VII. Sir Dudley North
(1641-1691)

Two Roger Norths, father and son, were merchants of some repute in the time of Henry VII. The son of the second was made Lord North, and through five generations the Norths were well-to-do gentlemen, soldiers, and statesmen, under the Tudors and the Stuarts. The most influential of them all was the famous Francis North, Baron Guildford, and Lord Keeper of the Great Seal under Charles II. and James II. His younger brother was Sir Dudley North, a merchant of note, and especially noteworthy to us because the lengthy memoir of him written by another brother, Roger North, gives us very precise information as to the character, training, and conduct of an influential London trader of the second half of the seventeenth century. From this amusing biography the following pages will chiefly be extracted.

Dudley North was born on the 16th of May 1641. "He was a very forward and beautiful child," says his brother; so forward that he was often in trouble through his fondness for running out into the street, there to talk and play with any other children he could find. On one occasion he was stolen by a beggarwoman, and only recovered after his clothes had been taken from him. A second danger came to him while the plague was raging. He was seized by the malady, and only kept alive by the tender nursing of his mother. Soon after that, being designed for a merchant, he was sent to Bury grammar-school, in due time to be placed in a writing-school in London, "to learn good hands and accounts." That he did to his parents' satisfaction; but he learned other things not quite to their liking.

"One of his capital entertainments was cock-fighting. If possible, he procured a place in the pit, where there was splutter and noise, cut out, as it were, for folks half-mad. I have heard him say," reports his brother, "that when he had in the world but three shillings, he had given half a crown for an entrance, reserving but sixpence to bet with." Often the sixpence was turned to good account; but he was always in debt.

"And this pinching necessity drew him into practices very unjustifiable, and, except among inexperienced boys, altogether inexcusable. When a fresh youth came to the school, he and his companions looked out sharp to discover how well his pockets were lined; and some of them would insinuate into his acquaintance, and, becoming dear friends, one after another borrow what he had; and all got that way was gain to the common stock; for, if he was importunate about having his money again, they combined and led him a wearisome life, and, rather than fail, basted him till he was reduced to a better temper."

That was poor training for one intended to be an honest merchant. But Dudley North soon discovered his error. He managed to pay off all his debts; and he left school with a solemn resolution, which he kept, never to incur obligations for a farthing more than he really possessed. He was apprenticed to a Turkey merchant in Threadneedle Street, and initiated in all the mysteries of London commerce before going abroad as supercargo to a ship proceeding to Archangel. That was the beginning of many years' absence from England passed in busy money-making, and enlivened by many strange experiences, of which welcome record exists, either in his own letters or in his brother's reminiscences.

He was a "raw youth," only seventeen or eighteen years old, when he started. He first went to Archangel, there to sell his goods and stock the ship with others, which he proceeded to dispose of in Italy, before taking up his residence at Smyrna. His own capital was only £100 but he spent it prudently in buying such articles as were sure to bring him a large profit when sold in England, and he found other occupation as agent for several Turkey merchants in London.

"He did not, as most young factors, set himself up in an expensive way of living, after the example of those that he found upon the place, for he wore plain and cheap clothes, kept no horse, and put himself to diet as cheap as he could. He was a gentleman ever brisk and witty, a great observer of all incidents, and withal very friendly and communicative, which made him be generally beloved, and his company desired by the top merchants of the factory."

He did not at first, however, prosper as well as many of them. He made more money for his employers than for himself, and soon grew dissatisfied with Smyrna. Therefore, after a brief visit to England, he gladly accepted the offer of a Mr William Hodges, living at Constantinople, to become his partner. At that time "there was no greater emporium upon the face of the earth than Constantinople, where a merchant of spirit and judgment, by trade with the Court, and with the dealers that there came together from most parts of the world, could not fail of being rich."

So Dudley North found it. Almost from the first he was in reality, if not in form, the head of the Constantinople factory. He soon reformed the whole method of transacting business, and put it in a more profitable shape than had ever been known before. He made himself thorough master of the Turkish language, and, of the five hundred or more lawsuits which he found it necessary to engage in, conducted most in his own person. "He had certain schemes by which he governed himself, and seldom failed of a prosperous success;" some of them, however, not being much to his honour. He brought to perfection the art of bribing judges. He also, according to his brother's testimony, "found that, in a direct fact, a false witness is a surer card than a true one; for, if the judge has a mind to baffle a testimony, an harmless, honest witness, that doth not know his play, cannot so well stand his many captious questions as a false witness, used to the trade, will do." It must be remembered, however, in Dudley North's excuse, that these practices were, in his day and long after, almost as current in England as they were in Turkey.

