The Cozens/Byrnes Merchants Networks Project - Updated 12 June 2009

Snippets on gaps, leads, clues, problems, lacunae and information searches for the future

A project seldom if ever developed for the Internet ... a website to return to ...

A website intended to be of greatest use for anyone interested in economic history ... maritime history ... This file is an update section.

The drop-down menu below will guide you to the files available in the sub-directories of this website, on topics such a Genealogy, Periods / Timeframes / Eras, new research on Jamaica, Galleries of graphics and information-resources.

By October 2007, this is a new page for The Merchant Networks Project. Research and the website itself have moved into new zones and the time has come to make extra lists of merchant networks and commercial activity we'd like to know more about, in-depth - as would some netsurfers who have emailed. (-Ed)

For example, we now find, reading "popular" US history on the hugely-criticised C19th New York rentier, former fur trader, John Jacob Astor, that Astor had a brother always remaining in London, George, who sold musical instruments. We wonder if George acted as any kind of regular agent for John Jacob, in ways that have not yet been written up? It would have been an obvious arrangement, but we don't presently know if it was actually in place. We also didn't know that J. J. Astor had a quick and quirky sense of humour. Once, when J. J. was older, a group of men seeking donations for a charity approached the Astors. One of J. J's sons happily gave them $100, on the spot, but J. J. gave them only $50. They protested mildly, telling him that his son had given them double that amount. In his accent (Dutch via Germany, which always made him feel awkward), J. J. replied, "Yes, but his father is a very wealthy man."  

Latest work for this website: Earlier in 2007 the webmaster was uploading newly-arrived digital photographs of a wide range of old plantations of Jamaica, ruins from the old days of slavery. Other work being considered by the Byrnes/Cozens research duo plus e-mailers includes: On William Duer and/or Thomas Willing and other financiers associated with "the financier of the American Revolution", Robert Morris. US merchants involved in opium trading. Family names/genealogy recently revised and readied for upload and/or re-upload to this website include: a wide range of pre-Revolutionary family names of Colonial America, Cunliffe of Liverpool. Wright (bankers of Nottingham). Wakefield. And Fairfax, Cary and Fauntleroy of Virginia, USA. On Nicholas and Jacob van Staphorst, Netherlands circa 1780.

Some merchant networks of interest: US-China merchants 1786-1850, many involved in opium trading (not in any particular order or in any particular network). It should be understood that not all US-China merchants did deal in opium, though most did. Because of the hunger of China's economy for silver, to 1827, US merchants paid for their China trading with Spanish silver dollars from the Spanish West Indies, South America, Portugal or Gibraltar; after 1827 they paid increasingly in bills drawn on London. 

At times it is hard to put a useful date on forms of associations, simply because firms were often composed of family members in various ways at various times.  Major Shaw the first US Consul to Canton, was with Shaw and Randall by 1786. From 1795, Thomas Handasyd Perkins and his brother James Perkins. Captain William Fairchild Magee/Megee of Providence, Rhode Island. The brothers Sullivan, Joseph and John Dorr by 1800. James and Benjamin C. Wilcocks by 1804 operated for William Waln and R. H. Wilcocks of Philadelphia. [B. C. Wilcocks became US Consul to Canton/China]. Captain Hugh McPherson of Philadelphia by 1805 took opium from Smyrna, Turkey to Batavia.  

Willing and Francis by 1805 [Thomas Willing, former partner of Robert Morris]. Captain Christopher L. Garritt by 1805. William Waln by 1806. Stephen Girard by 1806. Samuel Russell. Thomas Handasyd Perkins. (Ephraim Bumstead was a figure in the early career of T. H. Perkins.) Joseph Peabody of Salem. The names Perkins, Bryant and Sturgis. Blights of Philadelphia to 1811 (? Blights are names very little-mentioned.) John P. Cushing. By 1812-1815, Joseph Walley, Langdon and Francis Coffin were operating. Minturn and Champlin linked to their supercargo  William Law by 1816. 

John Jacob Astor of New York by 1816-1819.  James Sturgis and Co. by 1818. Augustine Heard. Bryant, Paine, Cushing and Higginson. Captain William Sturgis of Bryant and Sturgis of Boston. Joseph Peabody. Joseph Coolidge (at Bombay). John Murray Forbes. Augustine Heard of Ipswich. William C. Hunter. Thomas H. Smith of New York by 1821. By 1822, some Turkish-American opium was sold in Manila or Java (and any such Manila /  Philippines connections remain very seldom discussed in the literature, as does any sourcing of silver in the Philippines by Americans, or indeed, anyone else).

William Gray of Boston (to Java - Canton) by 1824. By 1824, Samuel Russell and Philip Ammidon were Russell and Co., prior to which Ammidon had been an agent for Brown and Ives of Rhode Island. Thomas H. Smith by 1825. John Donnell of Baltimore died 1826. Issaverdes and Stith by 1827 (who included the Greek brothers John B. and George Issaverdes and Griffin Stith a nephew of John Donnell a Baltimore-China merchant). Robert Bennett Forbes. Thomas Tunno Forbes (died 1829) of Perkins and Co., which was acquired by Russell and Co. John Perkins Sturgis. John R. Latimer and James Latimer. 

Joseph Archer of Philadelphia by 1830. Abbot Abiel Low (a link to Seth Low) of Russell and Co. as a one-time partner. John N. A. Griswold of N. L. and G. Griswold of New York, was a brother-in-law of China merchant John C. Green, an agent for Griswolds of New York. By 1830 were operating John Webster Perit (a former partner of Samuel Cabot), a brother of Peletiah Perit of New York. David W. C. Olyphant and Charles W. King (did not deal opium. Olyphant and Co, operated by 1831, did not trade opium, and were part of Talbot and Olyphant of New York. Quaker Nathan Dunn (did not deal opium).  Wetmore and Co. became a successor to Nathan Dunn and Co. Wetmores operated by 1831 and were headed by William Shepard Wetmore (anti-opium) and James C. Wetmore; and included Joseph Archer, son of Samuel Archer of Philadelphia. J. B. Higginson by 1834. John Cryder by 1834. Russell, Sturgis and Co. of 1834 were part of Russell and Sturgis, which had been founded by a Cushing, and included Henry Parkman Sturgis; and George R. Russell, a son of Jonathan Russell, and a nephew of Philip Ammidon. Also, variously by now, the names Delano, Low, King of Newport, Rhode Island; Edward Carrington of Providence Rhode Island and Cyrus Butler plus Carrington's brothers-in-law T. C. Hoppins and Benjamin Hoppins.

Queries to this website, mostly via Google, and evident from our hit-counter system, indicate that some netsurfers are curious about the following names or operations we also are unfamiliar with: W. H. Webb shipyard, Liverpool Line; re Captain Cotton Dent; Deberdt genealogy (UK); Gosling's bank/bankers (UK, genealogy, difficult.) On William de Merle, bankers (of whom we've never heard at all). 

