2. Trade and commerce

Charles Stewart Parker, and many other West India merchants like him, operated counting houses with multiple employees in the great Atlantic metropolis, Glasgow, towards the end of Caribbean slavery. In 1825, Parker was at the commanding heights of the Glasgow’s West India interest. His father, James Parker, from Glasgow, had been resident in Virginia working for ‘tobacco lord’ Alexander Speirs from 1745, but fled on the outbreak of the American War of Independence. Family tradition alleged that James came home penniless but made a fortune in Glasgow, to be reinvested in colonial enterprise.1 Charles was sent to Grenada aged eighteen in 1789, eventually establishing a firm with James McInroy, George Parker and Samuel Sandbach.2 He returned to Glasgow in 1794 and quickly rose up the ranks; by 1825, he was senior partner in McInroy, Parker & Co., which carried on business at Liverpool, Demerara and Glasgow. That same year, he was elected chairman of the powerful Glasgow West India Association. His living arrangements in Scotland were typical of the lifestyle of an elite colonial merchant with business and landed interests. In the late 1820s, Parker lived with his family for seven months of the year on a farm in the Barony parish of Glasgow. During the summer months, he resided in his mansion in Fairlie on the coast of Ayrshire, travelling to Glasgow once a fortnight. He also visited Liverpool three times a year on company business. The merchant house of McInroy & Parker in Glasgow was supervised by Parker and his co-partner James McInroy with the assistance of two clerks. During the seven months he lived in the Barony, he attended his counting house in the Virginia Buildings five days in each a week, spending two or three hours a day at work.3 In the summer months, Parker was in personal attendance for just three or four hours every fortnight at the counting house. The counting house was in the bustling commercial district, within walking distance of maritime facilities and financial institutions such as the Broomielaw harbour, the Tontine Rooms, the mail-coach office and the Royal Bank at Royal Exchange Square.

This chapter offers the first overall survey of Glasgow-West India merchant firms that holistically examines their operations in Scotland and the Caribbean in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. Previous studies have described the importance of Atlantic merchant enterprise in a British context, noting the importance of Scottish-American traders yet with surprisingly little material about Glasgow-West India firms in the colonial period.4 This oversight is perhaps explained by the well-developed historiography on Scottish-American firms, with fewer studies focused on their West India counterparts.5 S. G. Checkland, however, traced the respective bankruptcies of Alexander Houston & Co. in 1801 and Evan Baillie & Co. in 1806.6 T. M. Devine followed this line of enquiry and outlined that an elite group of partnerships – including Alexander Houston & Co. – dominated Clyde-Caribbean commerce between 1750 and 1815.7 More recent studies have focused on colonial operations. Douglas Hamilton illuminated the commercial networks in Grenada of Alexander Houston & Co., the premier Glasgow-West India merchant firm in the late eighteenth century.8 The chapter focuses on the structures and connections that made the West India trades possible in Glasgow, including the firms themselves, preparation for the mercantile trades and trade and communications between metropole and colonies. In doing so, it reveals the legal and commercial structures that underpinned Glasgow’s sugar era.

West India merchant houses, Scots law and partnerships

James Morrison, director of a mercantile academy and leading author of commercial works in nineteenth-century Glasgow, defined West India merchants and their firms by geographical focus rather than the commodities in which they traded.9 This section will focus on a clearly defined group of firms with the strongest connection to the region: the firms who registered with the Glasgow West India Association between 1807 and 1834 – that is, between the abolition of the slave trade and the emancipation of enslaved people in the British colonies. On the establishment of the association in 1807, the directors agreed that elite merchant firms should annually subscribe £52 to a ‘pecuniary fund’, which was double that required of the smaller firms. Thus, the top seven firms in Glasgow were Stirling, Gordon & Co., John Campbell, senior, & Co., George and Robt. Dennistoun & Co., Leitch & Smith, Buchanan, Steven & Co., David & James Connell, and Robert Bogle junior & Co.10 This chapter is based upon the records of some of these firms, complemented with legal sources and banking records. Colonial records and correspondence with associates in the West Indies – including agents and plantation owners – illustrate Caribbean activities.

In a study of Alexander Houston & Co., Douglas Hamilton attributed the firm’s commercial demise to its utilization of a distinctively Scottish store system in the West Indies – that is, one based upon the direct purchase of sugar from resident planters (supposedly identical to the ‘tobacco lords’ system of direct purchasing of tobacco in Virginia).11 However, Houston & Co probably operated a classic commission system, providing credit to resident planters in return for trade agreements that guaranteed a set level of imports of sugar on an annual basis. One indenture reveals the co-partners of the firm granted a mortgage of £2,000 sterling to John Buchan, the owner of Cumberland estate in St Vincent, in September 1788. In return, Buchan promised to pay back the principal with interest (5 per cent per annum) and during the repayment period promised to consign ‘Sixty Hogsheads of Muscovado Sugars of the Usual and Customary Weight’ to the firm in Glasgow.12 The commission agreements established a revenue system based on interest on long-term mortgages and short-term bills of exchange, as well as the profits from exports and commission on imports such as sugar (secured in repayment agreements), cotton, freight, insurance, customs and port duties. In effect, West India merchants took the role of bankers in the plantation economy and, in addition to normal terms of repayment, often demanded sugar imports in return (although the import agreements were not always legally enforceable).

The West India merchant houses in Glasgow generally operated on a commission system after 1775. These methods were similar to West India firms in London and Bristol after 1750, and in contrast to the preferred direct purchasing of Glasgow’s Virginia merchants before 1775. The expansive operations of elite merchant firms sometimes involved diversification into investment in sugar plantations. The largest firms extended capital and export supplies on credit which sustained the plantation system and tied resident planters to long-term consignment plans. Both the commission and store systems depended on young men conducting business in the colonies, although, in contrast, under the commission method the produce was owned by the planters until sold on the British market. Thus, the burden of risk as well as that of the costs lay solely with the planters. However, the system could involve a large outlay of mortgage capital from the merchants to planters and the system required sophisticated communications between colony and metropole.13

Scots law offered unique layers of protection for Glasgow-West India merchant firms trading in the colonies. The legal basis for a Glasgow-West India merchant firm was a private partnership, which was defined in a landmark text in 1826 by George Joseph Bell, a Scottish advocate and professor of Law at the University of Edinburgh. Persons of ‘sound mind’ (ie aged above twenty-one and considered sane) were entitled to enter into a legal contract that established a firm which was given a ‘social name’. The firm, recognized as a separate person in Scots law, bestowed upon the partners a preferable right to the funds or stock of the company, which was deemed common property in a trust held by all partners.14 Many Glasgow-West India firms established separate establishments in the colonies (usually under different but similar names) which transacted on their own terms. In 1814, Reid & McCall pursued the partners of J. T. A. Douglas & Co. for debts owed by Douglas, Reid & Co., their sister firm in Demerara. However, it was decreed that the ‘co-partnery…is entirely distinct from the individuals who compose it’, and the case was dismissed on the basis that creditors must make a claim against the company in that jurisdiction.15 In practice, this meant firms managed by Scots in the West Indies could not be pursued in Scottish courts by creditors (such as manufacturers who consigned goods on credit) even if the main partners resided in Scotland.

