Nabobs of the North

Sir Lawrence Dundas and Daughter, Zoffany, 1775

Bankers and men of property are some of the richest men on the planet today. Their relationship with governments and the democratic process is a battle for power fought in a war of attrition between the bankers' desire to operate freely and governments' desire for responsibility through regulation. Richer than countries and certainly richer than elected heads of state the influence of these multi-billionaires is profound but this is not a new phenomena as the story of the Dundas family reveals.

The Dundas family were one of Scotland's leading land owners but it fell on hard times during the failed Scottish rebellions: Head of the clan, William Dundas of Kincavel was imprisoned for his part in the 1715 Jacobite rebellion and many of the Dundas estates were forfeited to the British Crown after the 1745-1746 Jacobite rebellion.

Their humbler relatives were landless and urban living and working in trade and the newly emerging professions in Edinburgh. Lawrence Dundas the first of great Dundases was the younger son of landless branch of the family. His father,Thomas owned a drapery shop and woollen business in the Luckenbooths, a range of tenements which formerly stood immediately to the north of St. Giles' Kirk in the High Street of Edinburgh.

Sir Lawrence Dundas

Sir Lawrence Dundas (1710-1781)  known as the "Nabob of the North" even in his own lifetime was one of the new breed of men who made their fortune through servicing what we call the public sector today. He used the money he earned in the service of the King to invest in property and banking. He was the forerunner of many successful money men today who provide governments with armaments and supply multi-million pound government contracts.

Lawrence left his father's business and set up in as a merchant contractor and with his friend James Masterton, he obtained contracts to supplying the army of the Duke of Cumberland in the 1745 rebellion. Being successful with Cumberland further work came his way. His greatest money making opportunity  came during the Seven Years War (1756-1763), when he secured even greater contracts to supply the armies of the anti-French allies in Europe and Canada.  It was not all plain sailing though. He ran into trouble with Thomas Orby Hunter, the commissaries of control, and Prince Ferdinand of Brunswick-Lüneburg the  a German-Prussian field marshal (1758–1766) who led the Anglo-German army in Western Germany. who, according to Prime Minister Walpole,  threatened to hang him for late fulfilment.

James Boswell claimed Lawrence Dundas brought home, 'a couple of hundred thousand pounds’ from that war but some historians estimate actual figure was nearer to £2 million the equivalent of more than £200m in today's money which put him in the class of a billionaire today.

Having made one fortune Lawrence went into two others, both in the 18th century's growth industries - banking and canals. Dundas was a man who understood the future was in money not land. Banking in Scotland was dominated by two Edinburgh based institutions; the Bank of Scotland and what became The Royal Bank of Scotland. The two institutions were fierce rivals. Both had the power to issue bank notes but the The Bank of Scotland was deemed to be tainted by its past Jacobite inclinations so it is no surprise, given his support for the British, Lawrence Dundas invested heavily in its rival the Royal Bank of Scotland.

Route of the Forth and Clyde Canal

He completed the development of the port of Grangemouth in 1777, which linked his other major investment the construction of the Forth and Clyde Canal to the sea. Dundas ran the canal through his estate, of Kerse House, near Falkirk, he was a canny operator.

Like Billionaires today who build themselves lavish houses in places like the Hamptons, Dundas set about building himself a few mansions. He built what Scottish writer Hugo Arnot described as  "incomparably the handsomest townhouse we ever saw," in St. Andrew Square, Edinburgh. Designed by Sir William Chambers, it became the headquarters of the Royal Bank of Scotland in 1825.

Head Office of the Royal Bank of Scotland

In 1754 he made his second attempt to gain a seat in Parliament. He lost but not before he had spent a fortune on bribes which was the 18th century way of currying favour with the electorate and he was disappointed again in 1761 election. Having failed to get a seat he turned to his friend Lord Shelburne for help. On 19 August 1762 Shelburne wrote to Henry Fox: ‘Dundas, the Nabob of the North, writes me to desire I’ll get him made a baronet.’ On 20 October Dundas duly received his baronetcy.

With his baronetcy in hand he made his move south but not without comment. He bought the Aske Estate, near Richmond in North Yorkshire in 1763 from Lord Holderness for £45,000 and proceeded to enlarge and remodel it in Palladian taste by the premier Yorkshire architect, John Carr, who also designed new stables for him.

