bankrupt and "waddle out of the Ally, a lame duck." Since the days of the South Sea Bubble the words ""Change Alley" had stood for high risk, sharp practice, and quick wealth or sudden ruin. A political economist wrote: "The trade of the Alley consists too much in conspiring to pick the pockets of every body not in the temporary secret." The secret might even be fiction, "a mere "Change Alley job." But the volatile world of stockjobbers, usurers, and bill-kiters in the coffeehouses could not be divorced from the business under way in the long halls and colonnades nearby.
The London Docks. Courtesy of the Henry E. Huntington Library In the same year Bacon signed new contracts with the government he began to spend part of his time away from London"s smoke, noise, and rush. He bought a manor, Higham Hill, about seven miles from the City. He built a country house from which he could look southwestward to London"s spires or northward or eastward over broad stretches of forest or southeastward to a broad bend in the Thames. For an architect Bacon turned to William Newton, a hard-working young man who had studied in Italy and had received commissions from several gentlemen. He knew how to create a "Room for State and Entertainment in Country House for a Gent. Gay Pleasing Rich Elegant Rural."
The year after he bought Higham Hill, Bacon also built a house in Wales, across the River Taff from the village of Merthyr Tydfil, 26 miles north of Cardiff. The upper valley of the Taff lay among steep, rocky hills. But the broad vale in which Merthyr Tydfil stood was less rugged than the parish to the west, Ystradyfodwg. Across their northern horizon stretched a range of mountains. Before starting to build, Bacon had visited the valley, not for romantic landscapes but for coal and iron.
Iron had been smelted the modern way in the valley for more than ten years. The parish of Merthyr Tydfil, however, held ninety-three farms and only two or three blast furnaces. Residents of the village were mostly hedgers, ditchers, and farm laborers. Sheep wandered on the hillsides. In the summer, people met on market days at Twyn-y-waun, high above the valley. Anthony Bacon saw an opportunity to offer employment to those he called "our industrious poor."
In his enterprises Bacon almost always acted with one or more partners. For his mineral leases by the Taff he joined with a man from Whitehaven, the city of his youth, Dr. William Brownrigg, a physician and scientist who studied poisonous gases in coal mines. Brownrigg"s brother, George, was the celebrated advocate of North Carolina peanut oil. His brother-in-law, Charles Wood, builder of furnaces and forges, moved to Merthyr Tydfil to serve as agent.
From Earl Talbot of Hensol and from Michael Richards, resident of Cardiff, Bacon and Brownrigg took leases of mineral rights in a tract about eight miles long and five miles wide in the parish of Merthyr Tydfil for ninety-nine years at an annual rent of 100, free of royalties. This gave them the right to extract coal and ironstone from the land occupied by the earl"s tenants. The partners also leased lots at Cyfarthfa, just outside Merthyr Tydfil on the west bank of the Taff. There Wood built a blast furnace 60 feet high, and Bacon built his house nearby. He wished to see regular bursts of flame from the furnace and watch red-hot pigs of iron brought forth.
Bacon began to buy farmers" leases. Men paying the earl 3 or 4 per year for their farms received 100 from Bacon if they surrendered their land. The Cyfarthfa works quickly swallowed twenty leaseholds. Bacon offered employment at the furnace or in extracting coal carried to the furnace on horses and mules. Ironstone and coal lay near the surface and was dug by hand or scoured out by water. Where Charles Wood met resistance, he tore down a farmer"s fence and pressed on with horses and carts. The arrival of Wood, as well as his master builder, his brickmaker, and others, led a Welshman to say of Merthyr Tydfil: "that place is swarm by Englishmen since the Iron work came there." Encountering rivalry from the recently established furnaces of the Plymouth Iron Works, Bacon bought out the owners and added those to his holdings. They acquired the name "Bacon"s Mineral Kingdom."
He still spent most of his time in London. After George Grenville fell from power in July 1765, Bacon smoothly adapted to the new administration. During the summer he joined merchants meeting with Lord Dartmouth, new president of the Board of Trade. A long paper by Joseph Manesty, explaining the disturbances in America and a.n.a.lyzing colonial trade, was written for Dartmouth in Copthall Court. When Grenville heard that merchants had begun organizing to get Parliament to repeal the stamp tax, he expected Bacon to resist such "Reflections upon the late ministry" and remain loyal to his original patron. But Bacon already had abandoned him.
