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The New York Merchant Networks

The unincorporated commercial community of the port of New York between about 1690 and 1725, comprising the owners, part-owners, freighters, masters and supercargoes of the town's shipping with their London and Caribbean correspondents, holding no charter, no seal and no jurisdiction, and exercising authority only through the Crown offices its members held, which in the 1690s supplied the Madagascar pirates with stores and brought home their plunder alongside enslaved people bought on the Madagascar coast.

Also writtenthe merchants of New York; the New York merchant interest; the merchants of the City of New-York; the Madagascar traders of New York; the Philipse interest

Between about 1690 and 1725 the port of New York had no chartered body of merchants: no seal, no roll of members, no minute book, no jurisdiction. The Governor's Council of 1698 included Frederick Philipse, Nicholas Bayard and Chidley Brooke, Collector and Receiver General of the revenue, who executed the Naval Officer's place as well; Philip French was Speaker of the Assembly. The community acted institutionally only through offices of the Crown.1

The shape of a voyage

Adam Baldridge's deposition of 5 May 1699 names Philipse as owner of the Charles in 1693, the Katherine in 1695 and Cornelius Jacobs's ship in 1697. Thomas Mostyn took the Katherine out in 1695 as commander and supercargo; of his 1697 voyage in the Fortune the Board reported, on Bellomont's word, that he "laded publickly at New York with goods usefull to the pirates". Henry Watson told the Council of Trade and Plantations in February 1697/8 that Baldridge and Lawrence Johnston were "factors for one Frederick Phillips, who under pretence of trading to Madagascar for negro slaves, supplies these rogues with all sorts of stores".2

What went out, and what came back

Outward went the stores the pirates in the Indian Ocean could not get. Baldridge itemised what the Charles landed at Ile Sainte-Marie (St Mary's) in August 1693: shoes, stockings, shirts, hats, tools, rum, Madeira, three barrels of cannon powder, two Bibles and three dozen hoes. That October he sold part of those goods to Thomas Tew and his company. Homeward came plunder: Giles Shelley wrote to Stephen Delancey on 27 May 1699 that he had sold his cargo for muslin, calicoes, elephants' teeth and opium, and carried seventy-five passengers for about twelve thousand pieces of eight and about three thousand lion dollars. Bellomont put the passage money at a hundred and fifty pounds a man.3

The same voyages carried enslaved people. Baldridge returned thirty-four to the Charles in 1693 with the coin, cattle and iron; she then went on to Mauratan "to take in Slaves", and the Katherine sailed in 1695 for "Rice and Slaves". Fletcher described the hire of the Fortune by English and Dutch merchants of New York to fetch enslaved people from Madagascar "as was every year usuall with them".4

Protection bought, and a vote

Samuel Staats and Leonard Lewis deposed in 1698 that they treated with Colonel Bayard for Fletcher's protections, paying seventy-five pieces of eight for Fletcher and twelve of Arabian gold for Bayard. In June 1698 Bellomont proposed in Council that security be required of four ships lading for Madagascar. The Board recorded his report that "the whole Councill (some of which were concerned in those ships) unanimously opposed his proposition", and the ships sailed.5

Robert Livingston and William Kidd found a fifth of the cost of the venture of 1695, and Kidd manned the Adventure Galley out of the town.

What the crackdown reached

The trade closed largely for reasons outside the town. The rising at Ile Sainte-Marie in 1697 destroyed Baldridge's factory before Bellomont landed on 2 April 1698; the Act for the more effectual suppression of piracy followed in 1700; Bellomont died on 5 March 1700/1. At the level of persons the crackdown reached nobody. Philipse gave up his Council seat on the score of his great age, as Bellomont reported on 21 October 1698, two days after and three thousand miles from the Board's recommendation of his removal, which cannot yet have reached New York. No prosecution followed, no bond having been taken from him. By February 1705/6 Adolph Philipse and John Barbarie sat in the Council once urged to exclude them.6

What the sources cannot yet give is the merchants' own side of the correspondence: Philipse's letters to Baldridge are reported to survive but have not been read, so their content is unknown. The money figures come at second hand from a hostile governor and do not reconcile: Bellomont's hundred and fifty pounds a passage cannot be squared with Shelley's own account, or with Edward Buckmaster, who paid a hundred pieces of eight. The papers consulted stop in 1706, so the absence of any conviction is an absence in them rather than a fact beyond that year.

What the evidence does not settle

Pirate passage price

  • Giles Shelley's own accounting gives a different passage price

Hackshaw identification

  • Whether Robert Hackshaw is the petition's B. Hackshaw is unsettled

Conviction of a merchant principal

  • Whether any New York merchant principal was convicted of piracyUnverified

Each line is one question with its own grade, taken from the register where a claim carries it. Nothing here is graded as a whole.

Sources for this record

Every statement above that rests on a checked claim carries a small number; the numbers lead here. Each entry gives what is claimed, how far the record supports it, and where it comes from.

