Abstract
At about the moment when Napoleon was putting an end to Ouvrard’s plans, the network established in America to carry out those plans commenced to operate. Vincent Nolte had arrived in New York in September 1805, to be followed shortly afterwards by Lestapis. They waited there for David Parish, who arrived early in 1806. Rumours of the transaction had preceded him and this fact made his task decidedly more difficult.1
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References
Chapter Eleven Page 311
Walters and Walters, ‘American Career,’ 152. Note, Fünfzig Jahre, 90, 94. Nolte gives the date of Parish’s arrival as mid-November 1805. Labouchère, however, states that Parish left Dover on 17th November. Letter of 5th December 1805 to D.Parish, New York, B.I. 1. According to Walters, the origin of the rumours concerning the piastre operation lay in indiscreet remarks made by Nolte and Lestapis. Ouvrard himself had approached American merchants in 1805, and thus his plans must have been known prior to the arrival of Hope’s agents.
Hidy, House of Baring, 19-20, 48. Bruchey, Robert Oliver, 277-278.
Herbert Lasky, in his treatise entitled: ‘David Parish: A European in American Finance 1806–1816’ (unpublished Ph.d. dissertation, Ann Arbor, Michigan) questions whether Parish did in fact sell 3 or 4 licences to Gracie (p. 14, note 2). The consignment invoices show that he did indeed do so.
Page 312
Bruchey, Robert Oliver, 279-282. Nolte, Fünfzig Jahre, 112. Parish had also approached others who were in correspondence with Hope, such as Willing & Francis in Philadelphia, and Robert Gilmor & Sons and James & Thomas G.Perkins in Boston. James Perkins had visited Holland during the summer of 1805-as had also Nathaniel Amory of the house of Amory & Callender of New Orleans, in whose name the consignment of Silesian linen had been ordered in Hamburg, and to whose address this was shipped, to the relief of Matthiessen & Sillem. The willingness of the last-named to swear on oath that the linen was the bona fide property of Amory & Callender was made conditional upon Hope & Co. issuing a positive assurance that this was the case. Letters of 1st September 1805 from James Perkins, Rotterdam, to Hope & Co., Amsterdam; 13th September 1805 from James Perkins, London, to Hope & Co., Amsterdam; 10th October 1805 from Nathaniel Amory, London, to Hope & Co., Amsterdam; 22nd October and 5th November 1805, 1st and 11th April 1806 from Matthiessen & Sillem, Hamburg, to Hope & Co., Amsterdam.
John Craig died in June 1807. The Olivers continued the shipments, now for their own account. Bruchey, Robert Oliver, 331.
Page 314
Vide consignment invoices and final accounts in the Hope archives. Bruchey, too, points to the random nature of the various dues (p. 307). The Olivers informed Parish by letter that they were frequently called upon to pay dues amounting to 50 % of the proforma invoice value. They did not, however, mention that this figure included the commission of 6¼% on the gross proceeds in Vera Cruz. If the gross proceeds were equal to twice the value shown on the pro-forma invoice, the percentages, based on the pro-forma invoice, would naturally rise sharply.
Bruchey, Robert Oliver, 391-392. The Olivers allowed 4,000 dollars for freight charges. As they carried the cargoes in their own vessels-fast schooners which were well able to excape from any pursuing British warships-the Olivers will have made a substantial profit on the operations.
Ibid., 329, 331.
Page 315
33 1/3% of the nett profit of 334,891 dollars, plus 5 % of the nett value (76,810 dollars) = 411,701 dollars.
The gross profit on the two final shipments amounted to 181, 273 dollars.
Page 316
Bruchey, Robert Oliver, 311. In the case of a shipment on behalf of Thomas Tenant of Baltimore, both the freight charges and the insurance premium for a voyage from Barcelona to Baltimore were quoted, thus clearly revealing that the cargo was of Spanish origin.
The consignment invoice values were as follows: McKim: 203, 841 dollars; John Craig: 68,099 dollars; Archibald Gracie: 120,089 dollars: Amory & Callender: 184,181.05 dollars; James Brown: 112,924 dollars; Geo. T.Phillips: 38,882 dollars. Total 728,017 dollars. The amounts on the final accounts were: McKim: 424,603 dollars; John Craig: 151,095 dollars; Archibald Gracie: 245,996 dollars; Amory & Callender: 348,766 dollars; James Brown: 176,034 dollars; Geo. T.Phillips: 73,295 dollars. Total 1,419,790 dollars. The gross profit was thus 690,000 dollars and the nett profit, which may be estimated at 2/3rds, 460,000 dollars. The pro-forma invoices relating to one expedition each by Archibald Gracie and John Craig and the four expeditions to Montevideo together totalled 283,357 dollars. The grand total of the pro-forma invoices was 1,031,374 dollars. Fifteen per cent of this sum is 154,760 dollars.