Bacon retained his contracts to supply cash for the army payroll and to lease slaves to the government. He still had friends on the Board of Trade. Charles O"Hara, governor of Senegambia, learned this when he stopped Bacon"s agent from delivering 250 slaves to a French vessel. Le Negrillon Le Negrillon was anch.o.r.ed in Senegal Roads to take slaves on board in violation of British law. After was anch.o.r.ed in Senegal Roads to take slaves on board in violation of British law. After Le Negrillon Le Negrillon sailed without these slaves, Bacon protested to the Board of Trade, declaring that British traders long had done as his agent was doing until O"Hara interfered. He said that he was losing money on his contract for the army. The board called on the governor to explain his conduct. O"Hara cited the law and estimated the loss to Britain by this trade at 200,000 per year. The board ignored his answer. sailed without these slaves, Bacon protested to the Board of Trade, declaring that British traders long had done as his agent was doing until O"Hara interfered. He said that he was losing money on his contract for the army. The board called on the governor to explain his conduct. O"Hara cited the law and estimated the loss to Britain by this trade at 200,000 per year. The board ignored his answer.
As Bacon"s interests in the West Indies expanded, he thought that Anthony Bacon & Company should be represented there by one of the partners. At the beginning of August 1766 he sent Gilbert Francklyn to Antigua. From that island Francklyn could visit other islands, "superintend" the leased slaves, and represent Bacon in dealings with army officers. Francklyn stayed in the West Indies for many years. He always defended slavery. He contended that slaves were treated comparatively well in the West Indies. "No severities, there exercised," he wrote, "are equal to the cruelty of enticing poor people, by a small addition of wages, to work in lead, quick-silver, or other metals, or deleterious manufactories."
Preparing to leave Virginia, Samuel Gist made sure that his interest in the Dismal Swamp Company received attention in his absence. He gave one-fourth of his share to David Jameson, a merchant in York Town. Acting with Gist"s power of attorney, Jameson would share the profits. While Gist sailed for London, Jameson paid George Washington 25, the latest a.s.sessment on each share. The following spring he paid 50 to purchase a slave for the company.
Gist provided for his stepsons by making Joseph Smith guardian of his younger brother, John. By Gist"s account, Joseph owed him almost 300. Nevertheless, Gist left him with inherited property, a mill Gist had sold him, a crop of tobacco already housed, and about 363 on John Smith"s account. Gist was not abandoning his interests in Virginia. He still ordered purchases of land and transfer of slaves among his plantations, and he did not mean to leave his new store in Hanover idle.
Sarah Gist stayed in Hanover for a few months after her husband"s departure. In the summer of 1766 she died. Mary and Elizabeth, teen-aged "young Ladies," sailed for London to live with their father.
Gist established his home and office on the east side, Number 25, in Savage Gardens, a short street opening at its southern end onto public grounds at the base of the Tower. A few doors south of him stood the offices of the diamond merchants Joseph, Samuel, and Solomon Gompertz, of Gompertz & Heyman. A short walk took Gist to the Customhouse or the quays. He lived less than a mile from the Exchange.
On Tower Hill, he was surrounded by people who made their livings from the coming and going of vessels and goods. Lightermen, watermen, coopers, tacklehouse porters, ticket porters-these men lived near their work. Carmen hauled three hogsheads of tobacco, a ton and a half of freight, in horse carts from the wharf up to a warehouse. Many brokers and merchants also found it convenient to live on Tower Hill. John Norton had returned to London in 1764 after twenty-one years in York Town representing Flowerdewe & Norton. He ran the firm, renaming it John Norton & Son, in Gould Square, which opened into Crutched Friars near Savage Gardens. Closer to the Thames, in Black Raven Court, off Seething Lane on the other side of the Navy Office from Savage Gardens, lived John Stewart, the great Virginia and West Indies merchant. He was best known for his contract with the government to transport felons to the colonies as indentured servants. A walk along Tower Street toward the Tower, a turn left and a walk in Mark Lane, or in Seething Lane, and a turn right to walk along Crutched Friars took one past dozens of merchants" offices and warehouses.
Arriving in Savage Gardens, Gist"s daughters found their father living on the edge of "a very mean neighbourhood." Immediately behind Number 25 stood fourteen almshouses in which the Drapers" Company supported aged poor men and their wives. A few yards farther east, along the course of the old city wall fronting on the Minories, were shacks, carpenters" yards, vacant lots, and dunghills. Among them moved "wh.o.r.es and thieves," making the almost impa.s.sable area "a terror to the neighbouring inhabitants." Anyone walking on Tower Hill met many beggars. One seaman called them "the lame, lazy and maimed." Across the Minories, in Church Street, stood a charity home for "decayed masters or pilots of ships, their wives or widows." A little farther east, in Prescot Street, a plain building devoted for the past seven years to charity had taken the name Magdalen House for the seclusion and reformation of underage "penitent prost.i.tutes." The garrets of the Minories, like those of Grub Street, held writers trying to live by their wits.