Aske Estate

On 3 May 1763 Lord Hardwicke wrote to Lord Royston,"Sir Lory Dundas, who extends his conquests from North to South, has purchased Moor Park from Lord Anson’s heirs for £25,000 for which he ordered a set of Gobelins tapestries with medallions by François Boucher and a long suite of seat furniture to match, for which Robert Adam provided d

esigns: they are among the earliest English neoclassical furniture. A few months later he bought Lord Granville’s London house for about £15,000.

From 1766 Dundas set about securing his political influence in Scotland. In July that year be he purchased the Orkneys and Shetlands from the Earl of Morton for £63,000, thereby obtaining the parliamentary seat for his brother, he obtained Stirlingshire for his friend Masterson, Linlithgowshire and Fife went to another friend James Wemyss, the Yorkshire seats of Richmond were given to two proxies Norton and Wedderburn to be controlled directly by Dundas himself; the seat for Edinburgh he kept for himself. His 'purchase' of these seats secured him 8 or 9 votes in the Commons which he was willing to be courted by both Government and opposition alike but generally he voted in support of the Hanoverian king.

East India House, Leadenhall Street, 1800

Although Dundas never obtained high office either for himself or his followers it was generally believed that ‘without the name of minister’ he had ‘the disposal of almost everything in Scotland’ and in the East India Company. The Duke of Queensberry or Lord Marchmont got most of appointments available in Scotland through his influence but many he saved for himself. As governor of the Royal Bank of Scotland, 1764-77, he exercised great influence in the financing of new projects, notably his own project, the Forth and Clyde canal, while he worked in Parliament to prevent his rival, Lord Argyll, developing the Glasgow and Clyde Canal. He also provided government supporters with shares in the East India Company to boost their wealth to meet the selection criteria in the 1770 election.

But as the 1770s progressed Sir Lawrence's star was dimming. His new rival came not from the aristocracy but from a distant family connection Henry Dundas, with whom Sir Lawrence's family had  long been on bad terms.

Henry Dundas

Henry was a skilled lawyer and was as unscrupulous as Sir Lawrence when it came to politics and the two would wage war on each other's interests in Scotland and the East India Company through their proxies until Lawrence died.

Henry rose quickly through the Scottish legal system and became a Member of Parliament in 1774. The two men were arch enemies. Henry was more than a match for the older man when it came to politics.After holding subordinate offices under William Petty, 2nd Earl of Shelburne and William Pitt the Younger, he entered the cabinet in 1791 as Secretary of State for the Home Department where he successfully held back the abolition of slavery arguing the country made too much money out of it to give it up in a time of war.

Always viewed as an outsider, and as a man more interested in himself than King and country, Sir Lawrence's influence waned. He never received the peerage he felt he deserved for his support to the King neither did he manage to maintain his family's political position. He died on 21 September 1781, leaving an estate worth £16,000 p.a. and a fortune of £900,000 in personal and landed property. His son Thomas was elevated to the peerage as Baron Dundas of Aske in August 1794, and was also Lord Lieutenant and Vice Admiral of Orkney and Shetland. In 1892, the family gained the title Marquis of Zetland.

Henry Dundas went onto to be Prime Minister Pitt's fixer and War Secretary at the outbreak of the Napoleonic Wars. In 1802 he was elevated to the Peerage as Viscount Melville and Baron Dunira and in 1804 he became First Lord of the Admiralty. He introduced a number of improvements there but questions were asked about his financial management of the department which resulted an impeachment trial for the misappropriation of public funds.

Henry Dundas was an accomplished politician and scourge of the Radicals, his deft and almost total control of Scottish politics through the 1790 when no monarch visited the country, led to him being pejoratively nicknamed King Harry the Ninth, the "Grand Manager of Scotland" a play on the masonic office of Grand Master of Scotland, or the "Great Tyrant" and "The Uncrowned King of Scotland." Indeed by 1790 Dundas was in Pitt’s own word the ‘indispensable’ coadjutor of his ministry and the prime minister’s friend par excellence. His hold over Pitt seemed to many observers unaccountable: but, "Dundas brought to market qualities rarely combined in the same individual. Conviviality at table: manners frank and open and inspiring confidence: eloquence bold, flowing, energetic and always at command: principles accommodating, suited to every variation in government, and unencumbered with modesty or fastidious delicacy."(1)

But Henry over stepped the mark and was accused of withdrawing money from the Bank of England and placing it in his own account at Coutts for speculation, primarily in the East India Company. Although Dundas lost his job as Minister Treasurer of the Navy in 1783 he was made a member of the Board of Control for India in 1784 and became its President from 1793-1802. During this period he held a number of other political appointments most notably from 1791-1794 as Home Secretary, during which he defended the East India Company from his position as Secretary of War in 1794. When it came to his trial his prosecutors found he had conveniently destroyed all his records so the case was largely based on the testimony of his accusers. Lacking any material evidence Dundas could only be formally censured by the House of Commons Henry and was acquitted 1806, but he never held public office again.

