^{page 89 note 1} Barbados ‘expanded’ in the sense that she helped to people other colonies; many left in the 'sixties and 'seventies of the seventeenth century to settle. Surinam, Jamaica and St. Lucia. But taking the West Indies as a whole, the movement was an increase and redistribution of population rather than a territoral expansion. See Chandler, A. D., ‘The Expansion of Barbados’, Journal of the Barbados Museum and Historical Society, xiii (1945–1946), 106–36Google Scholar.

^{page 89 note 2} J. A. Williamson, The Caribee Islands under the Proprietary Patents, chapter x.

^{page 89 note 3} Andrews, C. M., British Committees, Commissions and Councils of Trade and Plantations, 1622–1675, p. IIIGoogle Scholar.

^{page 90 note 1} For example, Calendar of State Papers, Colonial, 1677–80, nos. 387 and 889; Public Record Office, Treasury, (Expired Commissions) 70, 169, fo. 45r.

^{page 90 note 2} Penson, L. M., The Colonial Agents of the British West Indies, pp. 181–3Google Scholar.

^{page 90 note 3} Ibid., chapters ii, iii, ix.

^{page 91 note 1} Sir Peter Colleton, Sir Edwin Stede and Christopher Jeaffreson are examples of these three types of West Indian.

^{page 92 note 2} Blake family records, described in Caribbeana, ed. Oliver, V. L., i. 51–7Google Scholar.

^{page 92 note 3} The principal authorities are the works of G. L. Beer; C. M. Andrews, the Colonial Period in American History, especially vols. ii and iv; V. T. Harlow, A History of Barbados, 1625–1685; C. S. S. Higham, The Development of the Leeward Islands under the Restoration; F. W. Pitman, The Development of the British West Indies; Richard Pares, A West-India Fortune; O. P. Starkey, The Economic Geography of Barbados; Noel Deerr, A History of Sugar; Caribbeana, ed. V. L. Oliver; A Young Squire of the Seventeenth Century, ed. J. C. Jeaffreson; Autobiography of William Stout, ed. J. Harland; Richard Ligon, A True and Exact History of the Island of Barbadoes; Dalby Thomas, An Historical Account of the Rise and Growth of the West-India Collonies; John Oldmixon, The British Empire in America; Edward Littleton, The Groans of the Plantations; Thomas Tryon, Letters Domestick and Foreign to Several Persons of Quality. The manuscript sources used in this paper are the Entry Books of Bills of Exchange of the Royal African Company, Public Record Office, Treasury 70, 269–77 and 282, and the Letter Books of the same Company, principally T. 70/1, 10, 12, 15–17, 20.

^{page 92 note 1} A brilliant picture of the working of a commission house in the later eighteenth century has been given by Professor Pares in A West-India Fortune. Unfortunately the Pinneys did not go into the business until 1783. The subject of the rise of the commission system was touched upon by ProfessorPenson, , The Colonial Agents of the British West Indies, pp. 10Google Scholar ff. Material for comparison is to be found in Bassett, J. S., ‘The Relations between the Virginia Planter and the London Merchant’, Annual Report of the American Historical Association for 1901, i 553–75Google Scholar, and in Donnan, Elizabeth, ‘Eighteenth-Century English Merchants: Micajah Perry’, Journal of Economic and Business History, iv (1931–2), 70Google Scholar.

^{page 92 note 2} Caribbeana, ii. 2–7, for a description of a Chancery suit, Littleton v. Bullock.

^{page 92 note 3} For the extent of Dutch trade, see Beer, G. L., The Origins of the British Colonial System, pp. 357–9Google Scholar; Brit. Mus., Add. MS. 11411, fos. 3V–5V.; Thomas, Dalby, An Historical Account of the Rise and Growth of the West-India Collonies (1690), pp. 36–7Google Scholar.

^{page 93 note 1} A True and Exact History of the Island of Barbadoes (1673), pp. 109–12.

^{page 93 note 2} Brit. Mus., Add. MS. 11411, fos. 78V.–79V., Thomas Povey to Edward Bradbourn.

^{page 93 note 3} A West-India Fortune, pp. 32–5.

^{page 93 note 4} Autobiography, ed. Harland, J., pp. 54 ffGoogle Scholar.

^{page 93 note 5} A West-India Fortune, p. 35.

^{page 94 note 1} Oldmixon, J., The British Empire in America (1708), ii. 155Google Scholar. An account rendered by Edward Thornburgh to the Assembly of Barbados, of the sale of 30 butts of sugar illustrates the type and scale of charges which an agent defrayed, P.R.O., Colonial Office, 31, 2, pp. 112–13. Three per cent, was the regular charge for commission and brokerage combined; see a report by John Eyles, Benjamin Skutt and John Bawden (all commission agents) on the accounts of the Barbados Four-and-a-half Per Cent. Duty, in Calendar of Treasury Books, 1679–80, p. 513Google Scholar.