Samuel Gist and his daughters watched their neighborhood change. The open s.p.a.ces on Tower Hill still held beggars, coaches and chaises of the rich, a street preacher, and a "foreign quack doctor" offering to heal "the blind and the lame." Nearby streets and buildings were soon remade. The Corporation of London gave orders to raze hovels, tear down more of the old wall, and widen the Minories. It commissioned its architect to design symmetrical four-story brick rows in imitation of the latest triumph at Bath. Gist approved. Even the penitent prost.i.tutes were going to move to a "very elegant edifice" on the south bank of the Thames.
Within a year of arriving in London, Gist bought his first ship, a new vessel of 120 tons, with a crew of fourteen. He named her the Mary and Elizabeth Mary and Elizabeth. She sailed for the Chesapeake, bearing the kind of merchandise Gist long had sold in Hanover. Eight months later she sailed from York Town, laden with tobacco, iron, barrel staves, and hemp. Dr. Walker consigned to Gist casks of ginseng-the rare, sovereign specific for health and vigor. Gist thought it "of indifferent Quality," bringing a lower price. He admonished Walker, who roamed where the wild root grew: "pick out the Large Spungy Roots." Gist grew angry when told that some Virginians-"vile ingratefull people," he called them-were accusing him of shipping inferior goods while also getting low prices for their tobacco. He saw malice at work: "such Stories are propogated by my enemies." He was willing to be magnanimous. He wrote, before buying another, bigger ship: "that shall not make me less ready to serve them whenever I can, as I will be so much of a Christian on this Occasion as to do them good for evil."
Sitting in his counting room next to the almshouse, Gist thought about debtors, people in Virginia who had not paid him. His attorney in Hanover, Peter Lyons, pursued in court debts as small as 1 12s. 1d. But hardly any remittances on old accounts came in, and too many current correspondents wanted too much credit. Gist grew more irritated: "a man might as well have an Estate in the moon as money in Peoples hands who will not pay it." He was already thinking about better ways to make profits. Of Virginians he said: "I can do without them."
Maintaining his consignment trade to Virginia, Gist added other interests. His trim little figure appeared not only in the Virginia Walk on "Change but also on the other side of Exchange Alley in Lombard Street, in the crowded, smoky rooms of Lloyd"s Coffee House. Another Tower Hill merchant trading to America, William Stead, was an underwriter of marine insurance there. As in all such establishments, stooped waiters served food and drink. More than others, Lloyd"s filled in the afternoon with men calculating the fate of vessels at sea. The latest news of ships all over the world was posted there. Open bags awaited letters for every port. Auctions of vessels were frequent, hectic, and brief, lasting only as long as the burning of an inch of candle. Anthony Bacon had bought the Two Sisters Two Sisters for a run to Africa and Maryland in that way, paying too much, some thought. And scores of men took their usual seats in Lloyd"s, offering to sign their names to policies of insurance on vessels about to sail or already at sea. Samuel Gist joined them. for a run to Africa and Maryland in that way, paying too much, some thought. And scores of men took their usual seats in Lloyd"s, offering to sign their names to policies of insurance on vessels about to sail or already at sea. Samuel Gist joined them.
Becoming an underwriter was easy. One signed the book at Lloyd"s and paid a fee of two guineas per year. A man of modest means might prosper as an underwriter. When Gist reached London, John Julius Angerstein, at the age of thirty-one, had worked as a broker and underwriter for ten years and had begun a fortune. He later explained: "I am as careful as I possibly can be." Care was necessary because a man"s promise to pay the portion of a policy he had subscribed, usually 100 or 200, in case of loss or damage was only as good as his own credit. To make much money, he had to sign dozens or scores of policies. A run of disasters at sea could bankrupt him. Premiums of 2 percent or 2 percent of the insured value of vessel and cargo for a single voyage tempted some men to write their names on too many policies, hoping against the odds for calm seas and prosperous voyages in every quarter. Angerstein spoke of them as "men that I should not like to take."
