At the end of January I had the pleasure of meeting the Bath-based author Paul Jackson, who, in collaboration with Michael Rowe, is currently working on a fascinating-sounding two-volume biography of Macintosh’s onetime business partner, William Pulteney. Meeting Paul offered a welcome opportunity to revisit some of my earlier work on the partnership between Macintosh and Pulteney and an excuse to put some of it together here. Although some elements of the short-live partnership remain mysterious, its broad outlines are preserved in Macintosh’s correspondence and in some contemporary manuscript and printed sources. In what follows, I offer a brief thumbnail sketch of the partnership’s history.

The circumstances under which Macintosh and Pulteney first became acquainted are not recorded, but it is likely that they were introduced via Pulteney’s brother, Colonel Alexander Johnstone—a friend of Macintosh and a fellow Grenada planter—when all three were in London in 1769 or 1770. Pulteney went on to become guarantor for Macintosh’s Dutch loan, a financial agreement that marked the beginning of their business partnership—one based upon the purchase of lands in Tobago and Dominica. It was, for various reasons, a partnership that did not survive long, lasting barely four years. Its messy financial consequences rumbled on for many years, however, and left the former partners enduringly suspicious and mistrustful of one another.

The partnership’s initial purchases were focused on Tobago. Macintosh had bought lot 24 (85 acres) in his own name in May 1769 (see below). As yet, I have been unable to identify the precise dates on which lots 17, 18, and 19 were added to the partnership, but they are likely to have been in 1769 or 1770. Lots 17 and 18 (400 and 100 acres respectively) had originally been purchased by William Alexander and lot 19 (200 acres) by Andrew Allon in March 1767. This, at least, is the account given by John Fowler in his 1774 book A Summary Account of the Present Flourishing State of the Respectable Colony of Tobago. Other, albeit slightly later, sources indicate that lots 17, 18, and 19 were, in fact, purchased by Alexander John Alexander.

Lot 4, Bushy Park, and lots 5 and 6, Richmond, were owned at this time by Gedney Clarke. Macintosh had met Clarke in Barbados in September 1770 and was assured—as he later told Pulteney—of Clarke’s “assistance & good Neighbourhood as may greatly falicitate [i.e., facilitate] the improvement of our Tobago concerns in his Neighbourhood.” A year later, in September 1771, Macintosh wrote to Clarke to ask if he would consider ceding “110 or 165 Acres” of his Bushy Park estate in order to allow Macintosh to establish a water mill on “the upper part of Bushy Park between two lofty Hills.” The price Clarke proposed—“Thirty Pound Sterling P Acre,” “half down, & half within the year”—was one that Macintosh did not accept.

In the summer of 1771, an advert was placed in the Public Advertiser for the sale of certain unspecified lots of undeveloped land in Tobago. Although no specifics were provided in the advert, there is reason to suspect that this was an early attempt by the partnership to test the waters to see whether or not they might be able to turn a quick profit on their recent acquisition. The reason to suspect this advert relates to partnership business is that Pulteney used John Irving to coordinate the dissolution of the partnership in 1773/74.

In November 1771, Macintosh wrote to inform Pulteney that he had provisionally negotiated a sale of 300 acres of the partnership lands, at £20 per acre, to the London lawyer Francis Eyre (represented in the West Indies by a Mr. [John?] Colby). As Macintosh then noted, “The Sale of that parcel would enable us to settle another Estate without drawing purses.” This deal seems to have gone nowhere. Around the same time, however, an advertisement appeared in the London Evening-Post for the sale of 800 acres of land in the Great River division of Tobago. This was, perhaps, evidence of the partnership seeking to establish the market value of their holdings. The advert also sought a loan of £12,000—a private request on Macintosh’s behalf that was intended to allow him to extend his own private landholdings.

In April 1772 a survey of Tobago detailed the composition of the partnership’s landholding: an estate now called “Poultney Hill” (see TNA, CO 101/16, ff. 126r–130v). In addition two white overseers—John Leadbeatter (or Leadbetter), Macintosh’s sometime manager in Grenada, and Peter White (whom I have not been able to identify)—there were 53 enslaved workers on the estate: one who could “be trusted with Arms” and 52 who could not. Of the estate’s combined 785 acres, only 60 areas had been cleared by that date, and of those only 6 planted with sugarcane.