Studies reveal that Scottish merchant firms also had larger co-partnership structures compared to English firms.16 Consistent with Bell’s opinion on the legal basis of firms, large concerns were made possible in Scotland, as they were legally defined as separate entities from co-partners, in contrast to English law, and were able to raise legal action as well as protect rights of co-partners.17 Thus, large Scottish West India firms provided security for partners by spreading risk, which also promoted the accumulation of capital and improved credit ratings. Other historians have suggested larger partnerships were a means to overcome a shortage of Scottish specie.18 Whatever the exact reasons, the typically large partnerships in Scottish merchant firms promoted the collectivization of capital and the spreading of risk among individuals.

Partnership structures have been identified for fourteen merchant houses which registered with the Glasgow West India Association and were active between 1807 and 1828.19 These were long-term concerns, and their size ranged from three to eight partners. The median was both eight and three, meaning smaller firms were as common as larger ones. Glasgow’s pioneering West India firms from the 1770s had, on average, four co-partners, although after 1807 the average co-partnership size was 5.5 and even higher for elite firms (6.3).20 The gradual increase in average partnership size is explained by the rise of family firms. In nineteenth-century Glasgow, all seven of the elite merchant houses had a minimum of two co-partners from the same family. Five of them were dominated by mercantile patriarchs, who introduced at least one son into the family firm.

The rise of the merchant house of John Campbell, senior, & Co. was similar to that of contemporaries Leitch & Smith (see Chapter 3). Both firms were set up by younger sons from minor landed families from just outside Glasgow. John Campbell and Archibald Smith had previously been involved with the Virginia trades but shifted commercial focus to sugar and the Caribbean after Glasgow’s Chesapeake tobacco monopoly was ended at the close of the American Revolutionary War in 1783. Both groomed younger sons and male relatives to take over the firm. Similar to Leitch & Smith, the partnership structure of John Campbell, senior, & Co. was based on kinship networks which provided the firm with capital, skills and colonial connections. Indeed, of the fifteen co-partners in the firm’s business contracts between 1790 and 1848, all but one were men from the same family. And this was with good reason. The consanguineous transfer of power in early modern enterprise limited various risks. Promotion of younger sons and relatives into the family firm kept ownership of the concern within the family, which ostensibly preserved and often increased fortunes. Further, the dangers inherent in setting up new businesses were minimized as succession through kinship relations meant younger male relatives retained existing contacts, customers and suppliers built up over several years. Thus, elite merchant firms recruited from within the direct ‘family matrix’ and wider familial networks to minimize risk.21 As Glasgow’s sugar era progressed, senior merchants regularly groomed younger relatives for business and occasionally introduced newcomers.

Preparation for a career in a transatlantic sphere of operations

This section outlines how West India merchants were prepared for the trades as young men. In the transatlantic hub of Glasgow, the availability of education, commercial training and apprenticeships attracted many who were destined for a career in the West India trades. As noted in Chapter 1, only just over a third of the Glasgow-West India elite attended Old College (now the University of Glasgow). Despite the public attack by the city’s merchants, who mocked the university’s classical-based educational provision, the institution retained some prestige. But there was internal criticism from its own staff too. In 1796, former Old College professor John Anderson laid out a vision for a new institution which would provide ‘useful learning’ in his testament.22 This legacy established Andersons University – now the University of Strathclyde – which offered vocational learning, specifically in ‘mechanic, Arts…Health or Commerce’, which was covered in the initial four colleges: Arts, Medicine, Law and Theology.23 West India merchant Patrick Colquhoun was one of the initial trustees in 1796, although he was resident in London by this point.24 Other West India merchants such as John Riddell were appointed later that year, and another trustee for over twenty years, William MacNeill, was a partner in West India firm MacNeill, Stewart & Co.25 In 1796, the trustees sought to encourage the development of the institution via subscriptions from those ‘connected with the trade and prosperity of this City’. The West India proportion of the subscriptions does not seem to be of much importance, but Richard Dennistoun did subscribe three guineas.26 And there is no clear evidence whether or not merchants and planters attended in significant numbers as there are no systematic matriculation lists available before 1835.27 Nonetheless, it seems very unlikely there was widespread attendance in what was initially a small-scale institution. There is no mention of commercial training in the initial classes, although a Mathematical Academy taught practical mathematics, including navigation, in 1816.28 Thus, while Anderson’s University eventually emerged as a real alternative to Old College, the West India elite of Glasgow probably received commercial education elsewhere.29 And, as will be discussed in a later chapter, the main antecedent organization (the Royal Technical College) that became the University of Strathclyde was a beneficiary of a philanthropic fund derived from slavery.

The universities were not the only way into a colonial career and there was an excellent standard of commercial learning in the city. In the 1760s, William Gordon and James Scruton provided such training and this can be considered part of the same movement for ‘useful knowledge’. In an essay of 1770, William Gordon – master of an academy in Glasgow – published The Education of a Young Gentleman Intended for the Counting House. This work set out his views on the deficiencies of a university education and the theoretical skills deemed pre-requisite for entry to the counting house as well as the practical skills gained in an apprenticeship. Since he was promoting his own private academy, it is unsurprising that Gordon suggested that a mercantile apprenticeship on its own was inadequate as ‘the business [of the counting house]…is of such importance, and every moment so precious to the master…he hath no time for attending to the instruction of an apprentice’.30 Despite his vested interest, Gordon set out a persuasive argument that the best preparation for apprentice merchants was a period in a grammar school followed by commercial training and a counting-house apprenticeship, the latter of which sometimes attracted high entry fees. While there is no way of ascertaining how many of the merchants took this path, it is important to note the high standard of commercial education available in Glasgow. A later chapter considers the implications of the rise of mercantile academies in the city.

Private training was complemented with the publication of specialist textbooks designed for use in Glasgow. Books authored by James Morrison were illustrated with examples of transatlantic commerce conducted from the city.31 In A Complete Treatise on Practical Book-Keeping, Morrison outlined the operations of a Glasgow-West India commission business undertaken by three partners in the city. According to him:

Every Merchant should be acquainted with the following branches of Commercial Learning. He should write with ease and correctness; understand Figures and Accounts, and be able to examine Invoices, Accounts – Current, Charter Parties, Polices of Insurance, Bills of Lading, and Bills of Exchange.32

West India merchants should precisely understand the nature and quality of their commodities, as well as the aspects of the trade such as the intricacies of insurance and risk of natural disasters, including ‘dangerous Navigation, West India hurricanes, [and] enterprizes of the Enemy’.33 While there was a high standard of training in the city – for those who could pay – around twenty-eight individuals of the Glasgow-West India elite (almost one-fifth of the overall group) travelled to the colonies to gain experience of a more practical nature. Just three travelled to Virginia, which seems surprising given the extent of Glasgow’s tobacco monopoly before 1775. The West Indies were the premier region, especially the islands of Jamaica and Grenada. Alexander Campbell, known as ‘Marran’, later of Haylodge, was in Grenada in 1789 under the supervision of his uncle Thomas.34 However, that relatively fewer individuals went abroad as youths compared to earlier Virginia merchants suggests that doing so was not a pre-requisite to a West India career.35 For most West India merchants, the counting houses of Glasgow were their fiefdoms or, more accurately, from the comfort of their landed residences the senior co-partners managed the business undertaken by clerks and apprentices in those little enclaves of transatlantic capitalism.