Owners of vessels and cargoes could insure most securely with one of the two chartered companies, London a.s.surance and Royal Exchange a.s.surance, which had a corporate liability to pay their losses. But they charged higher premiums; they demanded security for a policyholder"s or a broker"s ability to pay his premium; and they asked many more questions about vessels and voyages than did private underwriters. Most of the work of circulating among underwriters at Lloyd"s, quickly negotiating premiums, and securing signatures on policies fell to brokers. They knew and were known by the men in the room. Extending credit to owners of vessels and cargoes, brokers enabled them to take out more and larger policies, increasing the volume of insurance transactions.
Many underwriters were also merchants, at once insurers and insured. Samuel Gist had come to agree with one of these merchant underwriters, James Bourdieu, who later wrote: "a Man in business here, can make greater advantage of his Money than lending it at Interest in America." That was what Gist"s Virginia trade seemed to have become, he said. He began to appear at Lloyd"s regularly. There the first rule of success was: "an Underwriter ought always to attend and be in the way"-that is, in the way of getting policies and news. The more a man knew about vessels in the trade, captains commanding them, merchants and their business affairs, distant ports, and foreseeable risks, the better he could gauge where to insure, what to avoid, and how much to charge. He needed more information than he found in the annual Lloyd"s Register Lloyd"s Register and the semiweekly and the semiweekly Lloyd"s List Lloyd"s List. A cautious underwriter might stick to "regular risks"-voyages from Britain to America and back or from Britain to a Continental port and back. The more venturous subscribed to "cross risks," insuring voyages among foreign ports and voyages to several ports. Even regular risks called on an underwriter for a command of myriad discrete details, a fast calculation when offered a policy, and an ability to spot "Sea Gulls," the men who came in only when they found themselves in "stormy weather," hoping to get unusually high risks insured. Success, a veteran said, came from "long continued attention as an Underwriter." Those who made fortunes in Lloyd"s Coffee House did so by collecting more and more premiums, subscribing more and more policies. It was a good place for the self-made man: "I should think that an Individual, who has nothing but his own head and his own ability and talent to forward his interest, would adhere as much to it as possible, his whole mind and time is given up to it."
Among the crowd in the Coffee House each afternoon, George Hayley was known as "a merchant of eminence, and one of the veteran "dreadnought" Underwriters, always ready to engage in any risk at a very small premium." Like Gist, he had started as a clerk and had made a fortunate marriage-in Hayley"s case to John Wilkes"s sister, Mary. The widow of a City merchant, she brought Hayley a fortune of 15,000. He rose to the head of the firm trading to America in which he had begun as a clerk. By the time Gist crossed his path, Hayley was rumored to have a capital of 100,000.
Among Gist"s neighbors in Savage Gardens was Henry Chapman, son-in-law of George Hayley"s "intimate & close" friend, William Neate. Another regular at Lloyd"s, Neate was best known in the linen and cloth trade. He exported chiefly to Pennsylvania, New York, and Canada. "No one man in this City," he wrote, "understands the Trade better than myself or excells in so many articles." From Neate, Gist could learn that even the most able merchant might suffer for lack of remittances from customers in the colonies.
After becoming an underwriter, Gist followed the examples of Hayley, Angerstein, and James Bourdieu. Bourdieu succeeded as an underwriter, and he kept an eye out for other investments, such as East India Company stock, sugar prices in Amsterdam, and arms for the French slave trade. He bought a country estate at the age of forty-six. Gist was just starting his career at Lloyd"s in his early forties.
As Gist grew acquainted with his fellow underwriters, he could survey the room and review any number of stories telling how diverse men had come to Lloyd"s: Samuel Chollet, once Bourdieu"s clerk, now his partner; Robert Bogle, Sr., in the Virginia trade; Joshua Mendes da Costa, who subscribed policies in the Portuguese trade and others; William Devaynes, newly returned from the Gold Coast and soon to be a director of the East India Company; John Nutt, heavily involved in the Georgia and South Carolina trade; John Shoolbred, not yet thirty, like Angerstein a rapidly rising young man, cutting an ever bigger figure in the Canada trade and the African slave trade; a merchant in Mark Lane with Shoolbred, the policy broker Thomas Bell, not to be mistaken for Captain Thomas Bell, a merchant and insurance broker in Aldermanbury near St. Paul"s, who "had the Good Luck to be call"d Honest Thom Bell, in Distinction to another who frequented Loyds Coffee House." Gist had brought himself within reach of the summit. He was a player in the most important marine insurance market in Europe, a market in which a man stood as high as his reputation for skill and for capital. The Coffee House invited the shrewd and the daring, not the fastidious. Decades later, a genteel young man arrived in London with thoughts of becoming an underwriter. He met James Bourdieu, whom some people found "rather positive and peremptory," as well as many of the men at Lloyd"s who had come into prominence in Bourdieu"s day. To the young man they seemed rough: "the old ones here are high in mercantile Reputation, but neither their Persons or manners would strike you with much Respect."