  The approach of this website is to examine merchants in terms of the networks they are part of, where concentration on individual merchants is reduced. Merchant networks tend to work in an organic way. They behave, they adapt or die. They expand or contract, or change in response to new opportunities, in response to the loss of old opportunities. They can act to exclude members who behave badly. They can actively recruit new members or passively ignore those who want to become new members. They can fade away as technology changes. Members of networks can engage in political activity to advance their interests. Merchant networks  can also, as shown by The Anglo-Chinese Opium Wars (circa 1839, as those tragedies have been called), cause serious conflict on the world stage, if not prevented by the responsible foreign policies of their home nation(s). 

The US conspiracy theories in history

By Dan Byrnes

Lyndon LaRouche

	Lyndon LaRouche, the US "history theorist" and "political commentator" who can't find Australia in British history or on the world map. Well might he ponder.

Shortly (from May 2009) this website is going to present a wide-ranging critique of a variety of US conspiracy theories in history which have grown in popularity on the Net since 1996, often using material earlier available in a variety of printed books. The writer of this critique (Dan Byrnes) would not mind so much about such misguided views from the USA, if he didn't receive annoying e-mail from followers of these theories, inquiring into views on "matters economic in history". Notable amongst the books retailing these conspiracy theories is of course, Dope Inc, The Book That Drove Kissinger Crazy, by associates of Lyndon LaRouche Jnr.  (I happen to have its edition of 1992.)

In Australia,  one of the reasons to take a dim view of LaRouche's ideas is because of the activity of an Australian fringe-group group which is fed views and information by his US followers, which names itself, Citizens Electoral Council (CEC, see the wikipedia entry on them). CEC made a showing as minor contenders in the 2007 Australian Federal election) 

Suffice to say, and by Australian standards, CEC in Australia are a small but very annoying group. They originated with the right-wing League of Rights, (by 2007 a relatively long-lasting fringe group in Australia) which was taken over by LaRouchites led by one Isherwood of Melbourne, who brainlessly repeats LaRouche's latest opinions imported from the USA.

This webpage and its sister pages from the present writer are going to pour considerable acid on LaRuche's weird anti-British outpourings. This is partly because as an Australian, I notice that there is nothing in LaRouche's views on British history which would lead him to notice the existence since 1788 of white or British-settled Australia - so it is diverting to wonder, what can it be about Britain, that LaRouche hates so much, that leads him to overlook an entire continent on the face of the earth? So we may as well begin in part with a taste of what it feels like for a writer to be chastised by a well-trained historian. To wit Huw Bowen (UK historian) as he chastises a writer dealing with aspects of the trading history of the commodity, tea. Not that the fact that LaRouche is anti-British is the main problem, the major problem is that LaRouche enjoys hating to the extent that he enjoys bending history to his will, a ludicrous past-time.(Cf., Huw Bowen The Guardian, Saturday 11 April 2009 in review of For All the Tea in China: Espionage, Empire and the Secret Formula for the World's Favourite Drink by Sarah Rose, 280pp, Hutchinson, £17.99 suggesting that a broadbrush approach "can produce history that is formulaic, simplistic and ill-informed, leading to inflated and unjustified claims for the significance of a particular [commodity] food or drink.)

Sarah Rose's breathless tea-tale falls into the latter [ill-informed] category. Several astonishing howlers mean that confidence in the book is all but destroyed by the end of page two. "A subcontinent of princely states" was not "united under the banner of Greater Britain, in 1757"; the East India Company did not sell opium to China for "nearly two hundred years"; and "tea taxes" most certainly did not fund the building of railways and roads in 19th-century Britain. And so it goes on, with basic errors adding to serial misconception and misunderstanding, as we are invited to share in a "wow! gosh!" version of history. Of course, as Rose herself informs us, the book is not a scholarly undertaking and this in itself is fair enough. But, in order to be credible, works of popular history do still have to be rooted firmly in fact, even in these postmodern times.

This is a missed opportunity, because there is certainly an interesting story to be told about the book's protagonist, Robert Fortune. In 1848 he penetrated parts of the Chinese interior, which hitherto had been off-limits to foreigners, as he undertook a search for tea plants that could flourish in the Indian Himalayas. But instead of simply portraying Fortune as a resourceful and determined collector working on behalf of the soon-to-be defunct East India Company, Rose transforms him into an "industrial spy" who "would change the fate of nations". Fortune was most certainly important, says Bowen, and he made sure that his contemporaries knew it, but this is overdoing things, as is the claim that he was the "crucial linchpin in the chain of events that had brought tea to its adopted homeland" [in India]. (Ends quote from Bowen review)

Lyndon LaRouche

	Lyndon LaRouche, the US "history theorist" and "political commentator" who can't find Australia in British history or on the world map. Well might he ponder.

How conspiracy theories flourish

Historians as they work are wise to apply a sense of scepticism about history, so are their readers, and it does appear, that conspiracy theories also begin with scepticism. There the similarities between conspiracy theories and "mainstream history" part company, partly due to differences in the uses of methodology. Conspiracy theories can flourish due to naivety, stupidity, or being gulled by misinformation [on the parts of of both "researchers" and readers]. Part of the mix is distrust of authorities, distrust of mainstream historians, distrust of ordinary journalism. A popular ploy of conspiracy theorists is to complain that certain difficult business in a given society is the result of deliberate tactics designed by "rogue elements" in a government, or governmental agencies, to distract the population from any variety of other acknowledged-but-intractable evils. This is partly the explanation for the stamina of conspiracy theories about the assassination of US President John F. Kennedy, the origins and spread of the disease known as HIV-AIDS, the car-accident death of Princess Diana, a wierd event such as the 9/11 jet bombing of the World Trade Centre in New York. The 2008 world financial crash is/was allegedly due to a "secret cabal of central bankers operating from a bunker at Denver International Airport". It is often claimed, particularly in the US, that the explanations for such conspiracies "go all the way to the top". As with the legend that what Australians call "the Whitlam Dismissal", the death of the 1972-elected Labor Government in 1975, was orchestrated by American CIA operatives getting rid of an Australian government they disliked and distrusted. So UK sociologist and political commentator Frank Furedi wonders if Western Society has regressed into an application of medieval outlooks to "calamitous acts" and events. Furedi notes, "Back in the Dark Ages people regarded accidents, disasters and other acts of misfortune as the work of hidden forces. Misdeeds were often said to have been caused by people who had been manipulated by evil forces. This primitive outlook is making a comeback."

Though it might be noted that the believer in conspiracy-based explanations mostly sees bad luck, disaster and calamity as due to some monolithic force(s), and something, or some group, actually retaining control [even against all the odds, as with 9/11]. Whereas the mainstream historian is more likely to attribute unwelcome outcomes to unexpected confluences of lacks of control, if not incompetence and mismanagement - the opposite of monolithic forces. (Plain bad luck of course being one form of lack of control.)

