Merchants and smugglers in eighteenth century Cornwall

By Charlotte MacKenzie

More has been written about smugglers than merchants in eighteenth century Cornwall. Yet Cornish merchants led and organised Cornwall’s eighteenth century trade including smuggling. This book places Cornwall’s merchants in the context of their social and family relationships, commerce and credit, politics, communications, know-how, culture, and faiths. It is a story of women as well as men. It looks at Cornwall’s participation in transatlantic trade including the eighteenth century slave trade.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Lulu.com
• Release date: Dec 16, 2020
• ISBN: 9781716324710

Book preview

Merchants and smugglers

in eighteenth century Cornwall

Charlotte MacKenzie

Cornwall History

2019

Copyright © Charlotte MacKenzie 2019

All rights reserved. Except as permitted under current legislation no part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means without prior written permission of the copyright owner.

First printing: 2019, epublished 2020

ISBN 978-1-716-32471-0

Published by Cornwall History, 1 Cornwall Terrace, Truro, TR1 3RT

Acknowledgements

Introduction

Cosmopolitan Cornwall

Politics, Jacobitism, and dissent

Women, family fortunes, and trade

Vicissitudes of fortune

Family disputes

Merchants, shipowners, and privateers

Smugglers, captains, and crew

Bankruptcy

Notes

Acknowledgements

The research for this book was possible because of the historical records, databases, and books which have been digitised and made available on the internet. Despite which it would not have been possible without access to other resources held by the British Library, Bristol Archives, Tremough campus library, Cornwall Library Service, Cornwall Record Office, Devon Archives and Local Studies Service, Huntington Library, London Metropolitan Archives, Morrab Library in Penzance, National Archives, National Maritime Museum Cornwall, Plymouth and West Devon Record Office, Priaulx Library in Guernsey, Royal Institution of Cornwall Courtney Library, Royal Society of Genealogists, and Surrey Heritage Centre. Thanks are due to all the archivists and librarians who responded to my research enquiries. Last but not least I am grateful to the National Gallery of Victoria for permission to reproduce the cover painting of ‘Mount Saint Michael, Cornwall’ by Clarkson Stanfield.

The research for this book was completed over several years. I have given presentations to many audiences in Cornwall who were always a valued sounding board for ideas and interpretation. ‘Merchants and smugglers in eighteenth-century Penzance: the brothers John and James Dunkin’ is published in the National Maritime Museum journal Troze (2016); my thanks to Cathryn Pearce for her drafting comments. I was honoured to be awarded the Cardew Rendle history prize in 2016 for ‘Cruel Copinger the women’s stories’ published in the Journal of the Royal Institution of Cornwall (2017). A grant from the Q fund in 2017 aided my research on the Cornish mariner Joseph Banfield which is drawn on here.

Particular thanks to: Dr Kathleen Chater for generously sharing information from her database in addition to Untold histories: black people in England and Wales during the period of the British slave trade 1660-1807 (Manchester University Press, 2011); Tony Pawlyn of the National Maritime Museum Cornwall for making available his transcripts of several cases in which John Dunkin was a party; Penny Watts-Russell for sharing copies of documents and commenting on drafts related to Pascoe Grenfell of Marazion and his family, and drawing my attention to the uncatalogued William Borlase ‘Costs book’.

Charlotte MacKenzie

Introduction

‘there is not the poorest family in any parish which has not its tea, its snuff, and tobacco, and (when they have money or credit) brandy’

William Borlase, The natural history of Cornwall, 1758

When Britain was a maritime kingdom Cornwall was not at the periphery. Cornish coastal communities and shipping formed part of the ‘dense networks’ of eighteenth century coastal and overseas trade.¹ The packet service carrying mail overseas from Falmouth made Cornwall a hub of global communications. Mining contributed to the expansion of maritime trade and port capacity, and placed Cornwall at the centre of new technological developments. Traders in Cornwall were drawn from a range of social backgrounds, cultures, and faiths. As the eighteenth century progressed social and family relationships were contested and redrawn as new economic and cultural values took root. Causes from Jacobitism to Jacobinism resounded in Cornwall. Politically eighteenth century Cornwall was closely interconnected with London returning 44 members of parliament at Westminster one less than Scotland from 1707.

