Balance books from a London trader
Overview
Account books of an anonymous speculative trader, providing yearly summary of accounts. Each volume covers a year, and contains a dozen accounts in fair detail and a list of 50 to 100 accounts showing net profit or debit. The "bottom line" is about £50,000. Cargoes largely consist of tropical produce; the trader also imported cheese and butter from Holland into England and had other investments.
Dates
- Creation: 1810 - 1818
Conditions Governing Access
No access restrictions.
Extent
8 Volumes : Each volume is a single quire, covered in marbled paper (several designs) with a heart-shaped white paper label on the outside of the front cover: "Balance [year]". Merchant's marks on opening 4, vol. 2. ; No volume measures taller than 37 cm.
Language of Materials
English
Scope and Contents
"Allowed for Counting House & other charges paid out of my private expenses £1000."
Goods mentioned frequently in the volumes include sugar, indigo, coffee, logwood, red sanders, butter, cheese, camphor, cassia lignea & buds.
Goods mentioned occasionally include barilla, verdigras, carroway and mustard seed, fustick, wheat, cotton, litharge, whale oil, cod oil, fish roe, Campeach wood, madder, tar, pitch, British Manufactured Goods, East India goods, twist, linen, cambric muslins, dimity, stockings, calmucks, book muslins, Hamburg or Hambro' loaves, Turkey loaves, tea, cinnamon, tallow, Swedish iron, Dutch flax, Peruvian bark, soap, gamboge, tin plates from Germany, pepper.
Most goods are tropical in nature, as are some of the places mentioned in which the trader goes on "adventures": Holland, France, Germany, Spain, Portugal, Gibraltar, Malta, Sweden, the Baltic, the Straits, Surinam, Cuba, and Great Britain.
Definitions for some of these terms: Kalmuck: a shaggy cloth. Fustick: wood yielding a yellow dye. Gamboge: resin from a Cambodian tree used as pigment and purgative. Litharge: a form of lead. Campeachy wood: logwood from Campeachy, Yucatan. Peruvian bark: from the Cinchona tree. Red sanders: Red sandalwood (or rubywood), from an East Indian tree, used for dying. Hamburg and Turkey loaves: ? (packed in hogsheads). Twist might be thread, tobacco, or...Barilla: a Spanish maritime plant, or the alkali of its ash.
Ships mentioned in the volumes include Fortuna, Providentia from Bergen, Christina, Matthias, Oelus, Erwartung, Twee Vrienden, St Johannes, Catharina Eliz:, Theseus, Syrene, smack Vrouw Catharina, brig Oden, Onderneming, Jugend, Rock, New Hope, Governor Milne, Alexander, Earl Percy, Phoenix, Goede Intentie, Jonge Vrouw Catharina, Adventure, Union, General Grenfield, St Joachim, Waakraamheed, Jonge Sohn, Minerva, Friede, Jungfrau Catherina [!], Pedro de Mello, Capt. Van Duyn, Frau Hendrica, Hebe, Scarthingwell, Swift, Suffolk, Conceptione, Freundschaft, Melvaas, Neptinus, Juno, Friends, Maria, Ceres, Jane, V. Duyn, Johannes, Vriendschap, Carel Fred'k, Anna, Win Debora, Nord Star, J'ge Willem, Gertrude, La Nymphe, Deborah, Fryntje, Zeploeg, Lord Willington, Cath: Margaretha, Kleine Pieter, Swanaamsche V'n, Cacador, Teuzer, Britannia, Whim, Enterprize, Queen Charlotte, Venerable, Agammemnon, William, Cabalva, Mary Ann, Marine of Tyne, Mangles, Lady Lushington, Tyne, Charlotte, Regent, Indus, Harriet, Elizabeth, Traveller, Thomas Grenville, Thalia, Bure.
Physical Location
MS E188
Immediate Source of Acquisition
Gift, Helen Foresman Spencer.
- Title
- Guide to the London Trader Collection
- Subtitle
- Balance books from a London trader
- Author
- Finding aid prepared by alh, July 29, 1975. Finding aid encoded by mg, 2005.
- Date
- 2005
- Description rules
- Describing Archives: A Content Standard
- Language of description
- Finding aid written in English.
- Finding aid permalink
- http://hdl.handle.net/10407/8020477861
- Preferred citation
-
Balance books from a London trader, MS E188, Kenneth Spencer Research Library, University of Kansas.
Repository Details
Part of the University of Kansas. Kenneth Spencer Research Library Repository