The anti-conspiracy theory website clavius.org suggests that conspiracy theories are constructed to explain-away variations and inconsistencies in more official sorts of accounts, as well to as to provide entertainment, if not outright mischief. (And conspiracy theorists regulary regard mainstream historians as writers of "more official accounts".) Clavius.org suggests that conspiracy theories "are someone's ego trip, invented to make the theorist appear intelligent, in the know, on the inside with access to secret information unavailable to others." So Furedi thinks that resort to conspiracy-theory explanations involves difficulties with the identification of the causality of events, where matters of course will be more fraught if governmental authority, or the ways public life are led, are distrusted.

Here, an expert in international security at Sydney University, Peter Curson, feels that conspiracy theories areadopted by people who fear a loss of autonomy, they fear losses of control, fear being manipulated, they want answers, they want to know who is responsible, who is to blame, and who is to be scapegoated ... There are problems of people dealing with incomprehension, distrust, suspicion about motives. (Which problems were valid enough in the aftermath of the USA's reaction when Hurricane Katrina had devastated Louisiana and New Orleans (much of which was anyway, six feet below sea level!)

While today, the advent of the Internet as a way to deliver information has "upset the traditional hierarchy of knowledge and authority". Certainly, and internationally, it is easier than ever before for mischief makers to spread their brand of information. (Footnote: The above paragraphs are based on an article on conspiracy theory about the 1969 moon landing by American astronauts by John Huxley in weekend edition of Sydney Morning Herald, 6-7 June 2009, news review, page 3. See also, David Aaronovitch, Voodoo Histories: The Role of The Conspiracy Theory in Shaping Modern History. Jonathan Cape, 2009, 390pp, hardback)

Meanwhile, regarding contemporary US conspiracy-theories-in-history writers on the Net since 1996, the outraged, stridently anti-British tone of voice (never forget the Boston Tea Party!), is that of a paranoid conspiracy theory. So we must ask, what kind of writer's ego here, feels itself to be under such threat? From whom?

A great many US writers of "paranoid conspiracy theories" have been active on the Internet since 1996. They become trapped in their own terminologies, and reading history backwards, not forwards, remain uninterested in originality of approach. They often repeat each other's formulations, which mostly seem a matter (as history is read backwards), of growing hatred of Britain, Jews, Catholics (the Papacy, Jesuits), plus a highly-emotional, quite unrealistic view of "American patriotism". Underpinning these prejudices and biases are a variety of types of fundamentalism. Populist-political fundamentalism (which feeds off "resentiment" in society generally, as explained here later). Protestant religious fundamentalism, or misunderstood Puritanism, which vastly fears moral contamination (from foreigners), not to speak of the works of "The AntiChrist". Where the code word for The AntiChrist is very often, "New World Order", of which the UN is today merely one untrustworthy expression. These writers, often virulent, are not however laughable. Their writings are unhistorical, and a-historical. They are sworn enemies of the thoughtful life! They are certainly the enemies of useful method in historical analysis.

Perhaps the worst oversight of such writers is to fail to notice that the American War of Independence involved one if not two civil wars in the American colonies. One between Loyalists and Patriots. One, more difficult to distinguish, between elite Americans and their lesser orders. Where the point is that the elites had control of propaganda, their lesser brethren, who might have disagreed on various American questions, did not. Which is to say, that the kind of "patriotism" espoused by these ewriters, regarding situations prevailing from 1775, and more so from 1783, did not enjoy the kind of unity and harmony that the writers assume had existed. Their very first premises (about harmony in the new American republic) are awry concerning the outcome of the American Revolution.

Often with such writers, notable US merchants, or their networks of associates, more so regarding British associates, are presented as being inimical to the ideals of the American Revolution and the purity of the republic; not merely amusedly competitive, but deliberately and maliciously inimical. Instead of the production of a dispassionate overview of the growth of US trading patterns, a sense grows of a passionately self-absorbed political denunciation quite unconcerned with the actualities of the economic, social or cultural history of any nation at all – except the USA. The focus becomes the ills of the American political system. Of all such writers in the US, LaRouche is perhaps the most articulate and complex, which is why he is given such attention here.

To move deeper into Lyndon LaRouche's territory, where historians' evidence fears to tread for fear of rape, if we were believe LaRouche, one would agree that the greatest-ever spoiler of life in the USA has been, and remains, Britain. It was not good enough that Britain lost the American War of Independence, for it seems that Americans since 1783 have been so politically and socially immature, so impressionable, that when British interests as much as sneeze, all American states soon suffer influenza.

It is also the case that after 1783, British mercantile interests - including individally name-able merchants - acted deliberately to try to stifle the emerging commerce of the new United States. Old trade the pre-Revolutionary Americans were used to with the West Indies was prevented. In London even by about 1786, it was well known that American ships entering the Mediterranean were striking trouble from the notorious Barbary pirates. A cruel London joke was that to annoy the Americans, if there were no Barbary pirates, it would be worth London's while to invent them. British interests took a range of measures to try to frustrate American merchants. This has never been a secret, but American conspiracy writers tend to work as though they have only recently discovered such British prejudices. Being unclear about what prejudices existed, then eased, the conspiracy writers provide a range of misleading impressions. 

Lyndon LaRouche

	Lyndon LaRouche, the US "history theorist" and "political commentator" who can't find Australia in British history or on the world map. Well might he ponder.

(If Lyndon LaRouche was discussing Olympic athletes, we would find ourselves introduced only to athletes using steroids, an approach guaranteed to prevent us from meeting all the honourable athletes!)

    Given that such deliberately negative British views were expressed, commented and reported after 1783, it is  curious that American conspiracy theory writers do not cite such material, which ought to serve their propaganda purposes ideally, but they do not cite it. In particular, inveighing with this hatred of Britain, the LaRoucheites concerned with the greater part of the nineteenth century harp continually on the evil influences in American life and politics of the London-based bankers, Barings, or, Barings Bros.  It seems, though, from re-reading Dope Inc., that LaRouche's followers do not seem to know know one relevant fact that gave Barings an "in" on a variety of American business. From early in the nineteenth century, Barings obtained an official agency as bankers for the Government of the United States. It would be very surprising if this status - official bankers - did not give Barings' agents (of all kinds) a little more confidence in dealing with American business interests. So why then would the LaRouchites be surprised that Barings had a variety of roles to play in nineteenth century American affairs?

One of the chief problem with LaRouche's conspiracy theory outlook is that it is basically Isolationist (and/or trade protectionist ). The trials and tribulations of international trade are so vexing to LaRouchites, it seems they prefer to remain xenophobic. When of course it is well-known to history that Isolationist-xenophobic societies invariably fail (China from the Middle Ages, Japan, present-day Zimbabwe.) Isolationist-xenophobic societies that become expansionist end up delivering even worse examples to history (Eg., Hitler's Germany.) There is a great deal to be said for nation-state neighbourliness. For periods from 1783, however, the collection of US conspiracy theories to be discussed below indicate that their writers vastly enjoy excoriating ("flaying alive"), a great number of American's nineteenth century international traders sending ships to trade with Britain, Europe, China (less so, India).

