This early letter was sent from Edinburgh to London and is very wide ranging in content.

The letter reads as follows.

To:                 Messrs Herries & Co., London, For Sir William Forbes, Bart, London.

From:            J. H., Edinburgh.

Dated:            12th September 1768.

Dear Bart,

              I wrote you on the 8th inst with letters to Lords Gower & Rochford.  Upon my return last night I received yours of the 6th, but I have not yet any reply from Lord Gray.  If Messrs C. appear the least cool about applying to Messrs D H & Co I judge it altogether unnecessary to entail then further because I do not see any great service they can do us in such an affair & as to D. H. I leave it to you to ask him, of yourself or not, as you shall find it most suitable & sufficient.  It is very well you have wrote Mr Seton.  I observe Lord R'd is come over from Paris; this is unlucky but I hope he returns again immediately, or at least in full time for our affair.  Pray endeavour to find out this & I hope, saving his return mentioned in the papers, you did not forward the letter from him, because it may be proper for you to deliver it at London & endeavour to get letters from him to his connections, now that we are engaged in the attempt, it is right to make every effort, & if it fails in success we shall not then blame our own inactivity.  If any other Ambassador is to be appointed I hope you will let me know.  I beg you will keep Dallas strictly to his promise about that bond £1,210 - for he is a little shifty; he behaves ill in not giving you the refusal of his least policies & you may drop as much to him, first opportunity.  Your friends are good, & you do well to keep them so.

            Mr Seton is much obliged to you for your advertisement & I thank you for what you say about Mr Seton, McCulloch & Co. which I shall serve for my government.  Mr S is really pretty well tho' his legs are much swollen; he goes next week to Mr Lindsays for sometime.  If R. S. has a bad opinion of E. I. Stock it is really my opinion you should sell & invest the value in Bank Stock as I am certain, at least morally so, will rise considerably, if peace continues, & even keeps its ground in case of war, which will probably happen in a year or two.  J Cumming's uncle, who was an India Director, writes them not to invest there as he sees no course for an immediate rise but speaks well of Bk Stk.   W. C & Son hold £4,000 original Bk Stock - Oliphant & Co. are not offended.  I long to hear what Mr C has wrote you.

          Your affectionate friend, 

                    J. H.

          There is quite a deal of content in this letter although firstly we should attend the addressee and sender.  The letter is addressed to Messrs Herries & Co. in London and marked for the attention of Sir William Forbes, Bart.  The sender is J. H. of Edinburgh.

         Messrs Herries & Co. was a banking firm which comprised James Coutts, Thomas Coutts (both of the famous Coutts & Co. banking family), Robert Herries and Sir William Forbes (later to become Partner in Sir William Forbes, James Hunter & Co.  The business was initially that of the Coutts family although both family disagreements and other business interests saw the banking business struggle.  The Coutts brothers already worked with William Forbes and sought to involve both William Cochrane and Robert Herries (a Scot who was trading as a Merchant in Barcelona) in order to strengthen the firm.  This firm traded as Herries, Cochrane & Co. although it was clear from the outset that Cochrane and Herries did not work well together and Herries, being the dominant Partner, saw Cochrane ousted in 1766 when the 3 year Herries, Cochrane & Co. contract expired.  The bank then operated simply as Herries & Co.

          Sir William Forbes was born in Edinburgh in April 1739.  In 1754 he began a 5 year apprenticeship with the Scottish Banking house of John Coutts.  He was joined there the following year by James Hunter who was then his apprentice and was to go on in life to become the Partner of Sir William Forbes in the firm of Sir William Forbes, James Hunter & Co which was founded in 1773, and to become Sir James Blair.  The way in which the letter is phrased, the use of the terms "Dear Bart" and "Your affectionate friend" lead me to believe that the J. H. who wrote this letter was James Hunter.

          The first half of this letter is written in very suspicious terms and clearly Hunter is very excited by a new project which is underway.  He is not concerned that the Coutts brothers are "cool" and this I believe to be reflective of disharmony which existed between the Coutts brothers, Robert Herries and James Hunter.  Sir William Forbes seems to have managed to maintain good relations will all parties and this was no doubt a considerable benefit to him in his long and illustrious career.