Hope & Co. returned a figure of 2,897,440.36 dollars to Auguste Ouvrard and the Caja. Documents in the Hope archives, however, show a figure of 2,913,688.31 dollars, a difference of just over ½%. In all, Hope’s payments to the Caja totalled 709,400.14 dollars. This sum was included in the balance in Auguste Ouvrard & Co.’s account, from whence it was transferred to the general account ‘X.’ Auguste Ouvrard & Co. received 463,000 dollars.
Bruchey, Robert Oliver, 314-317.
Page 317
Ibid., 304. The house of Matthiessen & Sillem in Hamburg had in 1806 complained of an overabundance of European textiles, which depressed the prices of Silesian linen. Losses in excess of 27,750 dollars were incurred on two shipments of Silesian linen to New Orleans, together valued at 137,000 dollars.
Ibid., 306.
Page 318
Ibid., 287-292. At a nominal exchange rate of 50 stuivers and a discount of 21 %, Parish received 39½ stuivers for a piastre. The price of 3 frances 75 centimes per piastre agreed with the French Treasury was equal to about 36 stuivers, leaving a gross profit margin of 3½ stuivers per piastre. A discount of 17 % gave a gross profit of 5½stuivers per piastre. Contracts were made with many other houses on the basis of a 15 % discount, which have a gross profit of 6½ stuivers.
The shipments concerned were each of 30,000 piastres from New Orleans to Liverpool in the vessels ‘Joseph’ and ‘Wilhelm Tell.’ The insurers paid 30,000 dollars in respect of the ‘Joseph’s’ cargo, and this suggests that the vessel was either shipwrecked or captured.
Page 319
Remittances were occasionally made via Leghorn and Genoa. Some remittances to Paris were in the form of gold shipments.
Hidy, House of Baring, 22.
Grootboek 1792: 159, 268, 242. Grootboek 1793: 46, 262, 371, 376. Grootboek 1794: 170, 194, 196, 216, 226, 298, 320. Grootboek 1801: 51, 63, 65, 38, 40.
Grootboek 1802:27. Grootboek 1803: 129, 132, 136. Grootboek 1804: 116, 136, 157, 160, 163, 164, 182. Grootboek 1805: 144, 148, 152, 168, 171, 175, 176, 178, 180, 185, 186, 187, 188, 194, 195, 196, 209. Grootboek 1806: 124, 132, 135, 136, 158, 159, 167, 168, 174, 186, 187, 191, 192, 193, 194, 201, 202, 209, 210, 211, 213, 217, 219, 220, 223, 225, 226, 233, 243, 244. Grootboek 1807: 112, 113, 114, 115, 116, 117, 118, 119, 120, 121, 122, 135, 138, 139, 152, 153, 161, 162, 163, 164, 165, 166, 167, 168, 193, 194, 203, 206, 207, 243, 244, 251, 252, 253, 258, 259, 260, 265, 266, 267, 272.
Page 320
In 1806 and 1807 Hope & Co. received twice as many consignments as W.&.J.Willink and Daniel Crommelin & Sons.
Bruchey, Robert Oliver, 298.
F.Crouzet, ‘Groupes de pression et politique de blocus: remarques sur les origines des Ordres en Conseil de novembre 1807,’ Revue Historique, 86, CCXXVIII (1962), 49. P.Hoekstra, Thirty-Seven Years of Holland-American Relations, 1803 to 1840 (Grand Rapids, N.J., 1916), 57.
Page 321
Letters of 16th and 23rd July 1806 to D.Parish, Philadelphia, D.P. 1.
Letters of 3rd and 25th August 1806 to D.Parish, Philadelphia, D.P. 1.
Letters of 3rd and 16th September, 1st, 3rd and 4th October 1806 to D.Parish, Philadelphia, D.P. 1. According to Labouchère, the tobacco market was a shambles. Numerous consignments had been sacrificed by panic-stricken brokers. It was common for consignments to be sold and then to be resold within an hour at a price which might be as much as half a stuiver per pound higher or lower. It was thus quite impossible to quote any firm prices.