The typical counting house was a hub that connected employees with the plantation economy of the West Indies and various institutions in Scotland. The counting houses in Glasgow were mainly congregated on or near the Trongate, particularly Argyll Street, the Tontine Buildings, Candleriggs, the Gallowgate and Miller Street. An inventory lodged on the sequestration of one merchant allows the historian to recreate one such business place.36 In 1837, Daniel Ross’ outstanding debts in Glasgow and London exceeded his assets and the firm was wound up. Bankruptcy led to an appraiser evaluating his property for sale in order to appease creditors. Ross was based at Royal Bank Place, a prestigious location in the lane between Buchanan Street and the Royal Exchange. This commercial building was set over three levels. The cellar was sparse, containing only empty boxes, tables and shelving. Up on the ground floor, the warehouse had perhaps been cleared of valuable items. The office was relatively luxurious compared to the other rooms. In more prosperous times – before Ross travelled to the West Indies to escape his debts – he may have sat on the Venetian chair at the mahogany table and looked out to the Royal Exchange. Many commercial discussions could have taken place in this office, with merchants keen to discuss commerce undertaken in partnership with associates in Grenada and Demerara.

The inventory of the adjoining ‘counting house’ illustrates how such business was undertaken. The two desk stools and a mahogany double desk were undoubtedly reserved for apprentices and clerks. These young men might have warmed themselves at the fire before getting to work on both inward and outward correspondence. The recording of this information into the journal was just as important as calculating figures for the ledger book. The ready reckoner allowed the young apprentices to make quick calculations on discounts and charges, while the Thomson’s interest table illustrates just how much their world was based on credit and commission. The padlocked box might have contained bills of exchange for safekeeping. The inventory hints at a functional, commercial space for senior partners and junior clerks, although such establishments acted not only as offices but as training academies and communication hubs. Mail either destined for or newly arrived from the West Indies was placed in the letter box. A desk knife was used to open inward mail while the pewter inkstand held a steady supply for the quill pens used by clerks. Before the young men walked along to the mail office in 64 Trongate or the Royal Bank at the west end of Royal Exchange Square, they might have taken an umbrella from the stand to keep out the Glasgow drizzle.

West India merchants – and their clerks – facilitated a two-way flow of information between Great Britain and the Caribbean. Indeed, the service was improved in this period. In 1800, newspapers and letters from the sugar islands came via Liverpool and were delivered to a waiting scrum of merchants in the Tontine Rooms.37 Daily newspapers also printed the Tontine List, which listed mercantile information including arrivals and departures of ships on the Clyde.38 Personal correspondence was one means of delivering information to the islands, as when Mr Dow, a mason, travelled to Carriacou looking for employment in early 1787 taking with him letters from home.39 Alexander Houston & Co. used their own fleet of ships to post out letters to Jamaica.40 However, the official postal service to and from the Caribbean was limited. In 1800, the Glasgow-West India mail service was a monthly occurrence, although it seems that this improved to fortnightly by 1809.41 That year, the Glasgow West India Association lobbied the secretary of the post office about the Falmouth packet service – deemed to be slower than the London route – and argued that delays in transmitting important commercial information might lead to financial losses.42 The merchant firms subsequently established their own service. In 1824, the Glasgow agent firm John Cree & Co. collaborated with elite merchant firms in the city to establish the Kingston packet from the Clyde. This efficient arrangement – which connected with the Falmouth packet that left from Jamaica – meant several ships sailed together from Clyde ports at designated times, guaranteeing regular freight and mail between Glasgow and Jamaica.43 Glasgow-West India mercantile commerce led to innovations in the communications system. This chapter now explores the relationship between commerce, capital and credit.

Capitalizing the trades

Given the extraordinary costs, a partnership in a Glasgow-West India firm was an opportunity usually restricted to wealthy younger men. As noted above, the introduction of the younger generation by established merchants was of major importance as a substantial transfer of capital underpinned the rise of the trades. In the case of John Campbell senior & Co., as individuals died or retired, they were replaced by younger family members who were provided with aid to join the business: the number of co-partners remained almost constant throughout the lifecycle of the firm. There were five between 1790 and 1812, six up to 1828 and seven up to 1841. The sharp increase in levels of capital stock underwrote the dramatic rise of the firm: a total of £40,000 was invested in 1790, peaking at £180,000 (among seven partners) in 1828 and declining to £50,000 (among five partners) in 1841.44 The partnership structure, capital stock and share price of John Campbell, senior, & Co. suggest it was typical of elite firms in Glasgow. For example, in 1806, Dennistoun, Buchanan & Co. had eight co-partners with a capital stock of £175,000. The cost of a share in this firm was just over £2,000 (compared to £1,000 per share in John Campbell senior & Co., as noted below).45 The capital stock in these two firms exceeded the capitalization of Glasgow firms (c.30) trading with the Chesapeake between 1740 and 1789, with the exception of the premier tobacco firm, Alexander Speirs & Co.46

Glasgow-West India firms required greater capital than their tobacco predecessors, so where did it come from? The start-up capital for the West India trades in Glasgow was sourced locally, albeit underpinned by wealth derived from slavery economies. The main sources of wealth were three-fold: patrimonial inheritance, marriage ‘tochers’ (Scots for dowry) and colonial sojourns. The evidence here quantifies the importance of practices previously noted by T. M. Devine.47 While merchants in London and Bristol hailed mainly from a background in the West India trades, Glasgow’s colonial elite evolved across generations, shifting commercial focus from tobacco to sugar, reinvesting capital and increasing wealth.48 As described in the last chapter, over half of the known fathers of the West India elite were previously involved with the colonial trades in Glasgow. Some fathers had been involved with the Virginia trades, although there were twice as many second-generation West India merchants.49

The intergenerational transfer of capital, as well as knowledge, skills and contacts, between sugar dynasties was of central importance. Patrimonial support – both inter-vivos and post-mortem – provided the most significant source of start-up capital for West India merchants. A sample of probate material of ten mercantile patriarchs who promoted their sons into business – including a lesser rank merchant, David Connell – suggested these cash gifts ranged from £1,250 to £10,000.50 Inheritance was sometimes offered by fathers for start-up capital before death. In his settlement of 1819 – six years before his death – James McInroy of Lude left explicit instructions for his sons, who were to receive one-third more than their sisters and it to be made immediately available ‘in event of marriage or towards an establishment in business’.51 In time, James Patrick McInroy became a successful West India merchant in his own right. But the commercial passage of rites from youth to merchant was dependent on behaviour. As a nineteen-year-old in 1801, Colin Campbell was warned that the attainment of a co-partnership in the family firm was contingent on his father, John Campbell senior, being of the opinion that his son’s conduct ‘continues to deserve such transfer being made in his favour’.52 He evidently behaved himself and inherited four shares worth £4,000 (at £1,000 per share) on 27 January 1803, three weeks after he turned twenty-one.53 As part of a patrimonial inheritance strategy in his settlement of 1802, John Campbell senior topped up Colin’s inheritance with a further £6,000. His other two sons, Thomas and James, were also to be bequeathed £10,000 on his death after deducting ‘any sums of money…for the purpose of putting them in business or advancing them in the world and which I may enter as debts against them in my Books’. Thus, on his death in 1807, over half his total wealth passed to his sons, all of whom became successful merchants.54 As sons were groomed for commercial careers by fathers in the same business, a significant transfer of colonial capital followed commensurate with the extent of the business and personal wealth.