^{page 95 note 1} P.R.O., T. 70/269–77 and 282. The entry books for the years 1700–27 are of little value.

^{page 95 note 2} These are gross figures, including bills drawn not by planters but by syndicates of contractors who bought negroes from the Company. They include also the very small (until 1690) number of bills which were protested.

^{page 96 note 1} Thus Justus Birkin drew on James Birkin, Katherine Bentley on Sir Martin Benttey, Emanuel Hulson on Thomas Hulson, etc.

^{page 96 note 2} P.R.O., T. 70/17, fo. 61r.

^{page 96 note 3} A West-India Fortune, pp. 172, 254–8.

^{page 96 note 4} For example, A Young Squire of the Seventeenth Century, ed. Jeaffreson, J. C., ii. 50Google Scholar.

^{page 97 note 1} In 1681 the debt stood at £120,000; in 1685 at £136,000; in 1690 at £170,000; in 1694 at £128,000; in 1696 at £140,000; details from annual statements of the assets of the Company in P.R.O. T. 70/101. The floating debt must at times have made the total outstanding very much larger.

^{page 97 note 2} In 1700 the Governor of Jamaica (a former agent of the Company and possibly a prejudiced witness) wrote to the Council of Trade and Plantations: ‘Another fatal thing to the settling and increasing these Plantations is the merchants of London have never left soliciting against the Royal Company under pretence they would supply negroes more plentiful and cheap, till they have gotten them out and themselves in, and whereas the Royal Company usually supplied negroes at £22 and £24 per head and gave 6, 8 and 12 months' credit, now the Merchants sell for £34 per head and give no credit at all’; (Cal. S. P. Col., 1700, p. 19).

^{page 97 note 3} Oldmixon, J., The British Empire in America (1708), ii. 167Google Scholar.

^{page 98 note 1} Oldmixon, J., The British Empire in America (1708), ii, 167Google Scholar. Three copies of a bill were normally sent by different ships, so that if one miscarried the others would arrive.

^{page 98 note 2} Of the first 112 bills received by the Company between 1672 and 1675, 61 were payable at 30 or 40 days' sight, and 40 at 50 or 60 days' sight. Of 55 bills drawn in 1688, 26 were payable not at so many days' sight but on a certain date written into the bill, generally from six to twelve months after the bill was drawn. An interesting and (amongst these bills) rare form is a bill in which the date of payment was made contingent upon some event, for example, ‘Three months after the safe arrival of the George, Samuel Jones, Commander, in the Port of London.’

^{page 98 note 3} P.R.O. T. 70/276, under date 7 November 1692.

^{page 98 note 4} This action made Gardiner unpopular in Barbados and may have prejudiced his candidature for the political agency of the island. His conduct, the African Company's agents reported, ‘extreamly disobligeth his freinds by exposeing Theire reputation and for Bringing it into contempt here to there greate Damage’ (P.RO., T. 70/17, fo. 61r.).

^{page 99 note 1} The average London wholesale price of Barbados sugar in December 1688 was 23s. 6d. a 100 lbs.; in December 1689 it was 33s. 6d.; in November 1690, 34s.; in December 1693, 38s.; in December 1695,55s.; details from an index of sugar prices compiled from the records of the African Company's sales.

^{page 99 note 2} A West-India Fortune, pp. 186–7.

^{page 99 note 3} Caribbeana, ed. Oliver, V. L., i. 51–7Google Scholar.

^{page 99 note 4} P.R.O., Chancery Proceedings, C. 5/238/47.

^{page 100 note 1} A Young Squire of the Seventeenth Century, ii. 213–14.

^{page 100 note 2} F. W. Pitman, ‘The Settlement and Financing of British West India Plantations in the Eighteenth Century’, Essays in Colonial History presented to C. M. Andrews.

^{page 100 note 3} Harlow, V. T., A History of Barbados, p. 203Google Scholar; Chandler, A. D., ‘The Expansion of Barbados’, Journal of the Barbados Museum and Historical Society, xiii (1946), 106Google Scholar.

^{page 100 note 4} Cat S.P. Col., 1675–6, p. 421.

^{page 100 note 5} In 1680 Barbados had 37,000 slaves; Cal. S.P. Col., 1677–80, no. 1336, xxiv. In 1748 she had 47,000, an increase of only 27 per cent.; F. W. Pitman, The Development of the British West Indies, appendix i. Jamaica, on the other hand, had 9,000 in 1673 an d 112,000 in 1746, an increase of 1,150 per cent. (ibid.).

^{page 100 note 6} 80 acres in 1712 (Pitman, in Essays in Colonial History presented to C. M. Andrews, p. 260)Google Scholar.