North's trade in Constantinople, "by which he obtained superabundant profit," as his brother avers, was chiefly with the Turkish Court, which he supplied with jewels and other costly furniture, often making four or five thousand dollars by a single transaction; and with the officers and agents of the government, who were glad to borrow of him all the money he had to lend at twenty or thirty percent, interest.

"All those who come into posts of authority and profit in Turkey," we read, "are sure to pay for them; and, on that account, the seraglio is a sort of market. This makes the pashas, who solicit for better preferment, and all the pretenders to places, prodigiously greedy of money, which they cannot have without borrowing; and if they can but get the money, they care not upon what terms, for the place to be paid for will soon reimburse them. The lending these men money is a very easy trade as to the terms, but a very difficult trade as to the security. For, by the Turkish law, all interest for the forbearance of money is unlawful; and the debtor need not, whatever he agrees, pay a farthing on that account. Therefore they are forced to go to tricks; and, like our gamesters, take the interest together with the principal. There is a world of cunning and caution belongs to this kind of dealing, and the wisest may suffer greatly by it; but our merchant had the good luck to come off scotfree, and made his advantages accordingly."

His advantages were various. With one Turk, the captain of a galley, named Boba-Hassan, he had numerous dealings. For each voyage he lent him large sums of money, which were returned twice over at the end of the expedition.

"He used him as well for getting off his rotten cloth and trumpery goods, which were not otherwise vendible; for he could be demure and say he had no money, but he had some goods left, and if he would please to take them for part, with some money he could raise, he might serve him with the sum he desired, and so forth. Once he was walking in the street at Constantinople, and saw a fellow bearing a piece of very rotten, worthless cloth, that he had put off to the captain. He knew it again, and could not hold, but asked the fellow where he had that cloth. With that the man throws down the cloth, and sitting him down at the door, fell to swearing and cursing that dog Boba-Hassan, that made him take it for a debt; but he more furiously cursed that dog chat sold it to him, wishing him, his father, mother, and all his kindred, burnt alive. The merchant found it best to sneak away, for if he had been found out to have been once the cloth's owner, he had certainly been beaten."

Dudley North cannot be greatly praised for honesty; but, to say the least, he was no worse than most merchants of his time.

"As to all the mercantile arts or guiles," says his brother, "and stratagems of trade, which could be used to get money from those he dealt with, I believe he was no niggard; but, as for falsities, such as cheating by weights and measures, or anything that was knavish, treacherous, or perfidious, even with Jews or Turks, he was as clear as any man living. He transacted and dealt in all respects as a merchant of honour."

The Levant Company, at any rate, found him a better servant than it had ever had before. He also served himself so well, that, before he was forty years old, he was rich enough to return to England. This he did in the spring of 1680. He immediately established himself as a Turkey merchant in London, having a house in Basinghall Street, with offices and warehouses close to the Exchange. He also became the principal director of the African Company, a trading society akin to the East India and Turkey Companies, but older than either, formed for dealing in the commodities of the West Coast of Africa.

"Here it was that, in the opinion of the Exchange, he first did justice to his character. For he was sagacious to take the substance of any matter at the first opening; and then, having by proper questions more fully informed himself, he could clearly unfold the difficulty, with all its circumstances of advantage and disadvantage, to the understanding of others. He was an exquisite judge of adventures, and the value and eligibility of them. He was very quick at discerning the fraud or sincerity of many persons the Company had trusted, as also the character of those that proffered, and were examined, in order to be employed or trusted. If he once found that any person was false or had cheated the Company, he was ever after inflexible, and no solicitation or means whatsoever could prevail with him to cover or connive."

A yet more skilful and prosperous merchant of London in that time, however, was Sir Josiah Child, eleven years older than Dudley North. Born in 1630, he began to prosper as a merchant during the period of the Commonwealth. His first employment was in trade with New England and the other young and thriving colonies in America. Then he became the most influential member of the East India Company, which had been rapidly and steadily progressing since its establishment seventy years before under the direction of Sir Thomas Smythe. Near the end of Charles II.'s reign, Child began to be the foremost man in its management. A staunch Whig before, he now turned into a zealous Tory; and, according to his many enemies, made the Company an immense machinery for Tory jobbing.