Second, West India merchants, once well-established, consolidated their position with strategic and highly profitable marriages. These pairings connected members of the elite and brought substantial fortunes to the marriage, sometimes from both sets of parents, which eventually trickled down the family line.55 As noted in the last chapter, the Glasgow-West India elites tended to marry within the mercantile community of the west of Scotland. In this study, occupations of fathers of the brides married to the Glasgow-West India elites were known for sixty-seven marriages. Over half were to daughters of other merchants, especially those involved with colonial trades.56 Daughters of ‘tobacco lords’ were the most popular choice, although the children of West India merchants regularly intermarried too. In 1814, Janet Hamilton, daughter of William Hamilton of Northpark, married Colin Campbell, son of West India merchant John Campbell senior and already a co-partner in his father’s firm. For her marriage, Janet was gifted £2,000 by her father and £4,000 by her mother, Helen Bogle, herself a daughter of a ‘tobacco lord’, Archibald Bogle. The tocher was topped up to £6,600 from the residue of Janet’s maternal grandfather’s estate.57 In this case, capital generated across successive phases of Glasgow’s colonial past flowed through three elite families via inheritance and marriage: from Bogle to Hamilton then resting with Campbell. However, this tocher seems to have been at the higher end of the scale: other examples in this period provided by colonial merchants in Glasgow range from £2,500 to £5,000.58 Thus, marital gifts among these elites were enough to acquire a share in a West India firm in Glasgow, though it is very likely they more often added to the existing interests of established merchants rather than assisted new starts in business. And since almost a third of the West India elite married daughters of families with no known connections to the colonial trades, the middling ranks of Scotland also contributed an influx of capital to the Glasgow-West India trades.

The legal supremacy of husbands was entrenched in Scottish matrimonial property law throughout this period, which has implications for the intended use of tochers.59 Strategies are sometimes revealed in the marriage contracts of the West India elite. Typically paid in cash, they were often placed at the use of the merchant. On his marriage in 1819 over Janet Hamilton (the daughter of former Lord Provost Gilbert Hamilton), John Gordon’s marriage contract provided him ‘with full power’ over his wife’s £1,000 tocher.60 And if women (or their fathers) did not stipulate use for the tocher it automatically became the property of the husband under the Scots law of jus mariti, that is, the right of the husband to administer his wife’s goods during the marriage.61 Thus, high-value colonial tochers provided a significant stream of capital for the Glasgow-West India trades, while Scots law often placed the funds in the hands of merchants.

Third, capital from successful sojourns – ‘new’ colonial fortunes – was invested in West India firms in Glasgow. In 1789, absentee planter William Urquhart of Craigston, who owned a cotton plantation in Carriacou, recommended a potential co-partner to John Campbell senior & Co.:

Mr Willm Cumine…has been regularly bred to Business when he was a very young man, he first went out to Mr Glassford’s Stores in Virginia…he afterwards went out to Jamaica as a Clerk…he has made something considerable during his stay in Jamaica where he was well known & universally esteemed, but as he did not keep his health so well there he wishes…to form some safe connection in Business in this Country and for that purpose he goes to Glasgow to see if he can do anything with his Capital or form any profitable partnership there…I therefore take the liberty of introducing him to you & recommending him to your good offices if you should hear or know of anything that should fall in with his plans. I shall only add that if I did not thoroughly know his worth, integrity & honour, I would not have presumed to recommend him to your services.62

Although unable to employ the budding West India merchant, John Campbell senior’s amiable response that Cumine (probably from Aberdeen) was ‘very deserving’ suggests capital from outside the established mercantile community could make its way into the West India trades in Glasgow.63 It is unknown if Cumine succeeded, although many others did. As noted above, twenty-eight Glasgow-West India merchants were known to have been in the colonies as younger men. In identifying that over half of Glasgow’s West India merchants had direct or familial connections to the colonial trades, mainly West India commerce, this points to the major source of the capital that underwrote the city’s Caribbean trades.64

Credit and the trades

The provision of credit was instrumental to the West India trades. S. G. Checkland outlined a transatlantic financial system that connected Great Britain and the colonies through West India paper. This paper was used by resident planters as currency to pay merchants and it was drawn on London West India acceptance houses, which guaranteed payment. The capital ‘stood at the centre of this web of trade’ and linked firms in the outports of Bristol, Liverpool and Glasgow.65 The merchants then shipped the produce to Great Britain and the proceeds were used to reduce planters’ debts. Checkland’s study naturally placed London at the centre of the web. Joseph Inikori pointed to the importance of the slave economy in the development of English financial institutions. In doing so, Inikori noted the influence of provincial credit markets, although the Anglo-centric focus of the work ignored the Scottish dimension.66 This section illuminates the credit that underpinned Glasgow’s West India trades, arguing that London finance was a minor influence compared to provincial lenders.

Writing to his attorney in November 1827, Colin Campbell discussed the credit situation in Glasgow. At this point, his firm, John Campbell senior & Co, had begun to restrict their outgoings. Another West India merchant in Glasgow, Colin Campbell of Jura, was aware of the situation and offered credit on high terms, although this did not meet the approval of the partners:

The House here are well accustomed to similar offers, but they usually reject them, unless the applicants have some claim to a favourable reception, and without any disrespect…if money is wanted & can be applied to legitimate & advantageous purpose, we must try to find it without having recourse to such expensive int[erest]s which are liable to give inconvenience.67

Intra-mercantile credit could play an important role in career trajectories. Merchants regularly provided short- and long-term credit to each other: such transactions had a mostly ‘beneficial effect’, as the advancement of surplus capital promoted enterprise and stimulated the economy.68 In the evidence here, the Glasgow-West India community loaned to other firms and to individuals, which kickstarted mercantile careers. In turn, creditors collected returns on loans that had been made to usually secure debtors.

It was common for West India merchants to supply credit. Analysis of 105 confirmation inventories generated on the death of the Glasgow-West India merchants (between 1800 and 1903) reveals the nature and extent of the web of mercantile credit in the city (see Table 2.1).69 Almost half of all inventories on death contained references to over 240 instruments of outlying credit – bills, bonds, promissory notes – totalling £415,123 (12 per cent of the overall wealth held by the Glasgow-West India elite in Scotland). For comparison, the average paid capital of provincial banking companies in Scotland in 1810 was £31,000.70 In other words, the nineteenth-century Glasgow-West India elite loaned the capital of around thirteen provincial banks, with just over a quarter of the loans made to other West India merchants. The implications of the outlying credit will be fully explored in the final chapter of this study, while this section focuses on one subset of the loans: credit loaned among the Glasgow-West India community (£112,748, or 27.2 per cent of total outlying credit).