Of course, where they are correctly named (which is not always the case), these US traders all worked in terms proposed by their merchant networks - which terms changed across the decades - a phenomenon a little too complicated for  the US conspiracy theorists to pay attention to. In fact, by the time of the first Anglo-Chinese Opium War, the major reason that US traders in China had largely fallen into the laps of British financial interests was because they had almost no other option. as their Chinese counterparts insisted on being paid in silver bullion (specie, best handled as Spanish dollars). It was difficult for Americans to find enough silver to conduct their trading, and one easy option was to deal more in straight finance with the British (using bills-of-exchange drawn in dollars-pounds).

The result for the Americans was that they had to react to two important magnets in international trade; the trade magnet of China (which included sale of smuggled opium), and London as a financial magnet. While the US conspiracy theorists may well wish to disagree that this should have happened, it is quite another thing for them to mislead their readers so persistently about how it happened.  It was due to what economic historians usually term, "the silver hungriness" of the Chinese economy. (Early British reactions to counter some financial effects of the Chinese silver hungriness are discussed in Dan Byrnes' article on this website, The First Bank at Canton, which refers to the first "bank" operated by East India Company merchants at Canton fro the early 1770s.)

And so it happens that the present writer wishes to point out how fundamentally misleading, discussions of international traders can be, if, when and where they are not discussed in terms of merchant networks. Which is to say that with any sort of popular history that could possibly be made available in today's USA, the US conspiracy theories could hardly be a worse introduction to the USA's longer-term economic history. Which is not at all to deny that the American nineteenth century gave birth to a great many rapacious, unscrupulous, predatory capitalists, it did. But there is no point to chronic misunderstanding, either.

Before Barings arrived in America - Introducing Bird, Savage and Bird ...     

The story of how Barings came to gain the "official" American government account is still not well told. Matters quickly become complicated if we try to tell the story. Barings were preceded in this role by a little-known British firm (with links to as few as two Americans of the Carolinas), Bird, Savage and Bird (BSB). 

It is not surprising when BSB had the business, that because the US government itself was conducting its business in somewhat unsophisticated ways, BSB had a shaky career and finally failed. By the time they failed, Barings were poised to step in. And at this point, we have to interpolate a good deal of genealogical information, in order to pre-prepare material for the discussion of the merchant networks which became involved, networks which even unofficially, the US Government of the time could not entirely overlook. (This article article is continued at a next file in regular series.)

The name Merttins: 

Sir George Merttins was Lord Mayor of London in 1724. A goldsmith, and historically a relatively low-profile Lord Mayor, Merttins was an alderman by 1713 and by 1722 a Sheriff of London.

The name Bird:

Descendants of BIRD
1. BIRD Progenitor http
   sp: BNOTKNOWN Miss
2. BIRD William
   sp: BNOTKNOWN Mary
3. BIRD John (b.1688;d.1771)
   sp: MARTYN Rebecca
4. BIRD William (b.1721)
4. BIRD Elizabeth
4. BIRD Ann
4. BIRD Charles
4. BIRD Frances
4. BIRD William
4. BIRD Pattee
4. BIRD John
4. silk merchant BIRD John (c.1780)
   sp: WILBERFORCE Judith
5. MP silk trade BIRD William Wilberforce (b.1758;d.1836)
   sp: WHEELER Penelope
6. BIRD Catherine (d.1861)
   sp: EICo Bengal Civil Service BARLOW Robert (b.1788;d.1845)
6. BIRD George
   sp: CORRIE Laura Elizabeth
7. General Sir BIRD George Corrie (b.1838)
   sp: MANNING Emily Allen (b.1840)
7. BIRD Agnes (b.1851)
   sp: DOUGLAS John
6. BIRD John
   sp: DODSON Georgiana Mary
7. BIRD Charles James (b.1812;d.1879)
   sp: WEBSTER Emily Honor
8. BIRD Laura Emily (b.1868)
5. BIRD Mary
5. BIRD Hanna (b.1757;d.1846)
   sp: Rev SUMNER Robert (d.1802)
6. SUMNER John Bird
6. Rev Dr BIRD John Sumner (b.1780;d.1862)
   sp: ROBINSON Marianne (m.1805)
7. BIRD Charles Richard (b.1790;d.1874)
   sp: DE MAUNOR Jennie (m.1816)
6. SUMNER Humphrey (b.1792)
6. SUMNER Maria (b.1794)
5. BIRD Lucy (b.1764;d.1884)
   sp: BIRD Robert (m.1786)
6. BIRD Robert Merttins (b.1788;d.1853)
   sp: BROWN Jane Grant
7. Major BIRD Robert Wilberforce
   sp: CLOETE Elizabeth Marie
8. BIRD Henry Rudolf  Cloete (b.1846)
   sp: WARD Esther Dudley
6. BIRD Mary
6. BIRD Henry
6. BIRD Edward
6. BIRD Lucy
6. BIRD Roberta
6. BIRD George Merttins
   sp: BROWN Sarah Robinson
7. BIRD George William
6. BIRD Elizabeth
6. BIRD Henrietta
6. BIRD Catherine
5. BIRD Rebecca
5. BIRD Anna Maria (b.1767;d.1847)
3. BIRD Thomas (b.1690;d.1746)
   sp: MARTYN Elizabeth (b.1695)
4. BIRD Robert Senior (b.1723)
   sp: MERTTINS Mary
5. London financier of Bird, Savage Bird BIRD Henry Merttins (b.1755)
   sp: MANNING Elizabeth Ryan (b.1760;m.1778)
5. Financier, Bird Savage Bird, BIRD Robert Jnr (b.1760)
   sp: BIRD Lucy (c.1788)
5. BIRD Benjamin Savage
5. BIRD Catherine
   sp: Banker, Bird, Savage SWABEY, Maurice
6. SWABEY Catherine (b.1790)
6. SWABEY Maurice II
6. SWABEY Henry Birchfield
   sp: PRESCOTT Caroline
7. SWABEY Henry Birchfield
   sp: JENKINS Eliza Katherine
8. SWABEY Alice Maria (b.1870)
8. SWABEY William Louis
7. SWABEY Frederick
6. SWABEY William (b.1789;d.1872)
   sp: HOBSON Marianne
6. SWABEY Elizabeth
5. BIRD Robert
   sp: BIRD Lucy (b.1764;m.1786;d.1884)
6. BIRD Robert Merttins (b.1788;d.1853)
6. BIRD Mary
6. BIRD Henry
6. BIRD Edward
6. BIRD Lucy
6. BIRD Roberta
6. BIRD George Merttins
6. BIRD Elizabeth
6. BIRD Henrietta
6. BIRD Catherine 
 

As will be noted from the name Wilberforce, the Birds had some connections with the family of parliamentarian William, Britain's famed anti-slavery crusader. On the other hand, Elizabeth Ryan Manning was daughter of a noted slaving merchant, William Manning. (Manning (died 1791) is noted briefly in R. H. Gardiner, Memoir of Benjamin Vaughan, Maine Historical Society, Coll, Series 1, Vol. VI, pp. 85-92.) 