As Gist arrived in London, many merchant underwriters at Lloyd"s, with merchants elsewhere in London and in other British ports, were talking about the stamp tax and colonists" reaction to it. George Grenville"s experiment, they said, had come out a disaster. It had made the depression worse. Orders from the colonies had dropped steeply and remittances had dried up. Manufacturers had discharged workers. The transatlantic trade faced "utter Ruin." George Hayley, William Neate, Robert Bogle, John Nutt-in fact, almost everyone in the American trade-wished Parliament to repeal the tax. The ministry which had replaced Grenville"s also disliked it and deplored its effects. The ministry sent "Agents" to confer with merchants, who then concluded that they ought to press Parliament with pet.i.tions for repeal. The partners of the House of Hanbury "spared no endeavrs" to make themselves "instrumental" in this cause. Merchants were summoned to the bar of the House of Commons to testify about the law"s consequences. Capel Hanbury and others darkly warned that Virginians might grow less tobacco and more hemp, turning their labor to manufacture of cordage in compet.i.tion with Britain. Grenville and his supporters called the colonists "insolent Rebells." Nevertheless, repeal pa.s.sed by a large majority on February 21, 1766. Anthony Bacon not only voted for repeal but also spoke in its favor during debate.
In the afternoon of Wednesday, April 23, Throgmorton Street was crowded with the carriages of merchants headed for Drapers" Hall. At its entrance the men stepped down, entered the courtyard, turned right, and climbed the grand staircase to enter the long, wainscotted common hall. It was set for dinner. Under full-length portraits of William III, George I, and George II, they celebrated repeal of the Stamp Act, applauding their leader, Barlow Trecothick. In Virginia, George Washington wrote to the Hanburys, thanking them for their part in winning repeal of an "Act of Oppression." William Nelson spent much of Friday, July 25, writing to various merchants in the City, congratulating them on their success in Parliament. Though Virginians and colonists throughout North America spoke of "that unconst.i.tutional oppressive Stamp act," the men dining in Drapers" Hall had not contended that the tax was unconst.i.tutional, only that it was inexpedient, the wrong policy. Parliament, in a Declaratory Act, stated its authority over the colonies. But after repeal of the stamp tax, George Grenville believed Parliament"s authority "is now manifestly destroy"d" and "must be a.s.serted & establish"d." Told that colonists would demonstrate universal joy and grat.i.tude, he replied that if the merchants and the colonists" other friends would "do the same by Buckinghamshire, and double tax themselves to take off our taxes, I will engage for my countrymen here that they shall express as universal joy and more grat.i.tude for the future."
George Washington and Fielding Lewis visited the Dismal Swamp in April before attending a meeting of their company in Williamsburg. They saw more of the perimeter than they had seen for several years by riding toward Edenton and crossing into North Carolina to call on Marmaduke Norfleet, a planter in Perquimans County. Washington and Lewis bought some of his land lying along the road seven or eight miles south of the dividing line. The tract held a good house, kitchen, and barn surrounded by a little more than 1,000 acres. Part was well timbered. Part was "exceeding rich and open meadow." All, Washington believed, was "capable of great improvement." He and Lewis offered more than 1 per acre, which Norfleet accepted.
Returning to Virginia, Washington stopped in Norfolk, where shipwrights were building a schooner for him. He spent time with Robert Tucker. If the busy merchant looked more fretful than usual, he had good reason. His many debtors would not respond to his repeated requests for payments. In vain he traveled to court days to meet them. The more cargoes he shipped in vessels of London firms, the more he risked, and he had many creditors. For the past ten weeks Tucker had drawn bills of exchange on a London house, Hasenclever, Seton & Crofts, totaling more than 1,560 sterling. He apparently did not know that this firm was not an ordinary mercantile enterprise. Founded in 1763, it provided money and credit for Peter Hasenclever"s wildly ambitious projects in New Jersey and New York. Spending far more than his partners" capital, Hasenclever promised to make a fortune for them with pig iron, potash, and hemp.
Washington reached Williamsburg on Friday, May 2. The Dismal Swamp Company met on Sat.u.r.day. John Washington had come up from Dismal Pla