The absence of detail in the inventories (interest rates or date of agreements are not always recorded) prevents a comprehensive analysis, but other insights are revealed. On occasion, merchants offered short-term credit to other West India firms. This could take the form of accepting bills of exchange (effectively a short-term loan, as will be explained below). In 1825, James McInroy accepted bills totalling over £2,800 intended for the firm Robert Bogle junior & Co.71 In general, however, the pattern was one of wealthy co-partners loaning capital to firms they had personal investments in or firms in which relatives were partners. The partners of Leitch & Smith were especially proficient at utilizing kinship resources to advance the various family firms. Senior partner James Smith of Craighead loaned over £20,000 to his firm – with interest – which was the single largest West India loan identified in this study and one that remained outstanding on his death in 1815.72

Table 2.1 Debtors, and debts owed, to the Glasgow-West India elite between 1805 and 1879.

Source: National Records of Scotland: Wills, Testaments and Confirmation Inventories (see Bibliography).

West India merchants were more likely to take advantage of credit from within the family matrix than other merchants in the Glasgow-West India community with no kinship connections, a process which advanced careers at different stages.73 Yet, borrowing from other merchants with no familial connections was not unknown. Over a two-year period from 1814, John Gordon, lead partner in Stirling, Gordon & Co., borrowed over £10,000 from a partner of the same firm, John Stirling of Kippendavie. Later, on 2 May 1826, Gordon loaned over £5,000 on bond to younger men (and partners in a seemingly rival firm) Alexander Campbell and Mungo Nutter Campbell. In later life, Mungo Nutter Campbell loaned credit to the gentry and landowners.74 Thus, the West India firms of Glasgow were connected by marital and kinship connections which underpinned a web of mercantile capital and credit across, and within, several different firms. In this way, colonial capital was recycled: a process that invigorated the Scottish economy over the long term.

While the above loans seem to have been unsecured, merchants with landed estates or urban properties possessed valuable collateral which allowed more ambitious borrowing. In An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations (1776) Adam Smith famously concluded that:

A merchant is accustomed to employing his money chiefly in profitable projects, whereas a mere country gentleman is accustomed to employing it chiefly in expense. The former often sees his money go from him and return with a profit; the latter seldom expects to see his money again once he has parted with it. Those different habits naturally affect their temperament and disposition in every sort of business. A merchant is commonly a bold undertaker, a country gentleman a timid one. The one is not afraid to lay out a great deal of capital all at once on the improvement of his land if he has a good chance of raising the value of the land in proportion to the expense.75

This high praise is generally regarded as evidence of the influence of colonial merchants upon agricultural ‘improvement’ in Scotland after 1760.76 Yet, Smith also noted the practices that underpinned the success: ‘mercantile business naturally gives a merchant habits of order, economy and attention, which make him much fitter to carry out any project of improvement with profit and success’.77

It is possible to recreate aspects of the West India merchants’ ‘habits of economy’ by examining Scotland’s Register of Sasines, as they systematically used land as collateral in credit dealings. Among other things, these records list conveyancing details such as the legal transfers of land, as well as encumbrances secured upon property.78 Examination of sasines for six counties across the west-central region reveals the extent of West India land-ownership as well as sources of credit. Table 2.2 lists patterns of West India estate ownership alongside credit secured on both landed and urban properties. As will be covered in Chapter 8, seventy-five West India merchants owned 133 landed estates with some owning estates, across multiple counties (see Table 2.2). Between 1775 and 1840, West India proprietors agreed eighty transactions – secured mainly via bonds – worth a total of £298,296 (average £3,728), hereafter described as ‘sasine loans’. Thus, West India merchants sourced credit from individuals resident in Scotland (71 per cent), with 20 per cent sourced in England and the remainder from America and the West Indies.

West India commerce was thus embedded across west of Scotland society, although sasine loans were most often secured on property in the Barony of Glasgow. This is unsurprising given the extent of West India merchants living in the district. Patrick Playfair of Dalmarnock was among the top borrowers of all. Playfair’s mercantile business was focused on Antigua, and by 1807, he was successful enough to purchase Dalmarnock estate in the Barony. Over the next twelve years, the estate was used as collateral to secure credit of £29,600, including from John Buchanan of Ardoch, a landed MP. In 1816, Playfair took advantage of Caribbean networks and borrowed £6,000 on bond from James Crichton, a sojourner recently returned from Antigua.79 But not all were secured upon large estates like Dalmarnock. Around 10 per cent by value of the sasine loans was secured upon small urban properties (also mainly in the Barony). Rural estates, as well as urban property, provided security for credit dealings with lenders who helped subsidize Glasgow’s West India trades.

As Glasgow-West India elites began to acquire property after 1783, borrowing obviously increased. The peak era for West India proprietary borrowing was the 1810s, with 30 per cent of loans by value secured in this decade alone. This is no coincidence, as there were credit shortages in this period. Banks refused to discount bills during financial crises in Scotland in 1809–12, 1815 and 1818–19, partially due to Napoleon’s Berlin and Milan decrees (which closed off parts of Europe to British traders).80 Bonds secured on land were a more flexible source of credit that has been previously considered. It took West India proprietors eleven years, on average, from purchasing a landed estate to secure credit upon it. However, in the sasine loans examined here, 20 per cent of West India proprietors sourced credit secured upon a landed estate the same year they purchased it.81

Table 2.2 The West India elite’s landed estates and borrowing secured upon property, 1775–1840.

Source: Abridgements of sasines held in Glasgow City Archives, T-SA 1/1 Argyll (vol. i, 1781–1820; vol. ii, 1821–50); GCA, T-SA 2/1 Ayr (vol. i, 1781–1806; vol. ii, 1806–20; vol. iii, 1821–30; vol. iv, 1831–40); GCA, T-SA 4/1 Dunbartonshire (vol. i, 1781–1820; vol. ii, 1821–30; vol. iii, 1831–40); GCA, T-SA 5/1 Glasgow (Barony and Regality) (vol. i, 1781–1808; vol. ii, 1809–20; vol. iii, 1821–30; vol. iv, 1831–40); GCA, T-SA 6/1 Lanarkshire (vol. i, 1781–20; vol. ii, 1821–30; vol. iii, 1831–40); GCA, T-SA 7/1 Renfrewshire (vol. i, 1781–1807; vol. ii, 1807–20; vol. iii, 1821–30; vol. iv, 1831–40).