SIR JOSIAH CHILD, BART

"By his great annual presents," according to one, "he could command, both at Court and Westminster Hall, what he pleased." "A present of ten thousand guineas," says Macaulay, "was graciously received from him by Charles. Ten thousand more were accepted by James, who readily consented to become a holder of stock. All who could help or hurt at Court, ministers, mistresses, priests, were kept in good humour by presents of shawls and silks, bird's-nests and atar of roses, purses of diamonds, and bags of guineas. His bribes, distributed with judicious prodigality, speedily produced a large return: just when the Court was all-powerful in the State, he became all powerful at the Court."

Whether Child was honest or not in his change of politics, and in his subserviency to the degenerate Stuarts, it is clear that he used his position to the great advantage of the East India Company, no less than to his own advancement. In some years he held the office of Governor of the Company; in others he left it to be held by other merchants. But in either case alike he was its chief guide and ruler. Every proposal was submitted to his consideration, every edict reflected his wishes. On one occasion, when the Governor of Bombay wrote home to say that the laws of England made it impossible for him to obey the instructions sent out to him, he is reported to have angrily replied,

"That he expected his orders to be the rules, and not the laws of England, which were a heap of nonsense, compiled by a few ignorant country gentlemen who hardly knew how to make laws for the good of their own private families, much less for the regulating of companies and foreign commerce!"

That report is hardly to be believed; but it is clear that Child's great success in accumulating wealth for himself and in forwarding the interests of the East India Company, made him somewhat haughty and imperious in his deportment.

"He was a man of great notions as to merchandise, which was his education, and in which he succeeded beyond any man of his time," says one of his friends. "He had a compass of knowledge and apprehension unusual to men of his profession. He was vain and covetous, and thought too cunning, though he seemed to be always sincere." He was a less amiable man than his contemporary. Sir Dudley North.

In 1682, at the instigation of his brother, the Lord Keeper, Dudley North accepted office under Charles II. as Sheriff of London, and in that capacity he gave great satisfaction to the courtly party by his zealous prosecution of the Whigs.

"The Government found in him," says Lord Macaulay, "at once an enlightened adviser and an unscrupulous slave. His juries never failed to find verdicts of guilty; and oh a day of judicial butchery, carts, loaded with the legs and arms of quartered Whigs, were, to the great discomposure of his lady, driven to his fine house in Basinghall Street for orders."

For services of this sort he was knighted, and, besides being made Alderman of Basinghall Ward, was appointed a Commissioner of Customs, that office being afterwards exchanged for a brief period for a Commissionership in the Treasury, with a salary of £1600 a year. On the accession of James II., he entered Parliament as member for Banbury, and at once his ready wit and great experience, heartily devoted to the service of the Tories, made him the financial leader of the House of Commons. His plan of levying additional imposts on sugar, tobacco, wine, and vinegar, was regarded as a triumph of statesmanship, and secured for King James an income of; £1,900,000 for the year 1685. He lost his seat and his offices, however, soon after the establishment of William of Orange, and, it was said, only escaped attainder through his skill in falsification.

In 1691 Dudley North issued some "Discourses upon Trade," full of sensible opinion on commercial matters.

"Although to buy and sell," he said, "be the employment of every man, more or less, and the common people, for the most part, depend upon it for their daily subsistence, yet there are very few who consider trade in the general upon true principles, but are satisfied to understand their own particular trades, and which way to let themselves into immediate gain."

He boldly denounced all such selfish views, showed the folly and evil of all restrictive measures, and steadfastly argued for the establishment of entire freedom in all commercial dealings. He maintained that "the whole world, as to trade, is but as one nation or people, and therein nations are as persons;" that "no laws can set prices in trade, the rates of which must and will make themselves; but when such laws da happen to lay any hold, it is so much impediment to trade, and therefore prejudicial;" that "all favour to one trade or interest against another is an abuse, and cuts so much of profit from the public;" in fine, that "no people ever yet grew rich by policies; it is peace, and industry, and freedom, that bring trade and wealth, and nothing else."

