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Establishing Transatlantic Trade Networks in Time of War: Bordeaux and the United States, 1793–1815

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  13 December 2011

Silvia Marzagalli
Silvia Marzagalli
Affiliation:
SILVIA MARZAGALLI is professor of early modern history at the University of Nice.
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Abstract

U.S. shipping to Bordeaux, France, once minimal, increased dramatically after 1793, the year that marked the beginning of the French Wars. The conflicts compelled merchants to adopt new patterns of trade, as the policies of the belligerent parties increasingly determined the evolution of neutral shipping. Merchants on both sides of the Atlantic strove for closer connections across political boundaries and tried to bypass the difficulties created by warfare. This examination of U.S. commerce with Bordeaux explores the impact of war on transatlantic trade and analyzes the strategies adopted by merchants of that period to minimize the impact of new risks. These merchants tended to rely on personal acquaintances, and they traveled frequently across the Atlantic in order to build and fortify relations of trust. Turning to older, established modes of doing business enabled them to respond rapidly to changes that occurred in the international situation and to anticipate the sudden shifts in policy that were inevitable in times of war.

Type
Special Section: Trade in the Atlantic World
Information
Business History Review , Volume 79 , Issue 4: Trade in the Atlantic World , Winter 2005 , pp. 811 - 844
Copyright
Copyright © The President and Fellows of Harvard College 2005

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References

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7 I cannot deal here with the complexity of the cost-benefit balance sheet of warfare on Atlantic trade and economy, which varies over time and depends on the kinds of trade and the geostrategic positions of the port, sector, or region. See Marzagalli, Silvia and Marnot, Bruno, eds., Guerre et économie dans le monde atlantique du XVIe au XXe siècle (Bordeaux, forthcoming).Google Scholar

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14 I have built a database of over 2,600 U.S. ships entering Bordeaux between the years 1790 and 1815. No satisfactory customs records exist for the 1780s, either in the United States or in Bordeaux. The most helpful source for reconstructing shipping and trade to Bordeaux is the register of entrances of American vessels kept by the U.S. consul at Bordeaux. Each full entry states the name of the ship, its date of arrival, its captain and owners, its burden and crew, the port where the ship is registered and where it comes from, the name of the consignee at Bordeaux, the nature of the cargo, the date of departure, the ship's destination, and the outward cargo. NA, RG 84, Bordeaux consulate, C 20: Registers of Arrivals of American Vessels, Feb. 1795-May 1797, and Nov. 1806-1815; list of entrances, 1801-1806; NA, RG 59, dispatches from U.S. Consul in Bordeaux, 1783-1815, provides a list of entrances and clearances for the first semester 1793. I would like to express my gratitude to Lawrence Marcus, of Dallas, Texas, who gave me access to the privately owned consular register of arrivals from May 1797 to Nov. 1804. The database has been completed by exploiting American and French port records, trade statistics, consular reports, merchant papers, notarial acts, and commercial newspapers, as well as the Archives départementales de la Gironde, Bordeaux [hereafter ADG], 6B 281: Entrances of Foreign Vessels, October 1790-June 1792. The major lack concerns the second half of 1792 and the period from 1 July 1793 to Feb. 1795. The National Archives in Washington, unfortunately, lack the register of arrivals from 1790 to 1795, which was repatriated to the United States in 1939, together with the other consular records.

15 See Dardel, Navires, 265, 386.

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17 ADG, 3E 13092, declarations of Guerin Malagué frères & Seton, 2 and 14 vendémiaire VII (23 Sept. and 5 Oct. 1798). This Bordeaux firm shipped wine and brandy to Charles Seton of New York, a partner in both firms, on northern European bottoms.

18 An example of such an expedition in ADG, 3E 13092, declaration, 14 pluviôse VII (2 Feb. 1799).

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23 See Ernest H. Schell, “Stephen Dutilh and the Challenge of Neutrality: The French Trade of a Philadelphia Merchant, 1793-1807,” paper presented at the Conference on Franco-American relations 1765-1815, Eleutherian Mills Historical Library, 1977.

