The impact of war: New business networks and small-scale contractors in Britain, 1739–1770

Abstract

This article argues that the resources and skills of military contractors were a crucial component of the war-making capacity of the British state in the mid-eighteenth century. Contractors used product knowledge, access to capital and credit, market intelligence, and personal and professional connections to perform contracts effectively, and by doing so contributed towards operational capability and combat readiness. Contracting not only reveals the diversity of the domestic economy but also the degree of connectivity between different sectors. Problems of scale, cost, and risk were overcome by harnessing and channelling broad expertise across different sectors. If modern states were highly innovative in fiscal-military terms, contractors were no less so in managing extensive supply operations.

Keywords:

• Supply
• provisions
• contracts
• sub-contracting
• horses
• logistics
• encampments
• garrisons
• merchants
• financiers
• wealth
• corruption

Notes

1. Knight and Wilcox, Sustaining the Fleet, 2–3; Parrott, Business of War, 300–304.

2. Knight and Wilcox, Sustaining the Fleet, 176.

3. Parrott, ‘Cultures of Combat,’ 527.

4. Ibid., 526–528.

5. Parrott, Business of War, 21–23, 300.

6. Ibid., 2–3.

7. For a concise explanation, see Francis papers, BL, Add Ms. 40759 fols 238–240 [undated].

8. Guy, ‘Regimental Agency,’ 423–453; Smith, ‘Army Clothing Contractors,’ 156; Parrott, Business of War, 297.

9. (Gentleman’s Magazine 42 (1772), 392)

10. Bannerman, Merchants and the Military, 50–51, 117; Smith, ‘Army Clothing Contractors,’ 156.

11. Parrott, Business of War, 300.

12. Ibid., 303.

13. Torrance, ‘Social Class and Bureaucratic Innovation,’ 58.

14. Parrott, Business of War, 224; Perjes, ‘Army Provisioning,’ 1–52; Childs, British Army of William III, 230, 249–250.

15. Carteret to Stair, 8 Apr. 1743, N.A., SP 87/12/ fols 8–10; Stair to Carteret, 12 Apr. 1743, SP 87/12/ fols 11–16.

16. Parrott, Business of War, 224–226.

17. Guy, Oeconomy and Discipline, 9.

18. Demarcation of types of contract is evident from undated documents in the Chatham papers, National Archives [hereafter N.A.] PRO30/8/231/12–15; Baker, ‘Treasury and Open Contracting,’ 444.

19. Hancock, Citizens of the World, 221–239; Bannerman, Merchants and the Military, 73–88.

20. See the account book of the commissary Jacob Gomez-Serra [n.d. c. 1746], N.A. T1/322/29.

21. Bowen, Business of Empire, 262–268, 285–288.

22. Warrant, 13 Mar. 1756, N.A. T1/368/22.

23. ‘List of persons employed by Mr. Hume, 28 Apr. 1756’, Cumberland papers [hereafter CP], Box 47/31; ‘List of persons employed in Services relating to the intended Encampment’, 6 July 1756, N.A., T1/367/38.

24. Cumberland to Oswald, May 1756, CP, Box 47/36, CP, Box 47/37.

25. 14 Oct. 1756, Ilchester, Letters to Fox, 94.

26. Hume to Barrington, 25 Sept. 1756, T1/369/45; Treasury to Oswald, 6 Jan. 1757, N.A. T27/27/256.

27. Parrott, Business of War, 20.

28. Abraham Hume to Andrew Fletcher, 30 Mar. 1746, Saltoun Papers, NLS MS. 16627 fols 111–112; Bannerman ‘Abraham Hume,’ 268–285.

29. Humphrey Bland to [Henry Pelham?], 9 June 1746, Newcastle Papers (Clumber), Ne C 1725.

30. 1 June 1756, Willson, Life and Letters of Wolfe, 292.

31. Lord George Sackville to Pitt, 11 Nov. 1758, Taylor and Pringle, Correspondence of William Pitt, 369.

32. Keegan, History of Warfare, 302.

33. 10 Oct. 1742, Yorke, Life and Correspondence, 308. 1 June 1756, Willson, Life and Letters of Wolfe, 292.

34. Douglas, Letter Addressed to Two Great Men, 45–46.

35. North Briton 42 (19 Mar. 1763), 141; ‘State of the Diminution that may be made in the expense of the Army, Navy & Ordnance’ [n.d. c.1763], Liverpool papers, Add MS 38331 fols 218–220.

36. Liverpool papers, Add Ms. 38383 fols 22–23 [n.d. c.1778].

37. Baxter, Development of Treasury, 73–74; Baugh, Naval Administration, 469–470.

38. For the momentum towards larger, permanent forces in the late seventeenth century, see Parrott, Business of War, 284–286.