Letters of 7th, 18th and 25th October, 3rd and 16th November 1806 to D.Parish, Philadelphia, D.P. 1.
Page 322
Hoekstra, Thirty-Seven Years, 44, 46, 47. Letters of 10th and 27th December 1806 to D.Parish, Philadelphia, D.P. 1.
Letters of 26th February, 9th and 17th March, 12th and 20th April 1807 to D.Parish, Philadelphia, D.P. 1.
Letter of 29th April 1807 to D.Parish, Philadelphia, D.P. 1. Letters of 16th and 19th May, 23rd June, 20th, 25th and 29th July 1807 to D.Parish, Philadelphia, D.P. 11, VI-ha-35, 37, 44, 49, 50, 51.
Letters of 5th, 8th and 21 st August 1807 to D.Parish, Philadelphia, D.P. 11, VI-ha-52, 53, 56. E.Channing, A History of the United States, IV (New York, 1917), 370-371.
Page 323
Hoekstra, Thirty-Seven Years, 51-52.
Letters of 11th and 18th September, 9th, 15th and 24th October, 3rd and 12th November 1807 to D.Parish, Philadelphia, D.P. 11, VI-ha-60-72. Hoekstra, Thirty-Seven Years, 52-53. Hoekstra quotes reports from the Amsterdam merchant Backer who, in contrast to Labouchère, referred in optimistic terms to the sale of American produce.
Ibid., 60. Channing, History, IV, 376. Crouzet, ‘Groupes de pression,’ 72.
Channing, History, IV, 380-381, 399. Letters of 29th November 1807 and 8th January 1808 to D.Parish, Philadelphia, D.P. 11. Parish succeeded in obtaining from President Jefferson permits to collect piastres. According to Nolte, Gallatin, the Secretary of the Treasury, was involved in the issue of these. Parish states in a letter that the President had been influenced by ‘my friend the general.’ This officer, however, was not named. Nolte, Fünfzig Jahre, 171. Bruchey, Robert Oliver, 333.
Hoekstra, Thirty-Seven Years, 63. Letter of 27th February 1808 to D.Parish, Philadelphia, D.P. 11. Grootboek 1808:128, 132, 207, 131, 135, 165, 129, 225, 130, 167, 130, 133, 129, 132, 168, 235, 134, 198, 200, 166, 127, 136, 152, 166, 208. Grootboek 1809: 123, 165, 168, 173, 180, 181, 191, 219, 220. The turnover on the goods accounts totalled cf 5,651,849 in 1808. In 1809, the figure was cf 1,475,601.
Page 324
Letters of 15th April and 12th May 1808 to D.Parish, Philadelphia, D.P. 11.
Letters of 15th/22nd September 1805 from P.C.Labouchère, Amsterdam, to Sir Francis Baring, London.
Letters of 22nd and 25th November 1805 from J.Richards, Amsterdam, to P.C.Labouchère, Paris. Letter of 23rd November 1805 from P.C.Labouchère, Paris, to Hope & Co., Amsterdam.
‘Investigations.’ 25th November 1805: Memorandum concerning the possibilities for exporting piastres from Vera Cruz.
Memorandum concerning the Spanish piastres. Copy No. 2 (1st November 1805) and copy No. 3.
Page 325
Letter of 2nd December 1805 from J.Richards, Paris, to Hope & Co., Amsterdam. Letter of 9th December 1805 from P.C.Labouchère, Paris, to Hope & Co., Amsterdam. Letter of late January 1806 from Hope & Co., Amsterdam, to Baring Bros., London. Letters of 13th December 1805 and 7th January 1806 from A.Baring, London, to Hope & Co., Amsterdam.
Letter of 18th February 1806 from A.Baring, London, to P.C.Labouchère, Amsterdam.
Fugier, Napoléon et l’Espagne, 11, 74.
Letters of 7th and 15th March, 2nd April, 3rd May 1806 from P.C.Labouchère, Amsterdam, to A.Baring, London.
Letter of 4th July 1806 from A.Baring, London, to Hope & Co., Amsterdam.
Page 327
8th July 1806: draft contracts between Hope & Co. and Baring Bros. & Co. for the sale of piastres lying in Vera Cruz, and the collection thereof.
Letter of 8th July 1806 from A.Baring, Amsterdam, to Hope & Co., Amsterdam. Adverse winds obliged Baring to stay in Den Helder for a week, awaiting a vessel to England. Letters of 9th, 11th, 13th and 15th July from A.Baring, Den Helder, to P.C.Labouchère, Amsterdam. A sum of 1,000,000 piastres, representing the collected portion of the drafts for 1¼ million, did, however, appear on the final account rendered to the French Treasury.