24 Peabody Essex Museum, Salem, Mass, [hereafter PEM], Newburyport Custom House # 282, # 497: Abstract of drawbacks of duties payable in the district of Newburyport on goods, wares, and merchandise exported from the United States, 1804-05.

25 New York Historical Society [hereafter NYHS], BV Walden, pp. 154-55, 31 May 1805.

26 Business School of Economics, Baker Library, Boston, Mass., Israel Thorndike Papers, vol. 12, f. 27, letter dated 3 Oct. 1803.

27 New York Public Library [hereafter NYPL], Prizes Court of Admiralty, New York, ship Patty.

28 See note 14 and Toussaint, Auguste, La route des îles: Contribution à l'histoire maritime des Mascareígnes (Paris, 1967)Google Scholar, which provides a list of incoming U.S. vessels.

29 Baasch, Ernst, “Beiträge zur Geschichte der Handelbeziehungen zwischen Hamburg und Amerika,” in Hamburgische Festschrift zur Erinnerung an die Entdeckung Amerikas (Hamburg, 1892), vol. 1.Google Scholar

30 AN, AB XIX 4357, dossier 3. Report of Bertrand to the marine minister, 1786. Prices expressed in livres tournois have been converted into U.S. dollars at a rate of 51.t. = 1$.

31 NA, T 164/1, letter dated Bordeaux, 27 June 1793.

32 ADG, 3E 13084, protest, 31 Dec. 1793; 3E 13087, protests, 24 frimaire and 16 pluviôse III (15 Dec. 1794 and 4 Feb. 1795).

33 This estimation relies on the field “loaded by” in the Bordeaux Consular Registers of Entrances (see footnote 14). The field was not always filled in, and the estimation is based upon 1,567 mentions. In 487 instances (31 percent) this field mentions “sundry merchants,” which proves that the ship was freighted. Four hundred other ships were loaded either by the master or by a third person: in these instances, we do not know whether they acted on behalf of the shipowners or other merchants. Finally, 45 percent of the ships were loaded by the shipowners themselves.

34 NYHS, BV Gouverneur & Kemble, letterbook, ff. 299,13.06.1795, to J. Jones (Bordeaux).

35 Bibliothèque Municipale de Bordeaux [hereafter BMBx], ms 1041, f. 88, Lainé to Peter Baudhuy of Wilmington, 14 May 1804: “Ces personnes ont elles pu imaginer que j'étais assez novice que jamais je n'avais reçU des marchandises par la voie de la Nouvelle Angleterre pour oser vous dormer de semblables; les ventes simulées sont-elles done impossibles & ne trouvet-on plus de maisons qui assurent contre tout risque à 7½ ou 8% mêmes les propriétés françaises en le couvrant de leur nom?”

36 BMBx, ms 1041, f. 174V., Lainé to Victor Dupont de Nemours & Co., at New York, 9 Nov. 1804. “Vous aurez aussi soin de prendre toutes les précautions nécessaires pour neutraliser l'opération et ferez assurer chez vous il est entendu que la correspondance ne laisse pas entrevoir que c'est pour compte français.” On Dupont de Nemours and his remarks on Bordeaux, see Pont, Victor Marie du, Journey to France and Spain, 1801, ed. David, Charles W. (Ithaca, 1961)Google Scholar.

37 ADG, 7B 2001, letterbook of Robert Bapst & Cie, f. 286, to Vanuxen & Combaert of Philadelphia, 26 Feb. 1793. On this firm, see Thésée, Françoise, Négotiants bordelais et colons de Saint-Domingue: “Liaisons d'habitations.” La maison Henry Romberg, Bapst et Cie 1783-1793 (Paris 1972)Google Scholar.

38 ADG, 3E 35916 (microfilm 2 MI 8274), 3 prairial III (22 May 1795).

39 NA, RG 76, # 144, bound records relating to spoliation claims: consular registers for protests, Bordeaux, 1795-99; RG 84, Bordeaux consulate, C20, 222, list of vessels cleared under consular certificate and consular registers for protests, 1801-15.