Melville Monument

Henry is commemorated by one of the most prominent memorials in Edinburgh, the 150-foot high, Melville Monument at St Andrew Square, which stands looking down on the house of his rival Lawrence. The house is now the headquarters of The Royal Bank of Scotland.

In 2008, the UK Treasury had to inject £37 billion ($64 billion, €47 billion, equivalent to £617 per citizen of the UK) of new capital into Royal Bank of Scotland Group plc, Lloyds TSB and HBOS plc, to avert financial sector collapse.

Sources
http://www.historyofparliamentonline.org/volume/1790-1820/member/dundas-henry-1742-1811
http://www.historyofparliamentonline.org/volume/1754-1790/member/dundas-sir-lawrence-1710-81
(1)W. L. Clements Lib. Pitt letters, Pitt to Dundas, 22 July [1790]; Wraxall Mems. ed. Wheatley, i. 266.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry_Dundas,_1st_Viscount_Melville
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sir_Lawrence_Dundas,_1st_Baronet

July Independence Days

July is the month when America and France celebrate their national independence days. For the Americans their celebrations focus on the signing of the Declaration of Independence on 4^th July 1776. The French commemorate the storming, on the 14^th July,1789 of Prise de la Bastille.

Photo credit: blog.fluentcity.com

The eastern seaboard of the country that is now known as the United States of America was Britain’s largest and most successful colony until the East India Company secured most of the Indian sub-continent for the company and the crown at the battle of Plessey (see previous post).

Along with the French, Spanish and the Dutch the British fought to keep and expand its territory on the American continent since its first colonies were established in the 16^th century but were eventually driven out in 1783.

The British adventure in America began with the establishment of the James Town colony in 1607 and since then the colony had grown. By the mid 18^th century the colony had achieved some measure of self government but was still subject to the British parliament.

The American Revolutionary War (1775-1783) has its origins in the resistance of many Americans to taxes imposed by the British parliament. On December 16, 1773, unhappy with the high price of tea, which had to be purchased from British East India Company, a shipment was dumped in Boston harbour as a protest, the event that is now known as the Boston Tea Party.

The British government retaliated by closing the port of Boston and taking away the self-government the colony had achieved. The Bostonians responded by rejecting British rule and setting up a shadow government. Twelve other colonies supported them and formed a Continental Congress to coordinate their resistance. On July 2, 1776, the Continental Congress formally voted for independence, and issued its Declaration two days later on July 4.

Thomas Jefferson, draftsman of the U.S. Declaration of Independence
and the nation's third president

In my novel Sinclair (available autumn 2016) which takes place between 1786 and 1788 Captain Francis Greenwood is bound for Madras on the East Indiaman, Sherwell. He is one of the hundreds of officers let go by the British at the end of the American war. Like ex-service men today Frank Greenwood, the fourth son of the MP for Staffordshire who would inherit nothing from his father, had to find another job when the British Army no longer needed him so he joined the East India Company like so many other hopefuls at that time and headed for Bengal.

“At supper Sinclair fell into conversation with Captain Greenwood a young man like himself intent on forging a successful career in the East. He was a retired British Army officer who like so many others had been let go after the defeat in America. Greenwood, much to Sinclair's chagrin, was admired by both the men and the women on board. His good looks and easy temperament seemed to smooth all his social interactions. He was gracious, charming and good company. He spoke eloquently of his experience in the American War telling Sinclair that he had had a mainly diplomatic role and had not seen much in the way of fighting. Over their meal he told Sinclair how he had sailed from Nova Scotia up the Hudson River with his commanding officer, Sir Guy Carleton to a conference with General Washington at Orangetown. There they agreed how what was left of the British Army and the thousands of ordinary people who had remained loyal to the Crown were to be removed from the new and independent country.”

Sir Guy Carleton: the last British Commander in North America

 Travelling in France at the end of 1788 Dr Sinclair and John Leadam discuss the state of the country: 

“In every town and village we pass through there are vagrants on the road and groups of young men looking for work. In the woods and along the roadside we see women and children foraging for food. It looks like they are eating weeds, snails, and mushrooms in fact whatever they can find. From what I have seen so far I am not impressed.”