The name Manning:

Descendants of MANNING Progenitor
1. MANNING Progenitor
   sp: MUNKNOWN Miss
2. Slaver, London merchant, MANNING William (c.1775;d.1791)
   sp: MNOTKNOWN Miss
3. Australian Agric. Co. investor, MP, Gov Bank of England, slaver, West Indies merchant, MANNING William (b.1763;d.1835)
   sp: Wife2, HUNTER Mary (d.1847)
4. Cardinal, MANNING Henry Edward (b.1808)
   sp: SARGENT Caroline
4. Royal Page, MANNING Charles
4. MANNING Harriet (d.1828)
4. MANING Anna Maria
   sp: ANDERDON John
4. MANNING Caroline
   sp: Wife1, SMITH Elizabeth Bessie (d.1789)
4. MANNING Elizabeth Ryan (b.1760)
   sp: London financier of Bird, Savage Bird BIRD Henry Merttins (b.1755;m.1778)
4. wife2 MANNING Miss
   sp: South Carolina, SAVAGE John (c.1780;m.1778)
5. Of Bird, Savage, SAVAGE Benjamin (b.1750)
3. MANNING Sarah (b.1754;d.1834)
   sp: Merchant, Mincing Lane, London VAUGHAN Benjamin (b.1751;d.1835)
4. VAUGHAN Harriet (b.1782;d.1798)
4. Farmer, merchant, shipowner, VAUGHAN William Oliver (b.1783;d.1826)
   sp: AGRY Martha
5. Merchant, supercargo, VAUGHAN William Manning (b.1807;d.1891)
   sp: WARREN Ann Tryphena (b.1810;d.1889)
6. VAUGHAN Emma Gardner (b.1835;d.1844)
6. VAUGHAN Benjamin (b.1837;d.1912)
6. VAUGHAN William Warren (b.1848)
4. VAUGHAN Sarah (b.1784;d.1847)
4. VAUGHAN Henry (b.1786;d.1806)
4. Commercial career in London, Lt Maine Militia, VAUGHAN Petty (b.1788;d.1854)
4. VAUGHAN Lucy (b.1790;d.1869)
4. VAUGHAN Elizabeth Frances (b.1793;d.1855)
3. MANNING Martha (b.1755;d.1781)
   sp: soldier, LAURENS John (b.1753;d.1782)
4. LAURENS Frances Eleanor
   sp: HENDERSON Francis

Vaughans were American merchants sometime resident in London about the time of the American Revolution. In 1786 they had an address at Mincing Lane (where Francis Baring and Duncan Campbell also lived), and they were visited there by Thomas Jefferson in 1786 when Jefferson was in London as US plenipotentiary minister, making a variety of treaties. Samuel Vaughan  had properties on Jamaica and in Hallowell, Maine, USA. Samuel Vaughan (1720-1802), a London merchant and Jamaican sugar plantation owner, married Sarah Hallowell (1727-1809) of Boston in 1747. The couple had ten children: Benjamin (1751-1835); William (1752-1850); Samuel (1754-1758); John (1756-1841); Ann (1757-1847); Charles (1759-1839); Sarah (1761-1818); Samuel (1762-1827); Barbara Eddy (1764-1820); Rebecca (1766-1851); and Hannah (1768-1770). Samuel Vaughan died in 1802, his wife Hannah died in England in 1809. Their properties in Jamaica and Hallowell, Maine were divided among their children.

William Oliver Vaughan, the son of Benjamin and Sarah (Manning), was a gentleman farmer, merchant, ship-owner, and colonel in the Maine Militia, and active in town affairs. He married in 1806 Martha Agry (d. 1856). The couple had seven children: William Manning (1807-1891); Harriet Frances (1809-1846); Mary (1812-1814); Mary (1815-1816); Anna Maria (1817-1832); Henry (b. 1823); and Caroline (b. 1825).

Petty Vaughan, the son of Benjamin and Sarah (Manning), was a merchant and lieutenant in the Maine Militia. He went to London as a teenager to work with his uncle, William Vaughan, and returned later to spend most of his commercial career there.
 (The above notes on Vaughans have been adopted almost verbatim from a genealogy website.)

This article is continued at a next file in regular series.)

The name Savage: An American name which appears as a small appendage to the main names Manning and Vaughan:

Descendants of SAVAGE
1. SAVAGE Progenitor
   sp: SUNKNOWN Miss
2. Of South Carolina, SAVAGE John (active 1780)
   sp: wife2 MANNING Miss (m.1778)
3. Of Bird, Savage, SAVAGE Benjamin (b.1750)

The name Vaughan:

Descendants of VAUGHAN
1. VAUGHAN Progenitor
   sp: VUNKNOWN Miss
2. Of Mincing Lane, London, West India, Planter, VAUGHAN Samuel (b.1720;d.1802)
   sp: of Boston HALLOWELL Sarah (b.1727;m.1747;d.1809)
3. Merchant, Mincing Lane, London, VAUGHAN Benjamin (b.1751;d.1835)
   sp: MANNING Sarah (b.1754;d.1834)
4. VAUGHAN Harriet (b.1782;d.1798)
4. Farmer, merchant, shipowner, VAUGHAN William Oliver (b.1783;d.1826)
   sp: AGRY Martha
5. Merchant, supercargo, VAUGHAN William Manning (b.1807;d.1891)
   sp: WARREN Ann Tryphena (b.1810;d.1889)
6. VAUGHAN Emma Gardner (b.1835;d.1844)
6. VAUGHAN Benjamin (b.1837;d.1912)
6. VAUGHAN William Warren (b.1848)
4. VAUGHAN Sarah (b.1784;d.1847)
4. VAUGHAN Henry (b.1786;d.1806)
4. Commercial career in London, Lt Maine Militia, VAUGHAN Petty (b.1788;d.1854)
4. VAUGHAN Lucy (b.1790;d.1869)
4. VAUGHAN Elizabeth Frances (b.1793;d.1855)
3. London merchant, VAUGHAN William (b.1752;d.1850)
3. VAUGHAN Samuel (b.1754;d.1758)
3. VAUGHAN John (b.1756;d.1841)
3. VAUGHAN Ann (b.1757;d.1847)
3. Of Hallowell, Maine, VAUGHAN Charles (b.1759;d.1839)
   sp: ABTHORP Frances Western
4. VAUGHAN John Apthorp (b.1795;d.1865)
4. VAUGHAN Charles (b.1804;d.1878)
4. VAUGHAN Hannah Frances (b.1812;d.1855)
4. VAUGHAN Harriet (b.1801;d.1843)
3. VAUGHAN Sarah (b.1761;d.1818)
3. Jamaica merchant, sugar planter, VAUGHAN Samuel II (b.1762;d.1827)
3. VAUGHAN Barbara Eddy (b.1764;d.1820)
3. VAUGHAN Rebecca (b.1766;d.1851)
   sp: Tutor, MERRICK John (b.1766;d.1862)
4. Of Hallowell, Maine, MERRICK Mary Harrison
   sp: FLAGG John P.
3. VAUGHAN Hannah (b.1768;d.1770)