West India proprietors occasionally borrowed from the University of Glasgow (the institution operated as a de facto landlord in the city, also collecting tithe income from agricultural revenues from local parishes).82 The Register of Sasines also reveals that banks and bankers provided credit (approximately 15 per cent of overall value of sasine loans), including English bankers. In the 1790s, Mark Sprott of London, a prominent stockbroker associated with Coutts, provided £18,000 of credit to elite mercantile families, the Malcolms of Poltalloch and Houstons of Jordanhill.83 While individuals in London were an important source (15 per cent), over half by value of sasine loans were secured in the west of Scotland. Glasgow was the main source of credit – 28 per cent by value – followed by individuals in Edinburgh (11 per cent). The largest group of lenders hailed in the west of Scotland included other West India merchants (£31,000), trustees of accounts (£26,750), the general mercantile community (£1,695) and ‘tobacco lords’ (£8,000). Those with capital in Scottish society viewed bonds secured on land as a reliable investment, while West India proprietors were quick to seize the opportunities. A minority of the credit was secured from those involved with the East India Company, such as Major Gen. Thomas Geils, who loaned £900 to John Alston junior of Westerton in 1813.84 Women, especially widows, were an important credit source (with over 10 per cent of sasine loans by value) for West India proprietors. As women came of age, their inheritance or capital associated with marriage contracts was sometimes loaned to West India proprietors, no doubt with the assumption that lucrative returns would support gentry women across their lives.85 In this way, a broad section of Scottish society became financially complicit with the integrated West India economy and received income from Caribbean slavery that they would otherwise have had no direct connection to.

Sasine loans often reveal symbolic transfers: from the Virginia to West India trades, and from commercial to industrial capitalism. In August 1787, Robert Bogle purchased Daldowie estate in the Barony of Glasgow and within three months had secured £4,000 from William Cunninghame of Lainshaw, one of the city’s famous tobacco lords.86 The Register of Sasines reveals the hitherto unknown role of James Watt (1736–1819), the ‘great improver’ of the steam engine that powered the British Industrial Revolution, as a financier of West India commerce. On 13 May 1793, ‘James Watt, Engineer, Heathfield near Birmingham’ loaned £8,700 to James Dennistoun junior and James Dennistoun senior, both West India merchants in Glasgow, secured upon Dunbartonshire and Stirlingshire estates.87 The debt was reconfirmed in his son’s name in 1828, almost a decade after Watt’s death, identifying this as a long-term debt.88 Watt was commercially involved with his father’s mercantile business in 1760s Glasgow, although his stance towards the abolition of Atlantic slavery in later life remains ambiguous.89 However, it is now clear he was complicit in the Atlantic slavery economy for most of his adult life. The evidence here reveals he transacted with Glasgow-West India merchants in the 1790s, an era when slavery was increasingly condemned as an odious evil by many in British society. Although Watt is on record as refusing any role in financing the Boulton & Watt firm, it seems very likely that interest from this loan subsidized the famous engineer’s final years before he died in 1819. This was a symbolic transfer of profits from Caribbean slavery to the developer of the steam engine – the invention that powered industrial capitalism. These examples underline just how much the West India elite’s estates helped embed the profits of Caribbean slavery across British society in general and the west of Scotland in particular.

Financial institutions also played a key role in financing West India merchants. The Royal Bank was a chartered bank located in Edinburgh, although it provided funding for Glasgow’s commercial firms throughout the eighteenth century. In 1751, for example, the bank funded twenty-four firms involved with the Chesapeake tobacco trade.90 As the West India merchants rose to economic prominence after the American Revolution, the commercial relationship similarly developed.91 The Royal Bank opened its first branch in Glasgow in 1783 and the location in the commercial centre near the Tontine Rooms fostered close relationships with the city’s colonial elite. From the bank’s point of view, this was fortunate timing, as international developments created opportunity and the Royal Bank ultimately became the premier lenders to the West India merchants of Glasgow.

In early 1793, the ongoing war with Revolutionary France created a run on banks (a sudden withdrawal of finance by customers) in Glasgow which left several institutions in financial difficulty.92 At this time, West India merchant George McCall noted Glasgow merchants depended on local insurance underwriters due to favourable costs and to limit risk. ‘The premiums here I may almost safely say never exceed the merch[ant]s at London, & people here prefer having the Insurance done by Underwriters with whose circumstances they are acquainted rather than send their orders to London.’93 Although there is little evidence to test his claim, other developments underline Glasgow’s status as a commercial hub in its own right. As the news about the run on banks spread quickly among the mercantile community, the crisis rippled across the Atlantic world. In April that year, George McCall informed his future son-in-law, then in London, John Tailyour – a wealthy trafficker in enslaved people just returned to Great Britain – that the Arms Bank of Glasgow (a provincial bank) was in trouble. This had implications for those the bank financed, especially ‘foreign traders…[who] pushed business so far beyond their capital’ as well as those they supplied. Indeed, McCall dreaded the ‘consequences of such numbers of weavers & c. being thrown out of employ[men]t’, underlining how much the Glasgow economy depended on Atlantic slavery.94 Four West India merchant firms were said to be in danger of failure, including John Campbell senior & Co. Around this period, the firm stopped payments to creditors who owned cotton estates in Carriacou (although the firm eventually recovered to become one of the most successful of its type).95 The Arms Bank was not so lucky and failed alongside another private bank, that of A. G. and A. Thomson. The Royal Bank took advantage of the banking crisis of 1793. With the Thistle Bank, it was reckoned to be the only bank in Glasgow that discounted bills during the crisis.96

In the longer term, the Royal Bank came to finance several Glasgow-West India firms, including John Campbell senior & Co. In turn, the Glasgow-West India elites held substantial deposits and stock in the Royal Bank, which underpinned a symbiotic relationship.97 In his study of Scottish provincial banks, Charles Munn dated the origins of their decline to 1810.98 By the 1830s, one historian claimed the Royal was the busiest branch outside of London and customer demand for capital on loan has been cited as one reason for its spectacular success.99 Loans could be long term: the firm of Geo. & Robt. Dennistoun & Co. received £20,000 in a promissory note in January 1821.100 It seems, however, that the provision of short-term rather than long-term credit was most common. The Royal Bank sometimes provided finance for speculation in the Americas, while the West India magnates relied heavily on the bank for discounts on bills of exchange.101

Cash credit accounts were especially important. Analogous to modern overdrafts, they required personal guarantees ratified by the head office in Edinburgh.102 Examination of directors’ minute books reveal West India merchants and related firms were provided with cash accounts of up to £59,000 between 1783 and 1833.103 The majority (£55,000) was made available to thirteen separate firms: this was a dramatic increase from the mid eighteenth century, when the Royal Bank made available to Glasgow’s tobacco firms cash accounts valued at £15,000.104 Moreover, this seems to have been much more than accounts awarded to cotton manufacturers of the same period.105 The awarding of cash accounts was closely tied to the status of West India firms and most likely the personal wealth of partners; five of the top seven ranking firms in the Glasgow West India Association in 1807 were funded. Cash accounts ranged from the £500 available to Campbell, Rivers & Co. in 1802 to the £6,000 made available to Robert Bogle & Co. in 1818.106 These accounts were used again and again, meaning the true extent of credit is unquantifiable. However, it does not appear that West India firms were the bank’s main customers. A Royal Bank committee in 1818 concluded it was mainly manufacturers – not merchants – who used the high-value cash accounts of between £50,000 and £300,000 per annum, mainly to pay employees.107

Commercial reputation was an important indicator of creditworthiness, and the bank implemented a sophisticated intelligence-gathering system. The Royal Bank branch in Glasgow collected information about the ‘good credit’ of potential customers in the city, which was sent to Gilbert Innes of Stow, a director in Edinburgh.108 Furthermore, personal obligations – effectively a guarantee to the bank by another individual, thus acting as an assurance of financial health – were required to attain credit. Such obligations evidently had more authority if potential applicants were recommended by others of the same commercial class as they had detailed knowledge of their status.109 Indeed, in the cash accounts examined with the Royal Bank, West India merchants provided personal obligations. Many of the merchants, such as the Smiths of Jordanhill, relied upon family networks to sign these bonds, while others, such as Haddow & Dale, preferred to rely upon business associates. The credit relationship could extend to the colonies: in March 1829, Robert Bogle ‘merchant in Jamaica’ was provided with a cash account of £2,000 (which could be accessed by business associates in Glasgow) after an obligation by Hugh Bogle of Calderbank.110 However, security – either on heritable property or the wealth of nominees – was more important than commercial reputations in acquiring access to credit.