By September 1772, Macintosh was proposing that he and Pulteney sell at least half, if not more, of their Tobago lands due to the damage being caused on the island by leaf blast (a disease affecting sugarcane): “in the present Circumstances it will be best to Sell at Tobago even so low as 15 Guineas p Acre,” he wrote. In preparation, on 8 September 1772, Macintosh obtained certificates from George Gibb, Register, to confirm that lots 17, 18, 19, and 24 were free of any “Conveyance, Mortgage or other Incumbrance whatever,” other than the existing deed of lease and release, which had transferred one moiety to Pulteney. Selling would generate £19,000 to invest in their new Dominica concern.

From May 1771, the partnership had expanded its landholdings by purchasing additional lots in Dominica, at a location much more amenable than in Tobago, since it offered direct access to the coast. How much of this activity Pulteney had agreed to in advance is unclear, but by May Macintosh had written to alert him that he had bought 450 acres at £6 per acre and “now render it to be included in our Copartnership, if not disposed of within the said time.” This was probably lot 51.

Lot 51 had previously belonged to a syndicate coordinated by Lauchlin Macleane and Macintosh was one of three attorneys appointed by Macleane’s associates to manage the disposal of the lands. He may have been able to negotiate a favourable deal as a consequence. When in Dominica, Macintosh had toured the land “under the guidance of an Indian & free Negro,” and found that “the Quality situation & other natural Advantages of our Land made me soon forget the pains of the most fatiguing Journey I ever underwent.” Macintosh estimated the land at “not be less than 500 Acres.” The total purchase price was put at £2,784. Macintosh proposed to Pulteney that they secure a loan for £6,000 in order to purchase slaves (at 50 slaves per year for three years) to properly transform the new estate. It was at this point that Macintosh also decided to buy the partnership a sloop, Fanny, for £300. By Boxing Day 1771, Macintosh—bolstered by a feeling of success—was able to boast to one correspondent that “M^r. Pulteney of Bath house & myself…[are] now settling two considerable Plantations in Dominica & Tobago.” In January 1772, Macintosh reckoned these joint concerns were worth £25,300 (see below).

By February 1772, Macintosh was beginning “my Dominica Settlement”—which he was then calling “my Conanary or Richmond Estate”—with “23 able Slaves,” overseen by Mr. James Buck Roberts. Around the same time, Macintosh learned that Joseph Senhouse had purchased the neighbouring estate (lot 50). Buck Roberts later killed another man “in a drunken quarrel,” and was quickly replaced in his role. Later in 1772, as noted above, Macintosh authorised Pulteney to “mortgage my Moiety to secure any Sum [ideally “10 or 12.000 £ Stg.”] we may borrow on our joint Accounts.” This would, however, have come to nothing following the 1772 financial crisis.

In May 1772, Macintosh wrote to Pulteney to tell him that he had impulsively purchased yet more land to expand the Richmond estate: “I could not resist the temptation of preserving the two Rivers to ourselves and securing up almost to their Sources, & therefore I got 200 Acres put up in two several Lots, and the Inhabitants were so Complaisant to me as to let the one fall into my hands at £3..1.. & the other at £3..5..St^g P Acre.” This was likely lots 52 and 53. In June 1772, Macintosh computed the Richmond estate at “30 £ Stg p Acre.” In relation to the Tobago estate, however, Macintosh had changed his mind by this point. Although Pulteney was now “desirous of Selling it,” Macintosh was prevaricating, signalling “both Concurrence & Reluctance.”

In July 1772, Macintosh wrote to Pulteney to transmit “the several Grants” relating to their Tobago and Dominica purchases, namely a “Grant from the Crown of 450 Acres being our first purchase in Dominica & two Grants for 700 Acres being our first purchase at Tobago.” These documents showed that the 450 acres in Dominica—lot 51—had been purchased at £12 per acre for cleared land (12 acres) and £6 per acre for uncleared land (138 acres): £972 in total.

