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This page is part of a website based
on the life and achievements of eighteenth-century inventor Henry Cort. Please email site controller Eric Alexander
with any comments or queries. |
The navy
agent’s finances
It is clear that Cort receives a respectable income
as a navy agent, although there are few clues about
its sources. For one thing, he employs at
least one clerk.
The
most notable one is John Kendrick. As
early as 1762, pension records show him receiving widows' remittances on behalf
of Batty & Cort. He witnesses Dandy
Kidd's will in 1772. Later he will set
up his own agency in Crutched Friars.
In
1770 the job of collecting widow's pensions passes from Kendrick to a new
clerk, Richard Ashton. Cort is not
always happy with Ashton's work, blaming him for difficulties that lead to Parry's lawsuit.
A
third clerk named by Cort is James Charronneau, who with Kendrick draws up an
account for Coningsby Norbury that Cort will have to explain away many years
later. Probably the same clerk who
witnesses Cort’s first marriage.
So how is this income obtained?
Some accounts say Cort charges a
commission: this is not apparent from the accounts submitted for the Clarke or Parry lawsuits.
On the other hand, the account
submitted for Coningsby Norbury by Oliver Toulmin, who takes over Cort's clients after
1773, shows Toulmin deducting a 2.5% commission (six pence per pound, in days
when the pound contains 240 pence) from each remittance of Norbury's half-pay.
Cort's accounts do, however,
cite interest on accounts in the red.
This occurs quite frequently: officers making purchases abroad debit
their accounts, which will not be squared until they return and receive their pay. They are effectively running an overdraft,
and Cort charges interest as any banker would.
Doubtless he acts like a banker,
too, for accounts in the black, using the surplus to invest on his own
behalf. There are certainly instances
of Cort lending out or investing money.
In 1782, long after the end of his period as navy agent, he is reckoned
to be owed some £6,500.
Although some navy agents are
involved in salvage contracts, PRO records show no evidence for this in Cort’s
business.
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It remained generally true that no rating, and officers
only to a very limited extent, could draw their pay in cash before the ship
paid off. All those discharged from
the ship before then (and ships discharged 50 per cent of their companies a
year on average) received only a ticket for their wages, encashable on board
on the day of paying off, and thereafter at periodic 'recalls'. These tickets could be assigned, and there
was a flourishing trade in buying tickets at a discount. From
N.A.M. Rodger, The Wooden World (London, 1986) |
The market must have been flooded with foreign coins after 1742
and 1762, when British ships captured the Spanish galleons bringing to Spain
the year's accumulated treasure from its American possessions. Their value was distributed in specie among the crews. The Navy pay office made this as difficult
as possible. Litigation dragged on
for years. From
Liza Picard, Dr Johnson's London (Weiden-feld & Nicholson 2000) |
Prize money was not divided throughout the fleet,
but only to those crews who were actually present at the capture of the
prize. There could therefore accrue
to individual Officers and men a number of prizes in which they were
interested, but it would take years before the actual prize money was
received. When the Officers and often
illiterate seamen were at sea, they could not possibly deal with the legal
and financial formalities in obtaining the prize money due to them. So grew up the practice of Prize Agency. From
Geoffrey Green, The Royal Navy and Anglo
Jewry 1740-1820 (1989) |
It is evident from these
quotations that there is potentially a fortune to be made from buying up
entitlements to pay and prize money.
Although there is no record of Cort ever acting as official Prize Agent,
he may still have benefited from the entitlements of his clients up to the end
of the Severn Years War in 1763. He can
go to the Prize Agent and collect the award on the client’s behalf, possibly
deriving some income for himself in the process. Such transactions will not appear in the National
Archives.
Better still if he acts for any
of the crew of His Majesty’s ships Active
and Favourite, who capture the Spanish treasure ship Ermiona in 1762. Her haul is reckoned to be worth some
£1.6 million (nearly £100 million at today's prices), with total prize money
assessed as £519,705.
The ships' captains and their
admiral get the lion's share: £65,000 apiece.
The humble seaman (normally on
nineteen shillings a month) is eventually awarded an entitlement of £485. Long enough to wait before the sum is
decided: how much longer before he actually receives it?
Put yourself in his
position. You have a ticket which
entitles you to claim your bounty money.
You are supposed to hold on to it while the powers-that-be work out your
share. Then you have to go to the right
place, where the Prize Agent will present you with your award.
Or you can sell your ticket to
someone with money up-front. What he
pays may turn out to be less than your entitlement. But could you resist an offer of, say, £200?
Very profitable for a middleman
who can buy up a few dozen tickets, notching up an eventual profit of some £300
per ticket. Do Batty, Cort or any of
their employees ever act as such middlemen?
Once again National Archives don’t provide the answer.
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Related pages |
henrycort.net
nb