          The new project referred to was, I believe, the establishing of a new method of credit with this then without competition and though to bring Herries, Hunter and Forbes considerable profit.  In "Memoirs of a Banking House" Forbes writes on this subject as follows.

            "The other event I have alluded to was our forming a new esta­blishment in London.  In the year 1768 - almost the whole of which year and a part of the next, I spent as a guest with Mr. Herries in London, attending the counting-house - Mr. Herries contrived a plan for supplying travellers with money on the continent, which, for its ingenuity, deserves special mention, and of which the success fully rewarded the merit of the invention during many years, until the present war in a manner put a stop to all conti­nental travelling.  As Mr. Herries communicated to me not only the first idea, but every subsequent step of his plan till he brought it to a state of maturity, it is with pleasure I look back to the many pleasant evenings he and I spent together at his fireside discussing this plan.  In the course of his own journeys on the continent, and in the transacting of business, he had remarked that travellers were not unfrequently (sic) exposed  to inconvenience and disappointment, while abroad, by having their letters of credit limited to particular places, while they might wish, perhaps, to change their route, but from which they were prevented until they wrote home to have their credits altered, and, perhaps, before those now credits reached them, they had again changed their plans and wished to follow a still different route.  Mr. Herries bethought him, therefore, of issuing what should serve as an universal letter of credit in the form of promissory-notes, which should be payable at all the principal places in Europe where travellers were likely to be.  For this purpose it became necessary to establish corres­pondents in all those various places who would give money to the travellers for these promissory-notes, at the current exchange of the place on London, without any charge or deduction whatso­ever.  The convenience to the traveller of this device was obvious; and Mr. Herries was to find his profit from the use of the money, which of course was to be paid to him on his issuing the notes, till they again came round to London, after having been paid by his agents abroad.  Such was the plan, which, after a variety of changes and modifications, he ultimately fixed on, and of the success of which he was very confident.  As he saw the propriety, indeed the necessity, of its being undertaken by men of greater credit and capital than the partners of the house by themselves could pretend to, he proposed that a few gentlemen of opulence should join with them and form themselves into a separate society for the purpose. In the prosecution of this idea, he resolved to submit the plan, in the first place, to Messrs Coutts, with whom he still maintained intercourse, although there was no cordiality between them.  Messrs Coutts, however, returned the papers, saying the proposal did not suit them.  He also made it known to several other respectable men of business, who all gave due praise to the ingenuity of the contrivance, but all, like Messrs Coutts, declined taking any concern in it except Mr. (now Sir William) Pultney, who was Mr. Herries's intimate friend.  Not discouraged by these disappointments, and still very fond of his project, Mr. Herries resolved to set it agoing by the house in London, in con­nection with one or two private friends; for it was attended with no risk to "those concerned, should it not succeed, beyond the loss of their labour in establishing the necessary correspondence in the principal towns on the continent, which he was enabled to do by means of his friends, Messrs Hope of Amsterdam, whose commer­cial concerns were more extensively spread over Europe than those of any mercantile  house whatsoever."

         Returning to the letter we can see that Hunter is referring to contacts on the continent who may be able to assist in this venture and a number of those named within the letter may be established contacts being requested to assist, gentlemen of opulence or respectable men of business.  The following are persons named in the letter.

         Lord Gower was Granville Leveson-Gower, 1st Marquis of Stafford, and was born 4 Aug 1721.  He followed his father into politics and was a Member of Parliament between 1744 -1754.  Gower was associated with the faction of the Duke of Bedford, who was his brother-in-law, and as a member of that faction was given many governmental positions.  Following Bedford's death in 1771, Gower became leader of the group, and as Lord President in the administration of Frederick North, Lord North was a key supporter of a hard-line policy towards the American colonists.  Gower was frustrated by what he saw as the North administration's inept handling of the American Revolutionary War, and he resigned from the cabinet in 1779.  He subsequently became a key figure in bringing about the fall of the Fox-North coalition, and was appointed to the position of Lord President once again in the new administration of William Pitt the Younger.  He soon exchanged this office for that of Lord Privy Seal, and gradually began to withdraw from public affairs although he remained a cabinet minister until his retirement in 1794.  He died in 1803.