By the middle of 1772, it is evident that tensions between Macintosh and Pulteney over costs and strategy were beginning to sour their relationship. Distance made it difficult to communicate and the decisions that Macintosh was forced to take alone, on the basis of his own local knowledge and on his own initiative, were not ones that could be shared with Pulteney in advance. Although Macintosh was able to estimate the partnership’s holdings on 1 November 1772 at “1600 Acres of Land with 90 Good Slaves & several valuable improvements”—“worth at a moderate Computation £35,000 Stg.”—the social bonds of mutual trust on which the partnership depended were beginning to fail. By the end of 1773, following an unsuccessful attempt by the pair to repair their relationship in Britain, the partnership was at an end and was formally dissolved in January 1774.

Even after more than a dozen years on the archival trail of William Macintosh, there are still moments where I find myself astonished by a new fact or revelation about his life and that of his immediate family. In recent days, I have returned to the task of tracing the life of Macintosh’s son, William, and his unexpected and tragic fate—one that I encountered for the first time yesterday—has caused me, once again, to see the narrative that I am writing in an entirely new light.

My prompt for returning to William (junior) was a long and rather regretful letter that Macintosh sent from Madras in July 1779. At more than 7,000 words in length, the letter was an attempt to atone for the damage that long separation—geographical and temporal—had done to their relationship and, more pragmatically, to communicate some important life lessons and maxims. William would have been 14 at the time he received Macintosh’s letter and was a pupil at a “virtuous seminary,” probably on the Continent. This was the third school William had attended since 1771; none of which had seemed to suit him. William had started formal education rather late. When he enrolled at a school in Abingdon in November 1771, his contemporaries were already starting to learn Latin grammar but poor William had not yet mastered the English alphabet.

By 1781, William had entered a new school—his fourth in ten years—and the invoice for his board and tuition (above) is the last reference to him that I can find in Macintosh’s archive. I had long suspected that William had predeceased his parents (he is not mentioned in either of their wills, for example), but my investigations over the years had come to naught. Yesterday, however, I finally found out the truth: that in December 1784 William committed suicide in his room at the New Hummums coffee house and hotel in Covent Garden.

Almost at once, a coroner’s inquest was arranged to investigate William’s death (above). Depositions were taken from the hotel’s owner, Thomas Harrison; George Hopwood, the hotel’s porter; and John Cosens, landlord to William’s mother and sisters. Testimony from the deponents tells a story of a young man in distress who, in the days leading up to his death, had been behaving in strange and erratic ways. The day before he died, William had presented himself at his mother’s lodgings, hoping to see his youngest sister, Polly, and to retrieve clothes and other items he said were worth £50. He had a pistol in his pocket and, according to Cosens, his behaviour “was very rude and extraordinary.” Denied the opportunity of speaking to his mother or sisters, he left.

The following day—in an evident state of distress—William told the hotel’s owner that “his mother had no Affection for him since he was four years old.” Later that evening, Hopwood found William sitting despondently in front of the fire in his room, his hair untied and hanging loose about his face, a pistol in his right hand. He spoke in a low voice only to tell Hopwood that he didn’t require anything. Minutes later Hopwood and Harrison heard a shot. When Hopwood arrived in the upstairs room it was to find William lying in a pool of blood, fragments of skull and brain matter across the walls.

While the inquest established the cause of death, it did little to inquire into the factors that had led to it, returning a verdict only of insanity. For want of explanation, the newspaper press was filled in the days after the event with lurid speculation. Some sources claimed that William had fallen victim to card sharps, who had left him penniless and hopeless. Others claimed that a lack of maternal affection had driven him to distraction. Still others claimed that William and his family, having been abandoned by Macintosh, were in such a state of penury that William found it intolerable and that he had intended to kill both himself and his younger sister, Polly, to relieve their suffering. What all sources agreed on, however, was that William had been a strapping and handsome young man, standing more than six feet tall. He was just 19 when he died.

Given the contradictions of the contemporary press reporting, it will be difficult to separate truth from fiction as I delve deeper into this sad story. Although almost 230 years separate me from the tragic end of William’s life, I cannot help but feel a sense of shock and sadness. Polly would doubtless have remembered this tragedy right up to her own death in old age in 1853, but after her, who would have remembered William?