Many of Cornwall’s large houses and gardens were a legacy of eighteenth century merchants. This book places Cornwall’s eighteenth century merchants in the context of their social and family relationships, commerce and credit, politics, communications, know-how, culture, and faiths; it is a story of women as well as men. Many eighteenth century traders, including some whose families prospered and advanced the most, invested in mining, fisheries, Cornish properties, and shipping. Late eighteenth century shipowners in the ports of Penzance and Fowey were predominantly local merchants, shopkeepers, mariners, and artisans including shipwrights who were willing to invest in transportation but not necessarily wealthy.² Shared ownership and the fact that owners could transfer their shares individually created a market in which trading ships, like mines and seines, were open to small scale investors hoping to obtain more than the 3 per cent on government bonds.

The history of Cornwall’s mining technology, maritime industry, and fishing communities, have been the subject of valuable recent studies.³ Throughout the eighteenth century ships made transatlantic voyages to and from Cornish ports. Yet as Brycchan Carey noted Cornwall’s ‘historiography has little to say on the question of Cornish involvement in slavery’.⁴ This book briefly identifies four interconnections between Cornwall and the transatlantic slave trade. Firstly evidence of the direct participation of eighteenth century Cornish merchants, shipowners, and mariners in trade with Africa, the transatlantic slave and plantations trade. Secondly the evidence of black people in Cornwall. Thirdly public engagement in Cornwall for and against abolition of the slave trade and slavery. Finally the relationships between some eighteenth century Cornish politicians and trade with Africa, the transatlantic slave and plantations trade.

Smuggling in eighteenth century Cornwall has been written about often yet little is understood about its organisation or impacts. The evasion of Customs duties by Cornish merchants was an established dimension of trade in the late seventeenth century. Some Cornish merchants evaded export duties, most notably in the tin trade, or dispatched and carried goods to merchants overseas with the intention of evading duties at the destination port.⁵ Throughout the eighteenth century many ships returning to or calling at Cornish ports carried goods which it was intended to smuggle; this included some ships belonging to ports in colonial America or other European countries. Channel crossings and coastal journeys were frequently made for the purpose of smuggling. In the later eighteenth century merchants at Roscoff in Britanny and at Guernsey were the major suppliers of goods smuggled into Cornwall through regular Channel crossings. Shipmasters, mariners, and fishermen sailing for other reasons sometimes supplemented their incomes from contraband. Trading and packet ships returning from Spain, Portugal, Mediterranean or Atlantic voyages often carried items on which it was intended to evade paying the legal duties. Smuggling in eighteenthcentury Cornwall was both organised and opportunist; it was integral to the expansion of trade, infrastructure, the income of seafarers, and the standard of living in many Cornish households.

This book considers the organisation of eighteenth century smuggling in relation to Cornwall’s overseas shipping, other industries, and commerce including merchants trading in London. Hoh-Cheung and Lorna Mui argued that during the eighteenth century smuggling underwent a transition from being organised by provincial shopkeepers and traders with little capital or credit who were supplanted by London merchants.⁶ This trend was less evident in Cornwall where tin and copper mining forged locally led strong connections with metropolitan and overseas markets which were already well established by the early eighteenth century.⁷ Cornish merchants were active in the Newfoundland fisheries and although this participation declined in the eighteenth century Cornwall continued to process and export fish to European markets supplying return cargoes which were sometimes subject to smuggling. During eighteenth century wars at sea some provincial shipowners in Cornwall were relatively successful privateers.⁸ Merchants at Roscoff and Guernsey supplied goods on credit and retained agents in Cornwall. Cornish traders purchased, shipped, and distributed cargoes to retailers or individual customers; some Guernsey merchants also directly organised as well as supplied smuggling runs to Cornwall. Participation in smuggling was widespread and as Tony Pawlyn has shown included fishing boats and men.⁹ Channel trade was adversely affected by the revolutionary and Napoleonic wars at sea. During these years some notable merchants and smugglers proved vulnerable to credit closure.

