ition from the
Company. Trading companies to the East Indies were also chartered by
Holland, France, Denmark, and Sweden; that of Holland being the oldest.

[25] In this sample invoice the amount seems extraordinary. The editor
of this volume, however, considers his duty ended when he gives a
faithful transcript of the manuscript in his possession, allowing the
facts alone to appear.

[26] Sir Brook Watson, a merchant of London, and Lord Mayor in 1796,
born in Plymouth, England, February 7, 1735, died October 2, 1807. Early
in life he entered the sea service, but, while bathing in the harbor of
Havana, in 1749, a shark bit off his right leg, below the knee, and he
was obliged to abandon his chosen profession. A painting, by Copley,
represents this scene. Watson then became a merchant, and was a
commissary to the British troops in Canada, in 1755 and in 1758.
Visiting the American colonies just before the Revolution, he professed
himself a Whig, but intercepted letters showed his true character to be
that of a spy. In 1782, he was commissary-general to his friend, Sir Guy
Carleton, in America; held the same office with the Duke of York, in
1793-95, and that of Commissary-General of England, in 1798-1806. He was
a member of Parliament from London, in 1784-93; sheriff of London and
Middlesex in 1785, and was made a baronet December 5, 1803. As a reward
for his services in America, Parliament voted his wife an annuity of
L500 for life.

[27] Hon. Thomas Walpole, merchant, banker, and member of Parliament,
second son of Horatio, first Lord Walpole, and nephew of the famous
statesman, Sir Robert Walpole, died at Chiswick, March 21, 1803. He was
born October 25, 1727.

[28] William Ancrum, was a loyalist, of Charleston, S.C., He was
banished in 1782, and his property was confiscated.

[29] Richard, son of Francis Clarke, merchant, graduated at Harvard
College, in 1729, and died in London, at the residence of his
son-in-law, John Singleton Copley, the artist, February 27, 1795. He,
with his sons, Richard and Jonathan, constituting the firm of Richard
Clarke & Sons, did business in King (now State) Street, and became
exceedingly obnoxious to the people, on their refusal to resign their
appointment as factors of the East India Company's tea. The residence of
the Clarke's, on School Street, (corner of Chapman Place,) was mobbed on
the evening of November 17, 1773, but no serious damage was done. (This
incident is fully detai