The system of discounting bills of exchange also increased the purchasing power of West India merchants.111 Munn noted bills of exchange were ubiquitous in eighteenth-century finance and acted as both a document of debt and an instrument of credit.112 A seller of goods drew up a bill of exchange payable on a certain date (eg ninety days) which was signed (accepted) by the purchaser and retained by the seller. The purchaser would then sell goods in that period, giving time to credit an account and pay the bill when presented. The practice of discounting bills acted as another form of credit for West India merchants. The bank discounted (or ‘bought’) bills of exchange before they were mature, for which they paid the value of the bills minus interest and commission. These sums could be substantial. For example, in 1831, MacQueen, McDonnell & Co. discounted bills to a value of £10,000.113 This practice was not restricted to the Royal Bank. In this period, the Bank of Scotland, which opened a branch in Glasgow in 1802, was the second largest discounter of bills in the west of Scotland.114 But by 1810, the Royal Bank agency discounted a full-third more bills by value compared to their Bank of Scotland counterparts in Glasgow. Together, they discounted most of the bills in the city.115

When ready for payment, the bank presented the bills (sometimes in London or Edinburgh), allowing three days for payment. If the bill went unpaid, it was ‘protested’, which was the legal process required to ensure payment. In one case in 1810, the Royal Bank of Scotland ‘employed’ the West India firm of Campbell, Rivers & Co. to ‘recover payment and interest on Bill of Exche’ drawn by L. Nicholls of Trinidad, which subsequently went unpaid. The sum was settled by shipping six hogsheads of sugar to Scotland.116 The bills of exchange also provided collateral for further loans, and sometimes the bills were ‘renewed’ – that is, the bank did not call in payment on the payment deadline, which provided an extra credit period for the purchaser.117 Thus, the system of bills increased the fluid capital in the city in general and of the West India merchants in particular. In summary, colonial merchants, families and the wider community of the west of Scotland largely underwrote Glasgow’s sugar era, and the development of a national banking infrastructure was crucial in providing short- to medium-term credit.

Credit and the Glasgow-West India trades: the case of Archibald Smith of Jordanhill

In October 1818, a Royal Bank committee that examined ‘Bonds, Debts and Bills lying over at Glasgow’ concluded the Glasgow branch received a ‘great mass of bills in the course of Trade’ from West India merchants.118 Information on early nineteenth-century Glasgow-West India commerce and the individuals who made it happen can be gleaned from correspondence between Robert Scott Moncrieff, joint agent of the Glasgow agency, and William Simpson, cashier of the Royal Bank in Edinburgh. In 1801, Great Britain had recently occupied Trinidad, and Clyde ports were experiencing unprecedented levels of trade with the West Indies. After the arrival of large fleets in the summer of that year, Moncrieff pointed to the rise in West India commerce and related commercial transactions: ‘these cargoes when landed should help them [West India merchants] – What great doings we have here. I really think £1000 now is not more thought of than £100 was when I came here.’119 The extensive cargoes, however, while profitable for the bank, quickly flooded the sugar market, leading to a sharp decline in prices: ‘This may in part account for the increased number of Bills and increased demand for discounts – but the W. Indians…are hanging their Lugs about the price of sugar.’120 As many ships docked together as a fleet, the demands of customs duties and related charges on merchants was high over short periods, which necessitated the requirement for short-term credit facilities. In one case, one of Archibald Smith’s ships arrived and ‘will take 10m [thousand] of duties from him’. Since this type of sum could have capitalized a small provincial bank, it is little wonder the demands made by West India merchants were reckoned by Robert Scott Moncrieff to be greater than the Glasgow branch could provide.121 Nevertheless, for merchants of the proper standing, the Royal Bank provided resolute financial support.

The working relationship with the Royal Bank and the firm of Archibald Smith of Jordanhill provides an example of such banking practices. At the beginning of the nineteenth century, Smith was at the pinnacle of Glasgow’s sugar aristocracy. As dean of guild of the Merchant House and leading partner of the well-established firm Leitch & Smith, Smith’s impeccable commercial reputation opened doors. He had regular conversations with banking staff about his business affairs and received short-term finance, demonstrated by a note to the Glasgow office which requested an extension of his firm’s credit facilities in late 1801:

You have the last of our London money and as we have near £5000 of sugar duty to pay between this & 13th of next month, besides we are obliged to renew the bills of some of our sugar buyers. I must ask the favour of yours extending your discounts to £1500 or £2000 & look for two or three weeks until we can get another supply of London money which we look for both from Jamaica and Grenada by first arrivals from thence.

Before forwarding on the application to Edinburgh, Moncrieff added a postscript: ‘What can we do but help thru such good People as long as we can’.122 By way of contrast, the firm of John Campbell, senior, & Co. were refused similar terms two days later: ‘we…let them know that we could discount no such sums [£1900] to them as no other asked as much even the Dean [of Guild] only 1500’.123 Evidently, positions of local civic importance increased reputations. One popular history of Glasgow recounted how Archibald Smith visited the Royal Bank in Glasgow to ensure large-scale bills of exchanges were discounted.124 The Simpson–Moncrieff correspondence both confirms the anecdotal relationship and outlines how Smith’s extensive holdings across four firms provided further commercial leeway:

Mr Arch Smith has been in with Mr More. He is in good spirits and says by the 1st November all will be right and we shall have more money than we shall know what to do with – it will not be easy to bring my mind to this View of matters – still no appearance of Smith from London – but still the other Parties here say there will be much more than sufficient in other 4 houses to pay all their engagements.125

Evidently, Archibald Smith headed an important firm which was represented in London by its associated merchant house, Smith & Lindsay. As a merchant-manufacturer, he also had industrial interests in Scotland as a co-partner in James Finlay & Co, cotton manufacturers. With Finlay, they applied to discount large-scale bills in 1803, and this was ratified by David Dale, first agent of the Royal Bank in Glasgow. Most of the balance (£8,000) was provided by the head office in Edinburgh:

It appears to me to be of such consequence to the place, and even to the Royal Bank the support of that house as far as it can be done with perfect safety that I had no hesitation in saying to them that although we could not take it upon to us to melt so large a Sum out of our common course, we had little doubt the paper being so unquestionable you would do it.126