Before departing the above genealogy, we need to know if any more lineages are relevant. Yes, the names Warder and Vaux in Philadelphia, John Henry Cazenove, and maybe Andrew Craigie, Edward Darrell and Co., 

The name Warder: London-Philadelphia merchants:

Descendants of WARDER Progenitor
1. WARDER Progenitor
   sp: WNOTKNOWN Miss
2. Merchant of Philadelphia-London, WARDER Jeremiah
   sp: WNOTKNOWN Miss
3. London merchant to Philadelphia, WARDER John (b.1751;d.1828)
   sp: Of Philadelphia HEAD Ann (b.1758;d.1789)
4. WARDER John Head (b.1784;d.1843)
   sp: HOSKINS Abigail (d.1832)
5. WARDER John H.  II
4. WARDER William S. (b.1791;d.1831)
4. WARDER Mary Ann
   sp: BACON John
5. BACON George Vaux
   sp: KIRKBRIDE Sally Ann
4. WARDER Elizabeth
   sp: JANNEY Israel
4. WARDER Caroline (b.1801;d.1868)
   sp: CADBURY Joel Snr (b.1799;d.1870)
5. CADBURY Sarah
5. CADBURY Caroline Warder
5. CADBURY Joel Jnr (b.1838;d.1923)
   sp: LOWRY Anna K. (b.1846;d.1923)
6. CADBURY Benjamin (b.1873;d.1953)
6. CADBURY Emma Jnr (b.1875;d.1965)
6. CADBURY William Warder (b.1877;d.1959)
6. CADBURY John Warder (b.1880;d.1948)
6. CADBURY Henry Joel (b.1883;d.1974)
6. CADBURY Elizabeth B. (b.1871;d.1952)
   sp: JONES Rufus M.

The name Vaux:

Descendants of VAUX Progenitor
1. VAUX Progenitor
   sp: VNOTKNOWN Miss
2. Quaker Dr MD, VAUX George
   sp: Quaker OWEN Frances
3. Philadelphia mechant, Quaker, VAUX Richard (b.1751;d.1790)
   sp: Quaker, ROBERTS Ann (b.1753;d.1814)
4. Philadelphia merchant, VAUX Roberts (b.1786;d.1836)
   sp: WISTAR Margaret
5. VAUX Richard (b.1816;d.1895)
   sp: WALN Mary  (So far untraced - but see the name Waln listed above)
5. VAUX Thomas Wistar (b.1819;d.1887)
4. VAUX Susannah Jnr (b.1787;d.1812)
3. Dr MD, VAUX George II
3. VAUX Jeremiah
3. Emigrant to Philadelphia, VAUX James (b.1748)
   sp: WARDEN Susannah
4. VAUX Frances
4. VAUX George
3. VAUX Susannah

 Philadelphia merchant Richard Vaux was a cousin of John Warder and of a London merchant (his chief financial backer) John Strettel (who died 1781) who was maybe part of the firm John Strettel and John Brickwood. When young he worked in the Philadelphia house of Samuel Sansom. He became a Loyalist. Vaux began trading on his own in tobacco, corn, wheat, sugar, molasses, coffee. Later he had a partner, John Nancarrow. In 1781 he became a Freemason at Jerusalem Free Mason Lodge. In 1781 he insured ships (maybe with John Wilson) for Captain Watson's command. A relevant article on the Net is: James Farley, The Ill-Fated Voyage of the Providentia: Richard Vaux, Loyalist Merchant and, and the trans-Atlantic Mercantile World in the late Eighteenth Century. Philadelphia Center for Early American Studies. (Details lacking.)

John Henry Cazenove. Active by 1800. The Cazenoves were part of the often-influential Huguenot networks which spread from  France to avoid religious persection. Some of them became part of networks excoriated by conspiracy theorists who tend not to realize the style, size, scale and scope of Huguenot networks, nor how they operated, and so tend to misunderstand them.

See S. R. Cope on Bird, Savage and Bird, p. 211. The Winterarthur Library in UA has in its Joseph Downs Collection of Manuscripts and Printed Ephemera, the Cazenove-Lee Family Papers (1617-1970). The Cazenoves stemmed from the 15th Century in the South of France, and were Huguenots who first went to Geneva, Switzerland, after France's Bartholomew Day Massacres. They became active in international commerce. Family members settled in England, Italy, Spain, the USA. One settling in Alexandria Virginia was Anthony Charles Cazenove (1775-1852), whose grand-daughters multi-married into notable families; Lees, du Ponts, Hendersons, Gardners.

And what we find is, something moderately simple to understand ... The last thing apparently that LaRouche and his associates seem to be able to understand about international trade ...  is any definition of the respondentia convention of maritime trade which has prevailed in the Aegean Sea since the time of Jesus if not before. A definition can be taken from Cope's entertaining article:

S. R. Cope, 'Bird, Savage and Bird of London, merchants and bankers, 1782 to 1803', Guildhall Studies in London History, 1981., pp. 202-217. This is the only clue on Bird, Savage and Bird that the present writer has ever been able to find.  

Follows from Cope's article on Bird/Savage, p. 216, Note 22, “Respondentia bonds are given to secure a loan on goods loaded on board a ship which are to be sold or exchanged on the voyage, the borrower pledging the goods and the returns for them, whether in money or in other goods purchased abroad with the proceeds. The money is to be repaid to the lender, with marine interest, on the safe arrival of the ship in port.”

Just two of the problems posed by the conspiracy theories under discussion are: (1) The writers refuse to try to measure the activities of the people of the past by the codes, standards and times of those people. Pictures and judgements of the past are drawn in terms of the twentieth-century writer's attitudes, experiencce and views - a writerly approach which is unfair to both readers and to the people of the past.  

(2) Genealogies - failures to address the implications of more-complete genealogical information. If periods are being discussed, where family members were involved together in mercantile pursuits, there is little point in avoiding such information. This is relevant in the case of the Cazenove Huguenot network noted above.