The extent and nature of active or tacit support for smuggling in Cornwall and varied reasons for it merit consideration. The possibility that a willingness to countenance the evasion of duties might signal disloyalty to the Crown, religious, or political dissent informed the organisation of the Customs service in the early 1680s.¹⁰ From Scotland to Sussex it has been demonstrated that eighteenth century smuggling and Jacobitism intertwined. European merchants who originated from Scotland and Ireland smuggled contraband to London merchants; some were part of the networks carrying messages, conspirators, and recruits for the Jacobite cause.¹¹ Jacobitism and smuggling were both evident in Cornwall in the early eighteenth century where the possibility of similar interconnections has not previously been explored. From Scotland to Sussex the evasion of duties and organised opposition to the Hanoverian monarchy shared some common support across social divides;¹² yet smuggling continued after Jacobitism receded.

Smuggling in eighteenth century Cornwall was led and organised by merchants. The populism of smuggling in rural Sussex in the 1740s was highlighted by Cal Winslow who suggested that ‘The protection of smuggling was in part a defence of the local economy as against the development of commercial capitalism’.¹³ By the early eighteenth century Cornwall had experienced decline in domestic textile production and some fisheries.¹⁴ Technological innovation and expansion of mining led by local merchants who were capitalists counterbalanced the decline in some of Cornwall’s other traditional industries. Nonetheless many food riots in Cornwall targeted the grain stores of individual merchants or farmers who were seen as profiteers. 

Fiscal policies played a part. From 1688 customs and excise duties were increased or introduced on a wide range of goods. Some of these new taxes had substantial impacts on Cornish industries, traders, and consumers. The introduction of salt duty from 1694 increased costs in Cornwall’s fisheries which used large quantities of salt to process fish; the mines merchant William Lemon of Truro lobbied successfully for coal to fuel mine engines to be made exempt from duties in the early 1740s. Throughout the eighteenth century revenue was predominantly derived from consumers rather than land or income tax. Merchants, fish curers, innkeepers, shopkeepers, and their customers might purchase items more cheaply or increase profits when duties went unpaid; and perhaps because of this smuggling was actively engaged in or tacitly tolerated by people in many walks of life.¹⁵ This included women who made decisions as household consumers or traders. Smuggling contributed to the expansion of household consumption in Cornwall. By 1758 William Borlase commented that ‘there is not the poorest family in any parish which has not its tea, its snuff, and tobacco, and (when they have money or credit) brandy’.¹⁶ Demand for contraband reduced after the Government cut duties on some commodities in 1783; but Pitt’s 15 per cent ‘shop tax’ based on the rental value of retail premises in 1785-9 generated petitions of protest from shopkeepers in Cornwall whose customers remained inimicable to paying more for their shopping.¹⁷

Throughout the long eighteenth century successive changes to the duties payable on imports and exports, the Customs service, penalties for smuggling, wars at sea, and the extent to which overseas trade was monopolised through royal charters altered the context within which merchants traded. In the late seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries the penalties for smuggling were mainly financial. The 1745 Act introduced severe penalties for smuggling but there were few convictions and fewer executions in places which were geographically distant from London.¹⁸ As the law allowed some trials for smuggling on the Cornish coast were held in London.

Merchant networks, family relationships, and faith communities were formative factors in eighteenth century trade providing a trusted basis for payments or credit in foreign territories and geographically distributed locations. Anglicans, Baptists, Catholics, Jews, Methodists, Presbyterians, and Quakers traded in eighteenth century Cornwall but did not all share the same religious or civic freedoms. When Britain was at war some British merchants living overseas moved temporarily to Cornwall; merchants at Guernsey and Roscoff who supplied Cornish smugglers retained agents in Cornwall or travelled to collect payments themselves. Marriages in Cornish merchant families established family relationships between traders and with some of Cornwall’s great landowning dynasties. Commercial and family disputes shed light on the trading activities and domestic lives of some merchants in Cornwall. Not all of the families whose experiences are included in this book had any known involvement in smuggling.