His public work for the Stuarts had for some years taken Dudley North from his old avocations as a merchant. On his retirement he returned to them, but not for long.

"He had formerly joined with other merchants in building three defensible ships; for piracies in the straits had made trading in small vessels too hazardous, and the employment of these ships had engaged him deeper in adventure than otherwise he had been. But after the Revolution things grew worse and worse; because the wars with the French gave them an advantage over our Turkey trade, and both at home and abroad they met with us. One of his great ships, with a considerable adventure, homeward bound, and little insured, was taken by the French. But yet he traded on, and it appeared his estate was less by £10,000 than it was when the French war first broke out. I believe he had less persevered in trade at that time if he had not had a consideration of his house in Constantinople, where his brother Montague was his factor, to whom he thought himself bound to send out business, especially when others withdrew, else they must have isunk. But so many corrections as he received, one after another, abated his mettle; and his family was increasing, and children were coming forward, whom he considered before himself; and, what was worst of all, he grew liable to infirmities, especially the phthisic, which made him not so active as he had been and desired to be."

In 1682, just before his election as Sheriff, he had fallen in love with Lady Gunning, a widow lady, very beautiful and rich, the daughter of Sir Robert Cann, a morose old merchant of Bristol, as his brother testified. There was some hindrance to the match, through the old gentlemans anxiety to secure a large settlement for his daughter. When his consent was asked, he required that North should purchase and secure to the lady an estate worth £3000 or £4000 a year. The merchant replied that he could not spare so much capital from his business, but that he would make a settlement of £20,000. To that he received a brief reply: "Sir,—My answer to your first letter is an answer to your second. Your humble servant, R.C." His rejoinder was as brief: "Sir,—I perceive you like neither me nor my business. Your humble servant, D.N." But Dudley North did like his business. He therefore addressed himself to the daughter, and with such effect, that she consented to marry him without her father's leave.

"The old knight, her father," it is added, "came at last to be proud of his son; for, when the first visit was paid to Bristol, Mr. North, to humour the vanity of that city and people, put himself in a splendid equipage. And the old man, in his own house, often said to him, 'Come, son, let us go out and shine,'—that is, walk about the streets, with six footmen in rich liveries attending."

The wedding festivities kept pace with the merchant's knighthood, and his induction into the shrieval honours.

"Mr North took a great hall that belonged to one of the companies, and kept his entertainment there. He had divers very considerable presents from friends and relations, besides the compliments of the several companies inviting themselves and their wives to dinner, dropping their guineas and taking apostle-spoons in the room of them; which, with what they ate, drank, and such as came in the shape of wives—for they often gratified a she-friend or relation with that preferment—carried away, made but an indifferent bargain. His lady, contrary to her nature and humour, which was to be retired, kept him company in public at his feastings, sitting at the head of the table at those noisy and fastidious dinners. The mirth and rejoicing that was in the city, as well at these feasts as at private entertainments, is scarce to be expressed. It was so great that those who called themselves the sober party were very much scandalised at it, and lamented the debauchery that had such encouragement in the city."

Soon after his marriage, Sir Dudley North left his hose in Basinghall Street for a much larger one at the back of the Goldsmiths' Hall This he did chiefly because his lady, though affecting retirement, yet, when she did appear, loved to have a parade about her; and often childing brought christenings, which, in the city, were usually celebrated with much company and feastings." In furnishing the house he spent at least £4000, and its suite of reception-rooms was one of the wonders of the day. It was the scene of feasts without number—christening feasts being frequent and most sumptuous of all—in which all the civic forms and ceremonies were scrupulously observed. But the house had one great disadvantage, causing Sir Dudley, we are told, much repentance of his vanity.

"It was situated among the goldsmiths, and other smoky trades, that, for convenience of the Hall, are very thickly planted thereabouts, and their smoke and dust filled the air, and confounded all his good furniture. He laboured hard in person to caulk up the windows, and all chimneys, not used, were kept close stopped. But notwithstanding all that could be done to prevent it, the dust gathered thick upon everything within doors; for which reason the rooms were often let stand without any furniture at all."

Sir Dudley North's mode of life in these last years was minutely described by his brother.