         Lord Rochford was William Henry Nassau de Zuylestein, 4th Earl of Rochford, KG, PC, and was born in 1717.  He was a British diplomat and statesman.  Having gained experience as envoy at Turin from 1749 to 1753, he was ambassador at Madrid from 1763 to 1766 and at Paris from 1766 to 1768.  From 1768 to 1775 he was Secretary of State successively for the Northern and Southern Departments. 

          William Henry Nassau de Zuylestein has the dubious honour of being the casting vote in the British parliament when the bill to rescind the "obnoxious" American taxes was voted upon.  He voted against the motion, setting the stage for the American Revolutionary War.  He died  in 1781.

         The Lord Gray referred to in the letter is not as easy to identify as Gower and Rochford.  Lord Gray is a title in the Peerage of Scotland and I cannot currently identify to whom this refers.  In the context of the above letter I can only find one reference to Lord Gray with this being in 1775 and suggesting that "Burk's motion for giving up taxation was rejected 210 to 105 with Lord Gray and Fitzpatrick voting against it". 

          The reference to "Messrs C" I believe relates to James and Thomas Coutts and there was a good deal of ill will between the Coutts brothers and James Hunter with this perhaps influenced by Cochrane being favoured by the Coutts brothers whilst he was disliked by Herries and Hunter.  I have no real knowledge of who is referred to as D H or D H &Co although it is possible that this refers to a further member of the Herries merchant family.

         I believe the reference to Mr. Seton to relate to Hugh Seton of Touch.  In “Memoirs of a Banking House” Forbes writes

         “…our friend Mr. Seton of Touch, to whom I had written, requesting him to procure me an answer from Mr. James Coutts to a proposition I had made for becoming tenant of his house in the President’s Stairs, Parliament Close, where the counting-house was kept, which was occupied at that time by Mr. Stephen, now about to remove from it”  Mr. Seton wrote me that Mr. Coutts seemed not altogether disposed to give me use of his house, probably on account of our new establishment, which he considered a direct invasion of his own….”

          Hugh Seton of Touch who was Master of the Lodge of Boulogne 1747-48 and the 13th Grand Master Mason of the Grand Lodge of Scotland between 1748-49.  In his later life he ran out of cash – having improved his Scottish property – and moved abroad.

                 I regret that I cannot positively identify the "little shifty" Dallas although with it being an uncommon name it possibly relates to Robert Dallas Esquire of Kensington who died in 1796.  The Kensington address and the term "esquire" both suggest he is a person of substance.  He also had Scottish links.  He married Elizabeth Smith who was the daughter of a minister in Ayrshire and they had several children including Robert (later Sir Robert Dallas) who was the Chief Justice of the Common Pleas and George (later Sir George Dallas) who had a distinguished service in the East India Company.  Whilst this is clearly speculation the limited information does present Robert Dallas as a likely person to be requested to participate or assist.

         The second half of the letter appears to relate to an investment decision in respect of Bank stocks or an investment in the East India Company. I hope to return to this area at some future date although for the moment I shall add some information about the East India Company and the comment that it is to be hoped that the money was ultimately invested in Bank Stock as far greater returns we to be available from this area.

         The Honourable East India Company, often referred to simply as the East India Company was an early joint-stock company.  The company's main trade was in cotton, silk, indigo dye, saltpetre, tea and also, opium.  It was granted an English Royal Charter by Elizabeth I on December 31, 1600, with the intention of favouring trade privileges in India.  The Company transformed from a commercial trading venture to one that virtually ruled India and other Asian colonies as it acquired governmental and military functions, until the British Crown assumed direct rule in 1858 following the events of the Indian Mutiny of 1857.