Family and other longstanding relationships between some Cornish smugglers also provided a context of trust for illegal activities which carried severe penalties in law. The Carters of Prussia Cove were not the only example of eighteenth century families in Cornwall with several brothers or brothers in law who were mariners, shipowners, and smugglers. Some shipowners who were smugglers worked with the same captains over decades and some mariners were listed alongside each other on crew lists for privateers and smuggling expeditions from the late 1770s to the early 1790s. Women as well as men made decisions about household consumption and some influenced their sons’ choices of occupation. Some women kept shops and inns or public houses; in March 1786 a customs officer noted ‘the largest retail Smuggler in the west of Cornwall’ was a ‘Lady’.¹⁹ Women in Cornwall were occasionally employed in occupations more traditionally associated with men; at Cawsand in 1782 Samuel Kelly was surprised to see contraband ‘carried through the streets in open day... In this port women frequently ply in boats, as watermen, which I believe is scarcely the case in any other part of Britain’.²⁰

Faith buoyed and carried some eighteenth century seafarers who knew the dangers of the sea including some who participated in smuggling. The Cornish smuggler Henry Carter narrated his experiences of Methodism, smuggling, and seafaring with equally serious self absorption. In editing the life story of the eighteenth century Cornish mariner Samuel Kelly, Crosbie Garstin said he halved the manuscript by cutting Kelly’s tendency to ‘moralize on the insecurity of life’, biblical quotes, and hymns. This means that the published version is an incomplete reflection of the turbulence of Kelly’s emotions in recalling his experiences as a Cornish mariner; but Kelly’s accounts of smuggling made the final cut. Carter and Kelly both held themselves aloof from fellow mariners some of whose behaviour they found offensive; but were able to reconcile their own actions, which in Carter’s case included killing a man whilst smuggling, with their faith. In the eighteenth century the experience of life as fraught with unpredictability, instances of violence, and risk of disaster was not unique to seafarers or smugglers.

The lives of two brothers named John and James Dunkin encompassed so many recurrent themes of eighteenth century picaresque and romantic fiction that they would not be out of place in a Cornish historical novel. They were orphans and apprentices, artisans with aspiration who became privateer, ship, and mine owners; and they experienced many vicissitudes of life and fortune. Ship wrecks and rescues, smuggling, legal disputes including with Boulton and Watt, one seemingly happy marriage, two love affairs and children outside marriage, murder, escaping the gallows, bankruptcy, and madness. John and James Dunkin owned a total of eleven trading ships more than one in four of those registered at the port of Penzance in 1786-91.

This book tells the story of Cornwall’s eighteenth century merchants in the round. The first two chapters set the scene by identifying characteristics of life and trade in Cornwall in the late seventeenth and early eighteenth century including the impact of politics and religious dissent. The next three chapters look at women, family fortunes, and upward social mobility. The following chapter focuses on Cornwall’s maritime trade, shipowners, and privateers. The final two chapters focus on the experiences of smugglers, captains, and crew members including some who were debtors, outlaws, or bankrupts. The discussion of privateers and smugglers includes a fresh account of the Carters of Prussia Cove drawing on evidence from family history, the journals of the Carters’ attorney Christopher Wallis, newspapers, property, and shipping records some of which are used here for the first time to tell the Carters’ story.²¹

Cosmopolitan Cornwall

‘A True-Bred Merchant ... understands Languages without Books, Geography without Maps; his Journals and Trading-Voyages delineate the World’

Daniel Defoe, Review, 3 January 1706

Cornish merchants and shipowners engaged in coastal and overseas trade participating in most of the leading eighteenth century markets in Britain’s maritime economy. In 1700 Cornwall’s participation in the Newfoundland fisheries was reduced to sending one ship from Falmouth, but many ships from Cornish ports carried fish and other marketable products such as textiles to the Iberian or Italian peninsula, the Canaries, or Madeira returning with cargoes of salt, wine, and other goods. By the second decade of the eighteenth century Cornwall accounted for between 25 and 30 per cent of Britain’s southern European trade.²² The Cornish Quaker George Fox of Par was a grocer described by one of his grandsons as ‘a respectable provincial Merchant’ in the first half of the eighteenth century who had ‘two small vessels of his own in which he maintained a constant trade between Bilbao in Spain and the place of his residence besides an extended internal wholesale trade among the various dealers in the county’.²³ Portuguese bullion arrived at Falmouth, the home port for the Lisbon packet service, before being transported by road to London. The demand of the mining industry for timber, the fishing industry for salt, and Cornish retailers for consumer goods including cloth, tea, tobacco, sugar, wine, spirits, and other household items created an open market for inward cargoes including contraband. North European trade routes supplied the demand for tea and spirits as well as shipping materials such as sailcloth and timber.

