when the whole crop is completed we shall observe to send your Account Current. We have honoured your Draft for £115 to Simon Peese, which is the only Bill we can hear of in Town, or they should also have been paid. We have not yet had any particular answer from Mrs. Field about your Brother's Legacy, but shall let you know as soon as we have. Our Market has been mended lately, pretty good Sugars now sell at 22 and 23 sh. per C. We are, Sir, Your most humble Servants, London, 6 October, 1733. ROW'D AND SAM'LL FRYE FRANCIS POPE TO ABRAHAM REDWOOD Sir, Antigua, December 8th day, 1733 THESE come to acquant you by Capt. Scott that I am safe arrived att Antigua, twenty nine days after I left you, where upon my passage I have had verey bad weather. I lost you 25 hoggs and three Sheep, and like to come to a poor markett for everything that I have brought here, thoug you gave me large orders if I like the markett to stay but howver you cant blame me for staying by Reson that Major Tomlinson has stopt me to land all my Lumber for the use of your Plantasion, and the Crops is like to be verey backward by reson of a blast that been amunks them the major told me that you have had a peice of Cain blasted that wood a made you fifty hhd of good Suger but my desine is to sell all for redy Cash and come away as soon as possable. here is look for a ship from the Cape devards [Verde] with Salt, which I hope to by a Loade and come direckly home. I cant tell you of anything to put in the Sloop, if it should please the allmighty God that the Sloop getts well home, but Shingles and hoops will be the best article that you can send as for horses will not dou. Sheep att 20 shilling, Beeff att fifty, Chese at 9 pence, Candles seven, Soap at Six pence. I cant wright you nothing larger at present then to lett you no that I have sold but verey little. I being well att present, I shall conclude with Love and Service to you both and Children. I pray excuse short wrighting. FRANCIS POPE [Endorsed,] these per Capt. Scott. ROWLAND AND SAMUEL FRYE TO ABRAHAM REDWOOD. London, 12 February, 1733/4 Sir, OUR last was 6th October per Captain Hammerden since which we have received your Favour 27 August, but it could not be answer'd sooner as there was no ship bound to that Part. Enclosed are Account Sales for your Sugars by Draper, Whipple, Shirburne, Tomlinson, and Davis, which compleats the Accounts of all that we have received from your plantation this last crop. We were obliged to abate 6 s. per hundred on 20 hhds. after they were sold, because on delivery they did not answer their samples by that value. As all your affairs with us are now finished we have sent your Account Current. there is a Ballance of £44:9: 5 still due to us. You will observe that we have paid your Bill for £115, to Simon Pease, and wish it had suited us to pay your two other Drafts, of £402. 10 to Hen: Collins and £60 to Dan: Ayrault.1 We should have readily done it, only the apprehensions of a speedy war with France deterred us, knowing how much the Islands lay exposed to an Invasion from the French.2 but should there be a settled peace you may depend on our serving you on any other occasion.3 1 Daniel Ayrault, son of Pierre, born c. 1676-77 and died June 25, 1764. He married Marie Robineau, who died in 1729. 2 In 1736 Antigua had a militia of 1500 men, with two forts and seven batteries, and the total force in the Leeward Islands amounted to 3.772 white men. 3 The war of the Polish Succession broke out in August, 1733, and involved so France as to make any hostile movements against England's American possessions unlikely. Belcher feared that Great Britain might become involved, and asked that a small naval force be maintained at Boston. The presence of the French at Cape Breton threatened the safety of the commerce of New England. Belcher Papers, 1. 418 Antego Sugars sell now from 17 to 24 s per Ct. according to their Goodness. We are, We are, Sir, Your most humble Servants ROW'D AND SAMUEL FRYE Sir, FRANCIS WILKS TO ABRAHAM REDWOOD 1 London, 26 November, 1734. SINCE the foregoing Copy of my last no Ships have arrived from your parts. this only serves to advise you that I have rec'd a bill of Lading for 26 hhds. of Sugar shipt for your Account by Mr. Thomlinson of Antigua, on board the Ship Godfrey, Cap. John Draper, to my consignment, which ship is safe arrived at Falmouth in the West of England, tho' I understand she sprung a leak at Sea for which she put in at Newfoundland. hope your Sugars by her rec'd no damage, and I should be very glad to know if hereafter I must make Insurance on any goods that shall receive advice of being shipt to me on your account, or not. Sugars remain still at a stand. the Sugar refiners have left of working for above two months past, but now have begun again, and are even now resolved not to give the last high prices.2 as soon as these Sugars on board of Draper are landed shall dispose of the whole to your best advantage and discharge your draft on me; being with great respect Sir, Your most obedient Servant, FRA. WILKS 1In the Belcher Papers are a number of letters from Belcher to Francis Wilks. 