The relationship between the Smiths of Jordanhill and the Royal Bank lasted over thirty years and encompassed several related firms. Leitch & Smith had access to cash credits of £1,000 and £5,000 in 1789 and 1817 respectively.127 Co-partners also lodged capital in interest-bearing accounts. In 1821, John Guthrie lodged £10,000 with the bank at 4 per cent interest per annum.128 However, the main relationship was one of individuals acquiring personal and commercial credit from the bank, a relationship which spanned successive generations of the same West India family. Archibald Smith’s son William and his firm Smith & Brown had credit facilities in the 1820s, with obligations given from his brothers, James and Archibald, and uncle, John Guthrie.129 Similarly, James Smith and the family firm Jas. & Arch.Smith (successor to Leitch & Smith) had credit facilities with the Royal Bank in the same period.130 The inventory of Archibald Smith confirmed his cosy relationship with the Royal Bank agency in Glasgow. On Smith’s death in 1821, a joint agent of the Glasgow office, Robert Scott Moncrieff, owed him £500.131

The Smiths of Jordanhill – associated with three separate Glasgow-West India merchant firms and other manufacturing enterprises – had multiple sources of funding. In terms of domestic credit, customers were usually required to maintain accounts with one Scottish bank only. It seems that both Archibald senior and James were untypical as they had credit facilities with other banks than the Royal. Archibald obtained credit from the Thistle Bank in 1801 and James obtained credit from the Bank of Scotland in 1827.132 Archibald Smith referred to ‘London money’ in correspondence but it remains unclear if that related to sales from imports or bills of exchange drawn on London merchant firms or banks.133 However, the long-term loans and large sums of capital held in the firm by partners underpinned the firm’s success. The capital came from the merchants themselves – and ultimately from the colonies – but the major fortunes were created with a little support from the banks.

West India merchant firms in Glasgow had more substantial connections with Scottish banks – especially the Royal Bank – than has previously been understood. Given the requirement for large-scale credit on a short-term basis, the dramatic rise of the Glasgow-West India trades after the 1790s could not have progressed without major banking facilities. Commission merchants took advantage of the transformation in banking provision in Glasgow due to the timely expansion of national institutions into Glasgow, particularly the Royal Bank. The expansion of Scottish banking houses into Glasgow underpinned the dramatic rise of the city’s West India elite and, by extension, Scotland’s involvement with Caribbean slavery.

The final word on the importance of the Glasgow banking institutions to West India commerce, and vice versa, comes from the bankers themselves. In February 1833, as the abolition of slavery became inevitable, the Glasgow West India Association ‘induced’ the Glasgow Chamber of Commerce, banks and banking companies in the west of Scotland to petition for a ‘cautious, safe and satisfactory adjustment of the Slavery question’.134 In March 1833, a petition was sent to Earl Grey, First Lord of the Treasury:

We, the undersigned, Bankers of Glasgow and the West of Scotland…cannot doubt for a moment…contemplating such an extensive change…[that] His Majesty’s Ministers have duly considered the various and manifold consequences…But your Memorialists cannot refrain from stating, that from their knowledge of the financial relations between the colonial trade and the general commerce of the country, any sudden alteration of these relations might produce effects very seriously injurious to commercial credit. And while they hope that every precaution has been taken to prevent that shock [to the] credit of the country…your Memorialists respectfully, but earnestly, entreat His Majesty’s Government make such provisions as will avert so destructive a calamity.135

This petition invoked a familiar argument that parliamentary interference with West India capital – plantations and resident slaves – would be catastrophic for the British credit system.136

These findings further undermine a report by the Royal Bank of Scotland into antecedent institutions and their involvement with slavery in the colonial period. After a transatlantic research process in archives in America, England and Scotland, the authors concluded: ‘There is no indication that any RBSG or Citizens predecessors ever directly invested in companies or institutions that owned slaves.’137 By demonstrating that several banking institutions in London – now owned by the RBS Group – were recipients of compensation, Nicholas Draper thoroughly refuted the findings. However, as Scottish banks were noticeably absent from the compensation lists in 1834, Draper contrasted the London position with Glasgow and suggested that Scottish banks had a more indirect role by financing merchants, who in turn financed slave-owners.138 The findings here confirm this view and suggest the Royal Bank had a key role in the financing of Glasgow firms involved with Caribbean slavery. These firms integrated the Atlantic economy by acting as the conduit between colonial planters and markets, and British banking, industry and commerce, a relationship that will be scrutinized in later chapters.

Conclusion

West India merchant firms in Glasgow were legal entities that enabled wealth creation based on slavery and its commerce, just like others of the same type across Great Britain in the colonial period. The main business was the transportation of commodities back and forth across the Atlantic. But they also served as financial and communication hubs, mercantile academies and prestigious employers and exporters of people. The merchant firms under scrutiny here were located in Glasgow, thus joining the city with satellite ports at Port Glasgow and Greenock further along the river Clyde. Transatlantic commerce connected Scottish banking institutions and manufacturing firms with the West Indies and facilitated a two-way flow of communications and migration. There are several distinctive features that marked Glasgow’s development as a commercial hub.

Like English firms, the Glasgow-West India merchant houses operated on a classic commission system which was probably more capital-intensive than that used by the city’s tobacco firms before 1783. Start-up capital was mainly sourced within Scotland, although with colonial origins. The structure of the West India merchant firms was defined by Scots not English law, adding a layer of protection to operations in the metropole and the colonies. By defining the firm as a separate legal entity, this regulation limited the exposure of co-partners and protected them from debts taken on in both jurisdictions. West India merchants of Glasgow regularly introduced younger male family members to the firm, which contributed to the larger-than-average partnership sizes of firms. The family firms were of major importance; the inter-vivos and post-mortem distribution of patrimonial inheritance provided an important stream of capital for the Glasgow-West India trades.

Commerce in Glasgow served to modernize the educational system, including the creation of a specialist genre of publications to inform the Glasgow-West India trades. Most West India merchants were probably trained in the city although a minority first went to the colonies, coming home cash rich to sink wealth into partnerships which added more colonial fortunes to the pot. But the availability of capital from within the community does not explain the rise of the Glasgow-West India trades on its own. The advance of the national banking system via agency branches in Glasgow provided a more extensive level of short-term capital than offered to the previous commercial generation. These West India merchants were tied financially to London, but this chapter underlines the importance of Scottish finance provided by Edinburgh-based institutions.

The evidence presented here, therefore, reveals the lifecycle of capital and credit required for the Glasgow-West India trades, at least for elite merchants. Start-up capital mainly came from a mercantile patriarch already involved with the tobacco or sugar trades or from a successful sojourn to the West Indies. Family wealth and connections were important, but not the only definers of success in the Glasgow-West India trades. Once established, a strategic marriage brought a high-value tocher, usually from colonial heiresses or daughters of the middling ranks, to supplement the merchant’s interests. On the way up, loans were readily available from other West India merchants, while the national banks with agencies in Glasgow provided high-value credit after 1783. Landed West India proprietors could take advantage of loans from those in British society with no connections to colonial commerce. Once the West India merchants had become wealthy, they loaned capital within their own firms, to younger merchants or to the local gentry or businesses. This model was replicated many dozens of times in Glasgow between 1775 and 1838, explaining the dramatic economic changes during the city’s sugar era.