Cornwall’s overseas trade was predominantly with regions where commerce was least restricted including the Iberian peninsula and Mediterranean, some northern European ports, and colonial America. Falmouth was the pre-eminent port in Cornwall for trade with the American colonies and West Indies. A small number of shipowners at Fowey and Penzance also engaged in transatlantic trade. Dutch shipping was important to Cornish ports in the century of peaceful relations which followed the end of the third Anglo-Dutch war. At least five return voyages between Amsterdam and New York for the Dutch born New York merchant Frederick Philipse and his wife Margaret Hardenbroeck called at Falmouth in 1679-81.²⁴

Merchants in Cornwall had ambitions to trade in Africa and the East Indies. Landowners in eighteenth century Cornwall included some individuals who had acquired a fortune through trading overseas. Thomas ‘Diamond’ Pitt purchased Boconnoc after selling ‘the regent’ diamond in 1717 which he had acquired through personal trade while he was employed by the East India Company. Ships sailing to and from the African coast sometimes called at Falmouth; a Royal African Company ship the Guynie returning from Cape Coast with a valuable cargo of beeswax, ivory, redwood, and Portuguese merchants’ gold called at Falmouth to await a safe convoy to London in February 1691.²⁵ In the early 1700s several independent trading ships sailed from Falmouth bound for Africa. From 1789 the East India Company exported Cornish tin to China.

Mining, minerals, and maritime trade brought people, employment, better quays, and new technologies to Cornwall. Some tin was exported and tinships made regular return journeys between Cornwall and London where many Cornish mine merchants had offices and agents. From the 1690s Thomas Treluddra was an agent at Chepstow where he organised regular shippings of copper ore from Cornwall for smelting works on the banks of the river Wye; these works processed almost 1000 tons a year of Cornish copper ore in the closing years of the decade.²⁶ As mines were taken to deeper levels increased quantities of timber and coal were carried to Cornwall to meet the demands of the industry. In the late eighteenth century English porcelain makers travelled to Cornwall to source china clay. The vicar of Ludgvan William Borlase believed his ‘Countrymen’ had been the subject of a firstcentury BC description of tin traders who were ‘especially hospitable to strangers and have adopted a civilised manner of life because of their intercourse with merchants of other peoples. They it is who work the tin, treating the bed which bears it in an ingenious manner.’²⁷ Eighteenth century travellers writing about Cornwall commented on the mines and many noted the hospitality of people.

Merchants in Cornwall acquired control of tin mining, processing, and trading during the interregnum after the royal monopoly on the buying and selling of tin (the ‘pre-emption’) temporarily ceased. The pre-emption resumed at the restoration but proved difficult to re-establish and was mostly unused. Export duties became the main source of revenue from tin. London merchants and pewterers were less involved in organising the mining and trading of Cornish tin. Coastal traders continued to carry tin to London with at least seven tinships from Cornwall making regular return journeys in the early 1680s. The Falmouth merchant Bryan Rogers joined a consortium of London merchants to whom the pre-emption was briefly farmed by James II in 1688. During the reign of Queen Anne two seven year contracts in 1703 and 1710 set an agreed price for the quantity of tin which was purchased by the Crown but the pre-emption lapsed again when the second of these expired in 1717.²⁸

The increased involvement of Cornish merchants and local control of tin mining, processing, and trading coincided with growing demand for tin. It was associated with greater investment and employment in tin mining and processing, some technical improvements, the introduction of larger mines, new blowing houses, increased output, exports to a wider range of markets, and evasion of export duties. In the early 1660s a merchant ‘Mr Goodall of Fowey’ regularly transported tin and wool on a vessel from St Malo without paying export duties.²⁹ Tin mines and blowing houses stimulated technical innovation and curiosity drawing visitors to Cornwall. The growth of maritime trade associated with mining required increased shipping capacity and prompted the development of new port infrastructure. Cornish merchants became increasingly aware of the commercial potential of reaching new markets. The prevalence of Cornish landowners and merchants as owners of tin and copper mines in Cornwall continued into the early nineteenth century.