39. West, Gunpowder, Government and War, 16, 30–41, 85.

40. Childs, Army of William III, 175.

41. Namier, Structure of Politics, 45–58.

42. Parrott, Business of War, 304.

43. Joseph Smith to Charles Jenkinson, 3 July 1764, Liverpool Papers, Add Ms. 38203 fols 4–5; ‘State of the several subsisting contracts for supplying His Majesty’s Forces serving abroad with Provisions and for the Remittance of their Pay’, [n.d. c.1764], Liverpool papers, BL Add Ms. 38338 fols 109–111.

44. Namier, Structure of Politics, 47.

45. Bannerman, Merchants and the Military, 41–58.

46. Ibid., 47–51.

47. Memorandum of John Dick, Comptrollers’ Office, 20 Nov. 1782, Chatham papers, N.A. PRO 30/8/231 fols 130–134.

48. See Ordnance investigation into unproven fraud allegations, Report Book, 8 Feb. 1760, N.A. WO47/55/114, 117–118; Bannerman, Merchants and the Military, 83–85.

49. Extracts from Retrospection of Reminiscences addressed to Henry Thomas Colebrooke by Sir G. Colebrooke, 1729–1809 [n.d.], Fox Papers, Add Ms. 47589 fol. 6.

50. 26 Apr. 1758, N.A. T29/32/41–43; 3 May 1758, N.A. T29/32/44–45; Legal opinion, 29 May 1756, Dundas papers, ZNK X1/1/138.

51. Bannerman, Merchants and the Military, 60–65.

52. Hancock, Citizens of the World, 221–239.

53. ‘To their Excellencys the Lords Justices’, [n.d. 1740/1], N.A. SP41/21.

54. For a breakdown of rations, see the Louisbourg garrison contract, 30 Oct. 1758, N.A. T54/37/123–128.

55. Tylden, Horses and Saddlery, 3; Guy, Oeconomy and Discipline, 125.

56. Smith, Three Tracts on the Corn-Trade, 208.

57. Chartres, ‘Marketing of Agricultural Produce,’ 437.

58. Chivers, ‘Supply of Horses,’ 38.

59. Lawrence Dundas to Lord Barrington, 14 Mar. 1756, N.A. T1/367/19.

60. Bannerman, Merchants and the Military, 96–98.

61. Ibid., 88.

62. 26 Apr. 1758, N.A. T29/33/41; 25 Apr. 1759, N.A. T29/33/171–172; 9 June 1761, N.A. T29/34/95–97; 11 June 1762, N.A. T29/34/302–303.

63. 19 May 1757, N.A. T1/375/108.

64. 6 June 1761, N.A. AO1/175/515.

65. 5 May 1756, N.A. T29/32/386; ‘List of Commissaries of Firing and Straw’, [n.d. c. 6 July 1756], N.A. T1/367/39.

66. Unlisted in Plate Duty registers but from 1758 he owned a curricle before owning a Post-Chaise in 1761, Carriage Duty Register 1756–1762, N.A. T47/3/72.

67. Marshall, British Post Office, 200; Bannerman, Merchants and the Military, 100.

68. Bannerman, Merchants and the Military, 66; Baker, ‘Open Contracting,’ 444.

69. Davis, Rise of the English Shipping Industry, 82–83, 100; Parrott, Business of War, 301.

70. Namier, Structure of Politics, 45–64; Bannerman, Merchants and the Military, 49–50.

71. Bannerman, Sir Lawrence Dundas, 102–123.

72. Hume to Barrington, 19 Mar. 1756, N.A. T1/367/21.

73. Haldane ‘who stands in the place of Mr. Oswald in the management of the Forage Contract of last year’, 27 Dec. 1756, N.A. T29/32/427; Dundas to Andrew Mitchell, 7 July 1746, with £1,000 loan for Haldane if required, payable from George Ouchterlong, a Scots merchant in London: Sir Andrew Mitchell papers, N.A.S. RH4/70 (Reel 1: Bundle 53); Haldane, Haldanes of Gleneagles, 294–295.

74. Dundas to George Ross, 26 Apr. 1759, Dundas papers, ZNK X1/1/48.

75. Letters to Richard Oswald, Special Collections Dk1.30, letters from P. Malhench and Daniel Bloom, 28 Jan. and 23 Oct. 1766, fols 23 & 67.

76. Plate duties register, 1757–1762, N.A. T47/5; Carriage and Silver Plate duties, 1764–1766, N.A. T47/4; Bannerman, Merchants and the Military, 161–162.

77. Devine, ‘Colonial Trades and Industrial Investment,’ 12–13.

78. Black, Trade, Empire and British Foreign Policy, 103.

79. John, ‘War and the English Economy,’ 329–344.

80. Ibid., 343.

81. Smith, Wealth of Nations, 694.

82. Hobson, International Relations, 69; Peter Cain, ‘Capitalism, War, and Internationalism,’ 230.

83. Kennedy, Adam Smith, 165.