  1. The New York merchant community of about 1690 to 1725 was not a corporation: it had no charter, no common seal, no roll of members, no minute book, no officers and no jurisdiction, and it acted institutionally only through Crown offices that its members held, the Governor's Council of 1698 including Frederick Philipse, Nicholas Bayard and Chidley Brooke, who was Collector and Receiver General of the revenue and executed the Naval Officer's place as well, while Philip French was Speaker of the Assembly. Unverified Reported, not yet checked against the record. State paper: Council of Trade and Plantations to the Lords Justices, representation on the state of the Province of New York, Whitehall, 19 October 1698, printed in E. B. O'Callaghan (ed.), Documents relative to the Colonial History of the State of New-York, volume 4, pp. 385 to 396; with the churchwardens and vestry of Trinity Church, New-York, to Archbishop Tenison, 22 May 1699, same volume, pp. 526 to 528
  2. Adam Baldridge's deposition, sworn at New York on 5 May 1699 before Abraham de Peyster, names Frederick Philipse as owner of the ship Charles in 1693, of the Katherine in 1695 and of the vessel Cornelius Jacobs commanded in 1697, with Thomas Mostyn as commander and supercargo of the Katherine; and Henry Watson's narrative, presented to the Council of Trade and Plantations in February 1697/8, names Baldridge and Lawrence Johnston as factors for Philipse at St Mary's island. Unverified Reported, not yet checked against the record. Sworn deposition and narrative presented to a Crown board: Deposition of Adam Baldridge, 5 May 1699, printed as document 68 in J. Franklin Jameson (ed.), Privateering and Piracy in the Colonial Period: Illustrative Documents (1923), pp. 180 to 187; Narrative of Mr Henry Watson, presented 14 February 1697/8, Calendar of State Papers Colonial, America and West Indies, 27 October 1697 to 31 December 1698, no. 224. Both documents are Confirmed; the factorage itself is Probable and is stated as what Watson told the Board
  3. New York stores passed directly into pirate hands and Red Sea plunder came back the same way: Baldridge itemised the consignment landed at St Mary's from Philipse's ship Charles in August 1693, including shoes, stockings, shirts, hats, tools, rum, Madeira, three barrels of cannon powder, two Bibles and three dozen hoes, and sold part of those goods to Thomas Tew and his company that October, while Giles Shelley's letter of 27 May 1699 to Stephen Delancey records his cargo sold for muslin, calicoes, elephants' teeth and opium and seventy-five passengers carried for about twelve thousand pieces of eight and three thousand lion dollars. Unverified Reported, not yet checked against the record. Sworn deposition and intercepted commercial letter: Deposition of Adam Baldridge, 5 May 1699, in Jameson, Privateering and Piracy in the Colonial Period, pp. 180 to 187; Giles Shelley to Mr Delencie, or in his absence Mr John Barbarie, Cape May, 27 May 1699, Calendar of State Papers Colonial, America and West Indies, 1699, no. 512 II. The deposition and Shelley's letter are Confirmed; the sale to Tew itself is Probable. Bellomont's report of a passage rate of one hundred and fifty pounds a man is Disputed against Shelley's own figures and Edward Buckmaster's hundred pieces of eight, and that conflict is left unresolved
  4. The Madagascar voyages out of New York carried enslaved people as a routine part of the return, Baldridge returning thirty-four enslaved people to the Charles in 1693 before she went on to Mauratan to take in slaves and the Katherine sailing in 1695 for rice and slaves, and Governor Fletcher described the hire of the ship Fortune by English and Dutch merchants of New York to fetch enslaved people from Madagascar as was every year usual with them. Unverified Reported, not yet checked against the record. Sworn deposition and defence of a Crown officer: Deposition of Adam Baldridge, 5 May 1699, in Jameson, Privateering and Piracy in the Colonial Period, pp. 180 to 187; Colonel Fletcher's Answers to the Complaints against him, Documents relative to the Colonial History of the State of New-York, volume 4, pp. 442 to 448
  5. Governor Fletcher's protections were bought, Samuel Staats and Leonard Lewis deposing in 1698 that they treated with Colonel Nicholas Bayard, who asked about one hundred pieces of eight for each and delivered them on payment of seventy-five pieces of eight for Fletcher and twelve pieces of Arabian gold for himself; and in June 1698 the Council of New York, some of whose members were concerned in the ships, unanimously opposed Bellomont's proposal that security be required of four vessels lading for Madagascar, so that they sailed. Likely More likely than not on the evidence we have. State paper reporting sworn depositions: Council of Trade and Plantations to the Lords Justices, 19 October 1698, Documents relative to the Colonial History of the State of New-York, volume 4, pp. 385 to 396, abstracting the depositions taken by Bellomont in May and June 1698. The depositions are Confirmed; both the transaction and the interest of the councillors are Probable
  6. The crackdown of 1698 to 1700 reached the traffic but no principal: Frederick Philipse gave up his Council seat on the stated ground of his great age, being seventy-two, as Bellomont reported on 21 October 1698, two days after and three thousand miles from the Board of Trade's recommendation of his removal, which cannot yet have reached New York, and he was not prosecuted because no bond had been taken from him at the custom house, Baldridge was never prosecuted, and by February 1705/6 Adolph Philipse and John Barbarie sat in the Council that had once been urged to exclude them. Unverified Reported, not yet checked against the record. Governor's dispatches and state papers: Earl of Bellomont to the Lords of Trade, New York, 21 October 1698, and 15 May 1699, Documents relative to the Colonial History of the State of New-York, volume 4, pp. 396 to 401 and pp. 518 to 526; Lord Cornbury to the Lords of Trade, 25 February 1705/6, same volume, pp. 1136 to 1137. The absence of any conviction is Confirmed only as to the sources consulted, which stop in 1706, and Unverified beyond them