40 NA, T 164/1, W. Lee to the U.S. state secretary, Bordeaux, 26 Apr. 1805.

41 NYHS, BV Walden, pp. 154-55, 31 May 1805.

42 American Philosophical Society, Girard papers, series 2, f. 122r., 31 May 1793.

43 NYPL, Prize Court of Admiralty, New York, vol. 1, ship Enterprise, letter dated 21 June 1806. The original correspondence was in French, but it was translated into English for the trial before the British Admiralty.

44 NYHS, BV Walden, f. 255, 27 Nov. 1805.

45 BMBx, ms 1041, letterbook of H. Lainé, f. 88, 14 May 1804, Lainé to Peter Baudhuy: “J'ai été pleinement sacrifié et je paye un peu cher le plaisir que je m'étais proposé en me liant d'affaires avec vous.”

46 John Carter Brown Library, Providence, R.I., Brown papers. European correspondents—P-E9, box 109, folder 10, letter from Rocquette, Beeldemaker & Co. of Rotterdam to Brown of Providence, 30 Apr. 1801.

47 NA, RG 84, Bordeaux consulate, registers of the passports granted to American citizens. These registers do not always indicate profession. In 1801, the U.S. agent in Bordeaux granted a passport to at least fifty merchants. Marzagalli, Silvia, “Les voyages des négotiants bordelais à l'époque du blocus continental,” Bulletin du Centre des Espaces Atlantiques 6 (1993): 137–50Google Scholar.

48 NYPL, Thomas Williams papers, letter dated Nantes, 26 Aug. 1807.

49 The choice of an agent within one's kin or ethnic group reduced transaction costs in an environment characterized by contract uncertainty. See Landa, Janet, “A Theory of the Ethnically Homogeneous Middleman Group: An Institutions Approach to Contract Law,” Journal of Legal Studies 10 (Jun. 1981): 349–62CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and Bonacich, Edna, “A Theory of Middleman Minorities,” American Sociological Review 38 (Oct. 1973): 583–94CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

50 Each vessel has been considered as a separate entry, even when it came back to Bordeaux twice. These figures refer to the total number of voyages carried on by the vessels of a given port, and not to the total amount of different ships engaged in such trade.

51 Dructor, Robert Michael, The New York Commercial Community: The Revolutionary Experience (Ann Arbor, 1975)Google Scholar; Luke, Myron H., The Port of New York, 1800-1810: The Foreign Trade and Business Community (New York, 1953)Google Scholar; Albion, Robert G., The Rise of the Port of New York, 1815-1860 (Newton Abbot, 1939; reprint, 1970)Google Scholar.

52 Livingood, James Weston, The Philadelphia-Baltimore Trade Rivalry, 1780-1860 (Harrisburg, 1947)Google Scholar; Garrett, Jane N., “Philadelphia and Baltimore, 1790-1840: A Study of Intra-Regional Unity,” Maryland Historical Magazine 55 (Mar. 1960): 1–13Google Scholar. On French refugees to the United States: Campbell, Jane, “San Domingo Refugees in Philadelphia,” Records of the American Catholic Historical Society 28 (1917): 97–125, 213-43Google Scholar; Hebert, Catherine A., “The French Element in Pennsylvania in the 1790s: The Francophone Immigrants’ Impact,” Pennsylvania Magazine of History and Bibliography 108, no. 4 (1984): 451–69Google Scholar. See also Meadows, R. Darrell, “The Planters of Saint-Domingue, 1750-1804: Migration and Exile in the French Revolutionary Atlantic” (unpublished Ph.D. diss., Carnegie Mellon, 2004)Google Scholar.

53 The hierarchy and the development of ports on the U.S. East Coast help to highlight the peculiarities of Bordeaux trade, such as, for instance, the importance of Philadelphia ships. See Price, Jacob Myron, “Economic Function and the Growth of American Port Towns in the Eighteenth Century,” Perspectives in American History 8 (1974): 123–86Google Scholar; Gilchrist, David T., ed., The Growth of the Seaport Cities, 1790-1825 (Charlottesville, 1967)Google Scholar.

54 On Stephen Jumel, see Chase, Jeanne, “War on Trade and Trade in War: Stephen Jumel and New York Maritime Commerce (1793-1815),” Bulletin du Centre d'histoire des Espaces Atlantiques 4 (1988): 111–61Google Scholar.