Fugier, Napoléon et l’Espagne, 11, 183. The story as told here by Fugier is not confirmed by material in the Hope archives. Louis did not arrive in Amsterdam until February 1807.
Ibid., 184. Here, Fugier refers to a contract for piastres at a price of 3 francs and 55 centimes. The draft contracts of July 1806 and the contract of 12th March 1807 all embody a price of 3 francs 75 centimes. According to Fugier, the entire transaction was carried out at 3 francs 55 centimes per piastre; the account submitted to the French Treasury, however, shows that a price of 3 francs 75 centimes nett was maintained for the first five million piastres, and 3 francs 85 centimes for the second batch of drafts. It is conceivable that sticky fingers were at work in France, but the information in the Hope archives gives no hint as to where this might have occurred or who might have been responsible.
Page 328
Letter of 5th May 1807 from Sir Francis Baring, London, to Hope & Co., Amsterdam. Another letter of the same date contained details of a contract between the London house of Thomas O’Gorman and Espinosa for the collection of three million piastres from Lima. This contract also provided for O’Gorman to import Spanish products such as quicksilver and stationery. The house issued drafts on itself for piastres at the rate of 177 pounds sterling for 1,000 piastres.
Letters of 6th March 1807 from Baring Bros., London, to Hope & Co., Amsterdam, and of 7th, 10th, 12th, 13th, 14th and 18th March from Sir Francis Baring, London, to Hope & Co., Amsterdam.
Letters of 14th, 16th, 18th, 19th, 20th and 23rd March 1807 to Louis, VII, 51, 55,58, 61; AIV, 385, 386. Letter of 23rd March 1807 from Louis, Amsterdam, to Hope & Co., Amsterdam.
Reçu du Trésor Public; also VI-fa-85, 25-26. 17th April 1807: Receipt for drafts from the Governor of the Castilian Council.
Letters of 18th and 29th May, nth and 15th June 1807 from A.Baring, London, to Hope & Co., Amsterdam.
Letters of 27th May 1807 from Mollien, Paris, to Hope & Co., Amsterdam. Letter of 5th June 1807 from Hope & Co., Amsterdam, to Mollien, Paris. 20th July 1807: supplementary contract between Hope & Co. and Baring Bros. & Co.
Page 329
Nolte, Fünfzig Jahre, 125. General Account ‘X’ for the year 1808 in current money, or appendix to that of ‘1807.’ Compte B du Trésor Public de France, June 1807-23rd May 1808. Le Trésor Public de France, Compte des Piastres, 25th October 1809.
Letters of 29th May, 11 th June and 6th August 1807 from A. Baring, London, to Hope & Co., Amsterdam.
Letter of 20th October 1807 from Baring Bros., London, to P.C.Labouchère, Amsterdam. ‘Account Sales of Dollars for account p. Diana, Frigate.’ Letter of 17th November 1809 from A.Baring, London, to Hope & Co., Amsterdam. To the expenses was added a sum of 3,000 pounds sterling, which had been set aside for the medical treatment of James Richards, who liaised between Hope and Baring during the winter of 1805, and who had subsequently become insane.
Letter of 29th October 1807 from A.Baring, London, to Hope & Co., Amsterdam.
Letter of 3rd March 1808 to Mollien, Paris, VII, 324.
Page 330
Nolte, Fünfzig Jahre, 131.
Ibid., 143.
Ibid., 147.
Ibid., 149 and Chapter VII (150-165).
Page 331
VI-fa-85, 37 and 38. ‘Nouveaux avis sur le recouvrement à la Havane, transmis au Ministre.’ VI-fa-85, 40. Nolte, Fünfzig Jahre, 189, 190. Nolte makes it appear that the Intendant sought to get into Talleyrand’s good books, and not to complain of his, Nolte’s, conduct.
Letters of 23rd May, 9th June and 10th November 1808 to the Minister (Mollien), VI-fa-85, 42, 44, 47, 51. VI-fa-86, 26. This sum included 236,927.56 francs for expenses incurred in Havana.
Bruchey, Robert Oliver, 319-322.
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© 1974 Martinus Nijhoff, The Hague, Netherlands
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Buist, M.G. (1974). Account ‘X’. In: At Spes non Fracta. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-011-8858-6_11
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