Falmouth and John Vermuyden

Falmouth was developed as a port during the seventeenth century. Initial development at Smithick had been enabled partly by demand for victualling of merchant mariners from the Dutch Republic. The granting of Falmouth’s town charter in 1661 led to further building between Smithick and Arwenack House including the parish church. Killigrew leases of land in Falmouth required occupants to build. Victuallers, mariners, fish merchants, millers, apothecaries, ship chandlers, blockmakers, drapers, pewterers, goldsmiths, attorneys, and shipwrights built homes, businesses, and meeting houses around Falmouth’s waterfront. Sir Peter Killigrew of Arwenack House built the town quay at Falmouth in the early 1670s.

By 1679 a traveller from the Dutch Republic Jasper Danckaerts expected Falmouth and Penryn to be ‘large and capital towns’. Penryn was larger than Falmouth and both boroughs had well established inns, taverns, shops, and mail offices. Travelling as passengers from Amsterdam to New York on a ship which called at Falmouth Danckaerts and his companion Peter Sluyter initially stayed at the English Ship in Penryn where they conversed with the landlord in French because his Dutch and their English were less fluent. The travellers received letters, and sent their replies at the Penryn office next to the White Dolphin where they were advised that items dispatched on Thursday would be in London by Monday. Once their ship had loaded its cargo Danckaerts and Sluyter returned to Falmouth dining more than once and staying a final night at the Golden Fleece. Before leaving they returned to Penryn to buy butter and went to the annual market there where they purchased some items which they hoped to be able to make a profit by selling. In Falmouth they called at the shop ‘over the door’ of Bryan Rogers and purchased other items including a small piece of tin, brandy, and vinegar; and paid their Customs duties. They purchased items and paid duties with Dutch coins which were readily accepted by Cornish traders who reimbursed an overpayment of £1 after an error was made while calculating in both coinages.³⁰

In the early 1670s Killigrew was said to have accepted a proposal from the visiting engineer ‘Vermuden’ to bring a fresh water supply to the town quay and build new mills.³¹ This was probably the mining engineer and surveyor John Vermuyden who later held the lease to one of the Killigrew estate mills.³² John Vermuyden exemplified some of the commercial influences which grew in importance in Cornwall as the eighteenth century progressed and for that reason his origins and professional employment are outlined here. The Vermuyden family was part of the well connected metropolitan elite who were interested in expanding trade, technical expertise, and discovery. John Vermuyden was the son of the Dutch born engineer Sir Cornelius Vermuyden and his wife Katherine Laps the daughter of a Dutch merchant. Sir Cornelius Vermuyden completed several large land drainage schemes. John Vermuyden followed in his father’s footsteps as an engineer while two of his brothers trained in law and a third was a physician.

Sir Cornelius Vermuyden owned the Dovegang lead mine at Wirksworth in Derbyshire, where he had built the first sough in the 1630s-50s, and which was then valued by commissioners as the most profitable of the Wirksworth mines in 1652.³³ Sir Cornelius Vermuyden moved to a large house on Channel Row in Westminster in the 1650s where he resided until his death in 1677. In his twenties John Vermuyden managed his father’s interest in the Dovegang mine and was living in Derbyshire where his ‘supposed son’ John was christened and buried at Longford in February 1657. By the time he arrived at Falmouth John Vermuyden had acquired a broad knowledge of mines, mining, and commerce in Britain and overseas.