2 "All our sugar islands together are thought annually to produce 85,000 hogsheads of sugar, each hogshead containing twelve hundred weight, or in all, 1,200,000 hundred weight. Of which Great Britain was thought to consume annually 70,000 hogsheads. . . [or] nine pounds and a half of sugar to each person. . . . It is computed that 300 sail of shipping go annually from Great Britain to the sugar islands, beside those which go thither from our American colonies, and that about 4,500 seamen are employed in navigating them; and that there is annually exported thither to the value of £240,000 in British manufactures." Anderson, Origin of Commerce, III. 203. Sir, SAMUEL EVELEIGH TO GODFREY MALBOne [South Carolina,] September the 12th, 1735. If the Book of Samples of Beads has come to your hands. from Mr. Thos. Leech of Pensilvania, desire you'l return it me by the first Oppertunity, and also write me if you want those Gooseberry beads. I formerly advised you of which lye at Barbadoes, or any other (haveing a large quantity of divers Sorts by me). The Season for our Rice this last Summer has been extraordinary good, and tho the Bugg formerly mention'd, has done much damage to several Plantacons, yet its universally concluded, wee shall make above Twenty Thousand Bbls. more this year than the last.1 There has been imported into this place since the 25th of March last Twenty-four Hundred Negroes, which have sold very well, tho' the greatest part upon Credit, and several others are still expected. I sent you a small Parcell of Goods per Capt. Chas. Wickam the fourteenth of September, 1734. desire you'l ballance that Account primo Oppertunity in Cheese, best Butter, and Tallow, and you'l oblidge, Sir, Your Humble Servant, 1 In 1733 it was stated that the rice "exported from South Carolina to Spain and Portugal was become so cheap in those two countries as to have put almost an entire stop to the importation of that commodity from Venice and other parts of Italy; so far as to give ground to hope that Carolina might soon engross all the trade of Europe for that fine grain. Anderson, Origin of Commerce, III. 200. In 1730 rice was made a non-enumerated commodity, and so capable of direct export from Carolina to the Mediterranean, without being first landed in Great Britain. 3 Geo. II. c. xxix. Nine years later the exports from South Carolina reached 71, 484 barrels, and in 1740, 91,110 barrels. P.S. I desire you'l send me Two of the best Dolphin Cheeses. [Endorsed,] Mr. Godfrey Mallbone, Merchant, Rhode Island.1 FRANCIS WILKS TO ABRaham RedwOOD London, 12 July, 1736. Sir, I have received your favors of the 28th of april from Antigua and observe its Contents herewith you have your account current ballance in my favor £16. 18. 2, which on examining I hope you will find agreable am sorry to acquaint you that one Hans Steger to whom I sold 20 hhds. of your Sugar is broke; he was a person when sold him your Sugars in perfect Credit and not refused by any body. the state of the affair and what he paid on Account you'll see by your account current. a great many other Sugar Merchants are concernd in this unhappy affair, and am apt to think for account of Gent[leme]n in Antigua. Mr. Hill is £700, Mr. Gerrish upwards of £500, with several others. there is a Statute of Bankrupt taken out whereby all his effects are seized, and hope the creditors will have a handsome dividend, of which shall acquaint you farther hereafter. I am concern'd for this unhappy accident, and do assure you that as before mentiond the person was not deny'd credit by any body. the information you had of Sugars being at 30/ was intirely wrong the price is nothing near it the finest St. Kitts Sugars have not been sold for more than 25/; Antigua's are now sold from 20 to 23/ as in quality. I have paid your draft of £60 in favor of Jno. Freebody, also £300 in part of the £900 to Henry Collins the person who has this draft will keep it till you send farther effects, which as soon as they come to hand shall be applyd to discharge the remainder of said draft. am obliged to you for your farther Consignments by Captains Watts and Davis, and your promises of assisting Captain Bulkley in 1 In a later letter he is called Captain. |