"His domestic methods were always reasonable, but, towards his lady, superlatively obliging. He was absent from her as little as he could, and that was being abroad; but at home they were seldom asunder. When he had his great house, a little room near his chamber, which they called a dressing-room, was sequestered for the accommodation of both of them. She had her implements, and he his books of account; and having fixed a table and a desk, all his counting-house business was done there. There also he read such books, as pleased him, and, though he was a kind of dunce at school, in his manhood he recovered so much Latin as to make him take pleasure in the best classics, especially in Tully's philosophies, which I recommended to him. If time lay on his hands, he would assist his lady in her affairs. I have come there and found him very busy in picking out the stitches of a dislaced petticoat. But his tenderness to his children was very uncommon, for he would often sit by while they were dressing and undressing, and would be assisting himself if they were at any time sick or out of order. Once his eldest son, when about five years old, had a chilblain, which an ignorant apothecary had converted into a wound, and it was surgeon's work for near six months, and the poor child relapsed into arms again until it was cured. But, after the methods were instituted, the father would dress it himself."

In all sorts of pleasant, homely ways, the retired merchant found occupation and amusement for himself.

"In that great house he had much more room than his family required. He used his spare rooms for operations and natural experiments, and one operation was a very useful one—that was a fabric for vinegar. He managed that in three vessels. The first had the fruit, or whatever was the ground; this was always foul. From whence he took into the next vessel, where it refined; and out of that he drew into a third; and, from thence, took for use. The first was continually supplied with raisin stalks, warm water, etc. In this manner, after the course was begun, the house was supplied with little or no charge for several years."

North travelled much each summer. He went frequently to Bristol and the neighbourhood, where lay his wife's property; and from the time of his brother, the Lord Keeper Guildford's death, he was often at his house at Wroxton, there fulfilling his trust as guardian of the young Lord Guildford.

"At Wroxton," says Roger North, "there was an old building which was formerly Hawk's Mews. There we instituted a laboratory. One apartment was for woodworks, and the other for iron. His business was hewing and framing, and, being permitted to sit, he would labour very hard; and in that manner he hewed the frames for our necessary tables. He put them together only with caps and pins, but so as served the occasion very well. We got up a table and a bench; but the great difficulty was to get bellows and a forge. He hewed such stones as lay about, and built a hearth with a back, and by means of water and an old iron which he knocked right down, he perforated that stone for the wind to come at the fire. What common tools we wanted we sent and bought, and also a leather skin, with which he made a pair of bellows that wrought overhead, and the wind was conveyed by elder guns let into one another, and so it got to the fire. Upon finding a piece of an old anvil we went to work, and wrought all the iron that was used in our manufactory. He delighted most in hewing. He allowed me, being a lawyer, as he said, to be the best forger. This was morning work before dressing, he coming out with a red short waistcoat, red cap, and black face; so that my lady, when she came to call us to dinner, was full of admiration what creatures she had in her family. In the afternoons we had employment which was somewhat more refined; and that was planing and turning, for which use we sequestered a low closet We had our engines from London, and many round implements were made. It was not a little strange to see with what earnestness and pains we worked, sweating most immoderately, and scarce allowing ourselves time to eat. At the lighter works ia the afternoon he hath sat, perhaps, scraping a stick, or turning a piece of wood, and this for many afternoons together all the while singing like a cobbler, incomparably better pleased than he had been in all the stages of his life before."

From pleasant retirement of that sort, Sir Dudley North was called away by death when only fifty years of age. He divided the vacation of 1691, as usual, between Wroxton and Bristol On his coming back to London for the winter, he was troubled with a cold, but made light of it, as was his wont Near the end of December he became suddenly worse.

"He was thereupon put to bed," says his brother, "and, as I found him, lay gasping for breath. He discoursed seriously, that he found himself very ill, and concluded he should die; that he knew of no cause of illness on his part, but God's will be done. Dr Radcliff was sent for; and he, observing his breathing with a small hiccup, asked if he was used to breathe in that way; and, somebody saying 'No,' he asked no more questions. Sir Dudley lay not long in this manner; but in all good sense, conscience, and understanding, perfect tranquillity of mind, and entire resignation, he endured the pain of hard breathing till he breathed no more, which happened on the 31st of December 1691." "Well! "exclaimed the apothecary who attended him, "I never saw any people so willing to die as these Norths are!"