John’s eldest brother the younger Cornelius Vermuyden was an investor in and one of six committee members of the company of the Royal Adventurers into Africa. In 1663 the younger Cornelius Vermuyden was elected as a Fellow of the Royal Society. These two organisations were described as twin sisters in an early history of the Royal Society suggesting that trade and knowledge might be extended together in the interests of growing prosperity. Several Fellows of the Royal Society were patentees or administrators in the sequential companies established to trade with Africa; encouraging commercial ventures to accommodate exploration and scientific enquiry which were then reported to and informed the research and discussions of Fellows of the Royal Society.³⁴

As a mining engineer and surveyor John Vermuyden completed two expeditions on the Gambia river for the company of the Royal Adventurers into Africa to discover and report on the potential for gold mines. During the first company venture led by Captain Robert Holmes in 1660-1 two islands on the river were seized which they named Charles and James islands after their royal patrons; James island assumed strategic importance as a trading centre and fort in the region. Curiosity abounded when Captain Robert Holmes returned to London with a baboon. Samuel Pepys noted in his diary

The strange creature that Captain Holmes hath brought with him from Guiny; it is a great baboon, but so much like a man in most things, that though they say there is a species of them, yet I cannot believe but that it is a monster got of a man and she-baboon. I do believe that it already understands much English, and I am of the mind it might be taught to speak or make signs.³⁵

On this occasion John Vermuyden briefly travelled upriver on the Kinsale to Elephant island before returning to James island.³⁶

John Vermuyden commenced his second Gambia river expedition in December 1661 reaching the highest point to which he travelled upriver in April 1662. In a boat which was described by Robert Boyle as a ‘frigat’ Vermuyden travelled with seven ‘English men’ and four ‘blacks’ including a ‘maribuck’ who spoke Portuguese. The boat carried mining gear, provisions, personal arms, and tradeable items such as beads, looking glasses, ‘knives 18d. per dozen’, and ‘little brass chains’. A brief narrative account of the expedition did not describe any settlements or other people on the riverbanks or river during their journey; but noted natural hazards including one occasion when their boat was holed by a ‘seahorse’ or hippopotamus and another when some of the men were confronted onland by a troop of baboons. Vermuyden advised that future expeditions should use a flat-bottomed vessel and carry a smaller boat. Vermuyden reported that after four months they reached ‘rocky and mountainous’ land where they found substantial deposits of gold. He believed they had travelled further up the Gambia river than ‘any boat, nor any Christians’. They extracted ore yielding over 12 pounds of gold before returning down river.³⁷ John Vermuyden kept a journal of this expedition which also produced a hand-drawn to scale chart with soundings of the Gambia river.³⁸

The brief narrative description of John Vermuyden’s successful expedition was written in the first person and may have been made available to the Fellows of the Royal Society. After returning from Africa John Vermuyden was one of the travellers questioned regarding his observations of temperature, climate, and skin colour by the scientist and Founder Fellow of the Royal Society Robert Boyle.³⁹ The written account of Vermuyden’s expedition included observations on the surface terrain, soil colour, and vegetation which he associated with gold deposits, and issues in processing the ore. Vermuyden’s gold mine prospecting observations were probably one of the sources which informed Robert Boyle’s series of questions in his ‘Articles of inquiries concerning mines; as, to the neighbouring country about them; the soyl where they are; the signes of them; the structure and other particulars belonging to the mines themselves; the nature and circumstances of ore; and the reduction of ore into metal’.⁴⁰ In 1662 when John Vermuyden had completed his successful expedition Robert Hooke was working as Robert Boyle’s assistant and it was in a posthumous publication of papers which had been in Hooke’s possession that the manuscript account of Vermuyden’s expedition was published for the first time in 1726.

The narrative account of Vermuyden’s expedition was rich in obfuscation while showing that he had opportunities to profit personally by concealing some of the gold collected. After finding gold up river Vermuyden said that he ‘was more troubled to obscure its Abundance from my Fellows, than to bring down what I got’; and that some ore had been processed after he returned to England. He declared himself ‘content with what Proportion it hath pleased God to assign me, as well as with the King’s Revenues’ while saying that he did not wish to be involved in any further expeditions.⁴¹ When