55 On Joseph Fenwick, who became the first American consul at Bordeaux, see MacMaster, Richard K., “The Tobacco Trade with France: Letters from John Fenwick, Consul at Bordeaux, 1787-1795,” Maryland Historical Magazine 60 (1965): 26–55Google Scholar; and Silvia Marzagalli, “Un Américain à Bordeaux: Joseph Fenwick, premier consul des Etats-Unis,” Revue historique de Bordeaux et du département de la Gironde, new series, no. 1 (2002): 73-90. The Philadelphia Quaker Jonathan Jones had married as early as 1785 the daughter of a well-known Protestant merchant of Bordeaux. ADG, 3E 20603, 21 Jan. 1785, marriage contract Jones-Texier.

56 I first thought this John Bernard was the same person as the Jean Bernard, merchant and bourgeois of Bordeaux, who got married in Bordeaux in 1787 (ADG, 3E 17871, marriage contract, 16 May 1787), but their signatures differ significantly (see, for instance, the signature of the Philadelphian Bernard in NA, RG 84, Bordeaux consulate, consular registers 1799-1801, sale of the Kitty, a British prize ship, by John Bernard of Philadelphia).

57 Gray showed the city to William Lee when Lee came to visit Bordeaux for the first time in 1796. The two young me n had certainly met in Boston, where Lee moved in 1790. Lee talks about Gray as a friend. See Mann, M. Lee, A Yankee Jeffersonian: Selections from the Diary and Letters of William Lee of Massachusetts, written from 1796 to 1840 (Cambridge, 1959)Google Scholar.

58 ADG, 3E 23459, power of attorney of Fenwick to his employees, 1 Aug. 1793.

59 Marzagalli, Silvia, “Une famille Jacobite et son parcours dans le Bordeaux du XVIIIe siècle: les Gernon,” in Cocula, Anne-Marie and Pontet, Josette, eds., Itinéraires spirituels, enjeux matériels en Europe, vol. 2: Au contact des Lumières. Mélanges offerts à Philippe Loupès (Bordeaux 2005), 245–56Google Scholar.

60 ADG, 3E, notary Romegous, power of attorney from Bousquet to Anthoine, 12 fructidor IX (29 Aug. 1801). The day before, Bousquet got an American passport to London: NA, RG 84, Bordeaux consulate, passports. He was thirty-five.

61 ADG, 3 E 13085, agreement, 14 prairial II (2 Jun e 1794). Robert Fenwick, a Protestant merchant, was not related to the American consul Joseph Fenwick, who came from a Catholic family of Maryland. Philippe Thieriot, a native of Bordeaux, left Leipzig in 1783 in order to settle in Philadelphia.

62 Meller, Pierre, Etat civil des families bordelaises avant la Révolution; manages (Bordeaux, 1909), 72.Google Scholar

63 ADG, 3E 35915, 21 Feb. 1795.

64 ADG, 3E 35392, succession, 6 fructidor X (25 Aug. 1802); ADG, 3E 25929, postmortem inventory, pluviôse an IX (Jan. 1801). Skinner had two children: Elisabeth, who married J. L. Brown, and James.

65 ADG, 4M 689, passports nos. 88 and 89,15 June 1811.

66 Philip D. Curtin remarks, for instance, that cross-cultural trade required the establishment of an agent in a distant, foreign port in the earlier stages of European history only, and that as time passed, firms secured a link to local commission agents, employing a countryman only for long-distance trade to Africa or Asia. Curtin, Philip D., Cross-Cultural Trade in World History (Cambridge, U.K., 1984), 4. See also Kenneth Morgan's article in this issue of Business History Review.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

67 For a different interpretation, see Butel, Paul, Charles Fieffé, commissionnaire et armateur: contribution à l'étude du négoce bordelais sous la Révolution et l'Empire (unpublished Ph.D. diss., University of Bordeaux, 1967)Google Scholar; Marzagalli, Silvia, “Ruine ou continuité du grand négoce bordelais?” in Figeac, , ed., Histoire des Bordelais, vol. 1, pp. 306–24Google Scholar.