^{page 101 note 1} Harlow, , op. cit., pp. 306–7Google Scholar.

^{page 101 note 2} Cal. S.P. Col., 1669–74, no. 1101, ii.

^{page 101 note 3} Oldmixon, J., The British Empire in America (1708), ii. 111Google Scholar.

^{page 101 note 4} If owners employed managers or attorneys with power to draw bills, the number emanating from the large estates might well be greater than appears.

^{page 102 note 1} Brit. Mus., Sloane MS., 2441, fos. 21r.–22r.

^{page 102 note 2} Butler to Cromwell, ‘The islanders heer much desire commerce with strangers, our English merchants traffiquing to those parts being generally great extortioners’, quoted in Harlow, , op., cit., p. 88Google Scholar.

^{apge 102 note 3} P.R.O., CO. 1/15, no. 70. Further evidence of the notorious animosity between planters and merchants is to be found in CO. 1/23, no. 20, and in Oldmixon, , op. cit., ii. 155Google Scholar.

^{page 103 note 1} Compare Penson, L. M., The Colonial Agents of the British West Indies, pp. 10–11Google Scholar.

^{page 103 note 2} A True and Exact History of the Island of Barbadoes (1673), pp. 95–6.

^{page 103 note 3} Limitation of production was preached by Tryon, Thomas, Letters, Domestkk and Foreign to Several Persons of Quality, (1700)Google Scholar, nos. xxxii and xxxiii.

^{page 103 note 4} This quotation and the evidence for falling prices derive from an index of wholesale sugar prices for the years 1674 to 1695 compiled from the records of sales of sugar by the African Company. Cf. Deerr, N., A History of Sugar, ii. 530–1Google Scholar.

^{page 104 note 1} Jamaica, presumably because sugar slumped before she was too deeply committed to it, remained an island of ‘mixed planting’ in the eighteenth century (Pitman, F. W., Essays in Colonial History presented to C. M. Andrews, pp. 263–4)Google Scholar.

^{page 104 note 2} An instance of what this subjection could mean is to be found in the records of the African Company. In 1682 the Company's agents entered into an agreement with other factors in Jamaica to depress the price of sugar by holding up their purchases. So strong was the combination that the agents believed nothing could mar its success but the insistence of principals in England upon early returns (P.R.O., T. 70/10, fo. 28r., T. 70/15, fos. 30r., 31r.).

^{page 105 note 1} The names of the most active agents with the number of bills drawn on them in favour of the African Company are: Paul Allestree (53 bills), Sir John Bawden, trading in his own name and as Bawden & Co. (136), Robert Chaplin (26), Thomas Clarke (47), Sir John Eyles, in his own name and as Eyles & Co. (126), Christopher Fowler (39), Henry Hale (24), Thomas Hart (24), John Harwood (46), Thomas Hinchman (39), John Hill (20), Thomas Robson (23), John Sadler (30), Benjamin Skutt (22), Edward Thornburgh (37), Richard Tilden (37), Thomas Tryon (40), Anthony Wallinger (39) and Richard Worsam (21).

^{page 105 note 2} Penson, L. M., The Colonial Agents of the British West Indies, pp. 250–1Google Scholar; Cal. S.P. Col, 1677–80, nos. 197 and 413; Cal. S.P. Col., 1681–5, no. 274.

^{page 105 note 3} Compare Jeaffreson, Christopher, who marketed his own sugars but refused the commissions of his friends (A Young Squire of the Seventeenth Century, ii. 213–14)Google Scholar.

^{page 105 note 4} Some Memoirs of the Life of Mr. Thomas Tryon (1705), pp. 40–1. Tryon spent five years in Barbados making hats.

^{page 105 note 5} The Eyles were a Wiltshire family; see below.

^{page 105 note 6} P.R.O., Chancery Proceedings, C.5/455/40 and C.5/97/4; T. 70/79–82 for hiring of ships belonging to Bawden; Cal. S.P. Col., 1681–5, no. 1106.

^{page 106 note 1} Oldmixon, J., The British Empire in America, ii. 47–8Google Scholar. Bawden was knighted in 1687 and in the same year became an alderman of the City of London.

^{page 106 note 2} For the Eyles family, see Wiltshire Notes and Queries, i. 213, 265, 301, 366–7, 390–1; v. 431; vi. 371; vii. 444; viii. 145–51; P.R.O., Chancery Proceedings, 08/242/138, C.7/405/40, C.7/530/76; Will of John Eyles, P.C.C. 109 Degg; Calendar of Treasury Books, 1689–92, Part v, 1972, 1974, 1983, 1984.

^{page 107 note 1} Thomas, Dalby, An Historical Account of the Rise and Growth of the West India Collonies (1690), Dedication and pp. 48–9Google Scholar.

^{page 107 note 2} Oldmixon, , op. cit., ii. 47–8Google Scholar.