Conclusion: For all their vehemences, furies, hatreds, passions, the last thing the US conspiracy theorists can understand about international trade, is the basic convention of olden-days international maritime trade - the respondentia loan. Which convention is not and never has been especially based on based on politics, or nationalism, or ethnicity, but which is very much prey to worry about the weather and the current state of trade; and what one experienced eighteenth century London merchant one day termed it, [Duncan Campell, 1726-1803] himself an ex-ship's captain, "the risks that all run on the sea".

What the respondentia loan did was spread the risks of any trading voyage between all interested parties.   One  problem with the LaRouchite outlook is an assumption that the US capitalists they discuss, felt that they had relatively few risks to run. Which is plainly unrealistic. Risk-spreading is just one of the forms of glue which bind merchant netorks togther. 

Follows a precis of Cope's article, a rare source of information. Bird, Savage and Bird operated only from 1782 to 1803. Henry Merttins Bird was the senior partner of Bird, Savage and Bird, not a well-known firm. H. M. Bird by inheritances from 1776 came into management of properties in Barking and Dagenham in Essex, including a manor hosue, Valence, which he used for the following 27 years. In 1777 he joined forces with Anthony Francis Halidmand, whose son William would later be a director of Bank of England.  Their partnership worked from Haldimand's address, 51 St Mary Axe, London. Bird had a separate business, H. M. Bird and Co., also addressed in St Mary Axe. 

Their pursuits at first were mercantile, but later became financial. Bird in 1778 married Elizabeth, daughter of the West India merchant, William Manning. The Haldiman-Bird partnership ended in 1782, when H. M. Bird joined with his brother Robert, and Benjamin Savage, to form Bird, Savage and Bird. (He also continued with H. M. Bird and Co. till 1790, when it disappeared.) William Manning figured with the Savage connection, as a sister of Manning had married John Savage of Charles Town South Carolina in 1778, as a second wife. John's son Benjamin Savage was trained in William Manning's counting house, then joined the Bird brothers, now at 14 St Mary Axe. 

BSB used two main bankers in London, Bank of England and Smith, Payne and Smiths. Smith, Payne and Smith was a highly discreet merchant bank with a fascinating career, where Payne was a lesser name. 

Note: J. A. S. Leighton-Boyce, Smiths the Bankers, 1658-1958. London, National Provincial Bank Ltd., 1958.

In particular, the Smiths had been in banking since the time of Cromwell, and had become a very large family with family-branch concerns in London and north provincial England. As such a large banking family, by the end of the eighteenth century they were well-poised to loom influential during the nineteenth century, when an astonishing number of English families with banking and financial industry connections densely intermarried. (Two of the Smith family became governors of Australian colonies, and one, after 1900, governor of an Australian state.)

BSB seem to have aimed especially for the trade of the Carolinas and Georgia in rice and indigo, and with making exchanges of manufactured goods. Carolina after 1783, with the end of the American War of Independence, re-established trading links with British merchants rather rapidly, while Carolina merchants developed many new partnerships, one of which was Smiths, DeSaussure and Darrell, who were influential in Charles Town politics and affairs. DeSaussure et al opted to deal with BSB via Edward Darrell and Co. of Charlestown, mostly using American-owned ships. As things turned out, DeSaussure et al were in a less-than-healthy financial condition, rice and indigo crops failed in 1784-1785, and South Carolina's merchants became slow to repay their debts to British merchants. Nothing was helped by 1793 when war broke out between Britain and France (while the USA remained neutral). For a time, the BSB connections using American ships could enter both British and French ports. Trouble set in when one of their ships, Laurens, Captain White, was captured by a French privateer. Protracted negotiations were expensive. At one point, Edward Darrell and Co. wanted to deal via parties in the West Indies, a tactic which made BSB feel dubious. The doubts were well-based, and slow-payment trouble set in. By 1798 or so, with the deaths of Daniel Desaussure (1798) and Edward Darrell (1797), the operations of Desaussure et al had all unravelled. BSB suffered. The Carolinas had not been a good investment.

Lyndon LaRouche

	Lyndon LaRouche, the US "history theorist" and "political commentator" who can't find Australia in British history or on the world map. Well might he ponder.

Still, BSB in November 1799 created a new operation in New York at 158 Greenwich Street, as Robert Bird and Co. During the 1790s they had begun dealing with New Yorkers Murray and Mumford and Lessingwell and Pierpont, partly in fabrics. Isaac Clason of New York sold them American stock to be re-sold in London. Though it is not clear how, BSB interests spread from New York to Vermont, and they became involved with General Ira Allen, "land speculator, politician and founder of the state of Vermont".  Allen's story alone is complicated, but some of the situation was establishment, or re-establishment, of part of the US-Canadian border.

(Note: Netsurfers reading this article will find that many names mentioned here can fruitfully become subjects of an quick Internet search. Many such searches will almost certainly find websites which are based on a variant of one of the US conspiracy theories under review here.)

Allen and BSB were introduced to each other by Rufus King, and it so happened that BSB funded Ira Allen for weapons purchases. an affair which Cope says, only ended in enriching lawyers. But by 1801, BSB felt confident enough broaden mercantile pursuits from New York to elsewhere. 

In 1801, BSB made a deal with Captain Jacob Smith (American) for the ship Semiramis to sail to the Far East. Smith was in Canton by 1802, from where a different captain took Semiramis to Acapulco, Mexico, then to Manilla in the Philippines (by March 1803). (Possibly, seeking supplies of silver specie? English textiles and liquor were handled.) Smith's business deals did badly, but still, BSB had sent three other ships, Indus, Sally and Catherine. (Arrangements here were made by Robert Bird and Co. of New York, while BSB arranged marine insurance at Lloyd's of London through one Alexander Maxwell Bennett (not a well-known name at Lloyd's at all.)

(Note: The present writer feels obliged to say that information on any such voyages to the Philippines by Capt. Jacob Smith by this time, are not mentioned in any American-written material read so far.)

All this activity engrossing H. M. Bird of BSB was unremarkable mercantile activity, and some of it seems unimaginative or non-innovative as well, for its times. It seems Bird was unaware of how the American "new nation" was faring in more purely financial matters - badly. The "financier of the American Revolution", Robert Morris, had been unable to leave his new nation with a wealthy treasury; the US was almost bankrupt. The debts of the states had to be serviced, the new nation's Federal debt had to be refunded. Many matters were resolved by 1790 with an American Act which made provisions for debt-handling. (Government debt, and financial operators found the Act assisted financial dealings. Hardly surprising, international speculation soon began in "American stock".) 

American matters of 1790 did though come to H. M. Bird's attention, and he wrote to Presdent Washington offering his firm's services for the purposes of negotiating a loan in Europe or to pay interest on American debt to European creditors. It was possible that Manning and Vaughan could also assist endeavours. However, nothing happened, and no one was appointed to deal with American debt in Europe. Undeterred, H. M. Bird tried to establish his firm as a leading London house dealing in American stock, acting as BSB and with John Warder and Co. of London (who had long-term links with Philadelphia.) At one point, H. M. Bird thought it useful to suggest to Jermiah Wadsworth, a director of Bank of United States (BUS), that Bird became a paying agent for BUS in London. Whereupon, somehow, and it is a little-told story, Barings trounced BSB for such business. BUS in June 1793 announced in London that its agents in London would be John and Francis Baring and Co., and John Henry Cazenove, Nephew and Co.