“I agree John, things look pretty bad.”

 When they stopped for lunch John decided to their driver Joseph the cause of the malaise.

“It’s because of you British,” he said with a sour face. “The men who weave are without work.  This new Commercial Treaty will be the death of us. We cannot compete with your English factories. And now there is no food. In the summer it did not rain and to compound our problems when the rains came the Lord sent us hail the size of men’s fists that destroyed the crops in the fields. This harvest is the worst in living memory. The bread you are eating is most probably made of English corn and the oats we feed the horses are English too. There is nothing here but the landlord must still have his rent. The King has been merciful and has suspended the collection of normal taxes but the country is bankrupt someone has to pay for fighting you British in America and Canada. The trouble is that the nobles don’t want it to be them; they think us little people should foot the bill. France is in crisis Monsieur, people disappear into prison never to see the light of day again and to make matters worse the weather was already unusually cold for the time of year; it will be very bad for many Frenchmen this year messieurs.”

The Bastille in 1715

The Storming of the Bastille on the afternoon of 14 July 1789 came as food prices soared in Paris. The castle was taken by the residents of the Faubourg Saint-Antoine who were some of the poorest people in city. The medieval fortress represented royal authority in the centre of Paris. The prison contained just seven inmates at the time but its storming became a symbol of the people’s triumph over the abuse of the absolutist monarchy governing France at the time.

The Bastille was demolished by order of the Committee of the Hôtel de Ville during the revolution and souvenirs of the fortress were transported around France and displayed as icons of the overthrow of despotism. Over the next century, the site featured prominently in political protests and revolutions. Today the there is little of the site to be seen except for some stone foundations that were relocated to the side of the Boulevard Henri IV.

Both the American Revolutionary War and the build-up to the French Revolution provide a back drop to my new novel. Times of war and conflict are times of misery and heroism: Find out what happens to Dr Sinclair and Frank Greenwood in my novel, Sinclair, which will be available to read in the autumn of 2016.

Underhand tactics win the day for East India Company

Lord Clive meeting with Mir Jafar after the Battle of Plassey, oil on canvas 

(Francis Hayman, c. 1762)

On 23rd June 1757 the Battle of Plassey (Bengali: পলাশীর যুদ্ধ, Pôlashir Juddho) was won by the British East India Company over the Nawab of Bengal and his French allies. This battle consolidated the Company's presence in Bengal, and allowed them to dominate the sub-continent for the next hundred years.

Plassey lies on the banks of the Bhagirathi River, about 150 kilometres (93 miles) north of Calcutta and south of Murshidabad, then capital of Bengal (now in Nadia district in West Bengal).

Prior to the battle Robert Clive, Commander-in-Chief of British India, and soldier of fortune undermined the Nawab Siraj-ud-Daulah by bribing the his disgruntled army commander, Mir Jafar, promising him that he would make him Nawab if he won.

Siraj-ud-Daulah had a numerically superior force but Mir Jafar, along with his co-conspirators assembled their troops near the battlefield but made no move to actually join in when the fighting started. Siraj-ud-Daulah's army with 18,000 soldiers was defeated by 3,000 soldiers of Clive’s in just forty minutes.

After this battle the East India Company wielded enormous influence over the new Nawab and consequently acquired large concessions which enabled them to increase their revenues and military might which they used to push the other European colonial powers; the Dutch and the French out of South Asia.

My debut novel, Sinclair, begins on board an East Indiaman bound for Madras in 1786. I have based the beginning of the story on what happened to a real ship called the Halsewell which set out from Gravesend on New Year’s Day of that year with a contingent of fresh soldiers and military supplies for Fort St George in Madras. In the book I have called the ship the Sherwell as I have changed and added to the characters on board the original ship.

Like the real Halsewell the Sherwell never reaches its destination; it was brought to grief on the Dorset coast just 6 days later in one of the worst storms of the century.

Loss of the East Indiaman Halsewell by Robert Smirke

Of the 240 passengers and crew on board only 74 survive, my hero Sinclair is one of them. Find out how two young men; Dr James Sinclair and Captain Frank Greenwood, both on the brink of successful colonial careers with the East India Company rebuild their lives and search for meaning and love in the aftermath of this disaster in my new book called Sinclair which will be available this autumn.