H. M. Bird was trounced, and probably outclassed. He continued to try to deal in American stock, but he was still weighed down with costly old business in the Carolinas. Bird did for example sell some American (government) stock to Smiths, Payne and Smiths. But by the late 1790s, he was outpaced by the Barings and Cazenoves as a dealer in American stock. Persistent, Bird in 1792 had tried to talk to Thomas Pinckney, who was a new American Minister in London. Pinckney was from South Carolina and probably knew those with whom Bird dealt there.  Pinckney evidently did help Bird conduct some American business, but he was replaced in four years or so, by Rufus King (shades of the General Ira Allen affairs). Bird also saw Rufus King and managed to find the work of handling some American accounts (such as a Barbary Treaty fund, a British Treaty Fund), and they even ran a private account for King. King was also agent for New York, and BSB handled that account. But to little avail, Bird was to be outlcasssed by the Barings and Cazenoves. At one point, Bird was reduced to the more mercantile business (during wartime) of trying to sell ships' anchors.

By March 1802 BSB had to be rescued, for 27,000 pounds. The rescue party consisted of William Manning's firm (including P. P. Anderdon and Charles Bosanquet), John Savage of South Carolina the father of Benjamin. London MP Henry Christian Combe. Maurice Swabey, who had married H. M. Bird's sister, Catherine. And one John Collins.  The rescue was insufficient, and amid a deal of correspondence and a variety of annoyances, Rufus King looked over the likes of McKensie, Glennie and Co., who had done some American (government finance) business. Bird, about to be disappointed, himself recommended that King use Smith, Payne and Smiths. King chose Sir Francis Baring and Co. Bird was driven to taking out loans from family, and selling his manor house property, Valence. BSB were declared bankrupt on 10 June, 1803. Their failure caused little upset in London; and Robert Bird in New York had bankrupted by 5 December 1805, the end of him. 

Cope writes of the BSB failure (p. 216), that H. M. Bird's "major contribution to the merchant banking of  his day was not in mercantile affairs, but in opening an active market in London for American stocks, the beginning of that export of British capital [to America] which lasted into the twentieth century. Others followed, and outdistanced him, but his pioneer role must be recognised."

(Note: Finishes a precis of Cope's article. This article is continued at a next file in regular series.)

It appears then, that Barings in London got their first "in" on American business directly from the hands of  Rufus King.  Stories of pioneers often engage a theme of suffering, and the H. M. Bird story is a dismal one. BSB had tried usual mercantile business with South Carolina, and arrangements there, also involving some dealers in the West Indies, ended more or less frozen. BSB had failed to successfuly operate a branch from New York trying to trade with the Far East, and from its London base, BSB failed across a decade to impress the US government with its financial prowess. Unfortunately, just how much BDB might have dealt with American land speculators, from either America, England, or Europe, or not, remains a matter unclear. What new research might turn up on this question is anyone's guess.

But the BSB story is also one available story about how and why, and so early, Barings of London were allowed to enter the financial services sector in America at such a high level. It is not a story retold by America's train of political conspiracy writers of the twentieth century, and one would like to ask - why not?

Lyndon LaRouche

	Lyndon LaRouche, the US "history theorist" and "political commentator" who can't find Australia in British history or on the world map. Well might he ponder.

The manifold hatred in LaRouchian writings of Barings as a symbol of British financial interests involved in American affairs is as conspicuous as it is rabid, but it also fails to tell an accurate story. As we find further ... meanwhile, it does seem as though if it is a theme to be traced, the involvement of British capital in American affairs after the close of the American War of Independence, then the US' conspiracy writers have asked questions which have misled them historically, proceeded in fruitless directions, and mixed one kind of alleged financial conspiracy with too many other conspiracy theories. (Rufus King is not even indexed in the LaRouche influenced book, Dope Inc.) The general literature of the rise of banking and financial services in the new United States of America itself (1783-1812) is still in an untidy condition, and amid that untidiness, US conspiracy theorists have been enjoying new field days in cyberspace.

All of which leads us in the decade while BSB was slowly failing, to another story about a major conspiracy theory in US popular culture, a story potently retold, and still apparently misunderstood, on many of today's American websites, the problem of The Essex Junto. It seems, a great many American-produced websites now on the Internet are based on The Myth of the Essex Junto, which arose about 1798.

(This material on US conspiracy theory writers is continued - now click to the next file as below)

This material on US conspiracy theories is continued at a next file in regular series.

Serious and/or not-so-serious ...

Who was financier, seemingly for Austrian dynastic government of southern Netherlands, Charles Prioli? Son of one Pierre Prioli. Charles perhaps had the title of Count? The situation of his father remains unknown. In the 1770s Charles Prioli was one of the major backers of the controversial entrepreneur in "the East", or, about India, William Bolts (originally a German) who was active in the 1770s-1780s. There seems by 13-April 2007 to be nothing on Prioli on the Internet. This website would be grateful to hear from anyone knowing anything at all about Prioli. - Ed

An Australian friend of the webmaster, quite a reader of history, who knows his Australian folk music and folklore, wishes to know from anyone in England, (partly tongue-in-cheek), why is it that:
we read so little on the English wool trade, right back to the final days of England's export-trade base at Calais, France? What about the use of sheep meat in English life, re traditional food recipes? Re shearing as a skill, as a kind of work? What happened to all of England's shearers? Does England have any interesting folk songs on sheep-shearing as work? Who were the biggest/wealthiest sheep-farmers? Does it matter? Why the apparent silences on such matters in English folklore/history? Does it matter? Since we all know, Australians can never keep quiet about "wool growing". While on the other hand, all we know about sheep-herding in the USA's Old Wild West is from a range-war movie, cattle versus sheep, the name of which we can't remember, which we saw as youngsters, starring Glenn Ford. (Oh yes, The Sheepman, [1958]; now regarded as a US western-comedy classic .) 

Why not consider merchant networks through the ages?

Re Merchant Networks through the Ages: See Mrs Aubrey Richardson, The Doges of Venice. London, Methuen, 1914. Also on the Doges of Venice, D. S. Chambers, The Imperial Age of Venice, 1380-1580. London, Thames and Hudson, 1970.

E-mail the Webmaster: Dan Byrnes

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The two writers/researchers behind the Merchant Networks Project are Ken Cozens (in London) and Dan
Byrnes (Australia).

The Cozens/Byrnes team formed in late 2005 after prolonged e-mail discussions to pursue the idea of historians working on Merchant Networks. Not work on merchants as individuals, more on the networks they are part of ...

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