[Alexander Johnstone, proprietor of Westerhall [Baccaye] slave Plantation, Grenada, West Indies.] Autograph Letter Signed ('Alexr. Johnstone') to his London bankers Messrs Simond & Hankey, regarding the 'neglect & misconduct' of 'Capn. Mackintosh'.

The story of the Johnstone family has been told in Emma Rothschild's 'Inner Life of Empires' (Princeton, 2012). According to Rothschild, Alexander Johnstone 'became a soldier in the British army and was sent to North America. He served in Canada and later in northern New York [...] He eventually became a colonel in charge of fortifications on the West Indian island of Grenada and purchased [in 1766 for £23,500] a large sugar plantation on the island [Baccaye in St David's parish, which he renamed Westerhall], together with 178 "Negroes and Mollatoe slaves." He was a member of the assembly of the island of Grenada, and in a case before the Privy Council in London, he accused the governor of Grenada of the torture of slaves. He died unmarried at the age of fifty-five, without legitimate children, leaving his slaves, mills, and boiling houses to his brother James.' According to Douglas Hamilton ('Scotland, the Caribbean and the Atlantic World', Manchester University Press, 2005), Johnstone developed the plantation 'very rapidly, so that by 1770 it ranged over 1,000 acres and was valued at £95,017 currency (or about £54,295 sterling). It continued to be an extremely valuable estate and was reckoned to be "one of the best properties in the Islands", annually producing crops worth £10,000 in the years before 1795.' The present item is 3pp., 4to. Bifolium. In fair condition, on aged and worn paper, with a few closed tears along crease lines. Addressed on reverse of second leaf to 'Messrs. Simond & Hankey | Bishopsgate Street'. The first page reads: 'Gentlemen | I am exreamly sorry to be obliged to give it as an instruction, that no goods for the future directed to be sent to my Estate [Westerhall in Grenada], shall upon any account whatever be shipped on board Capn. Mackintosh. - Almost the whole of the Stores sent with him last Voyage, have by his neglect & misconduct been either lost or destroyed; the consequences of such Conduct are of too serious a Nature to a West India Plantation, not to be avoided if possible, and what vexes me the more in this matter, is, that my Estate has formerly suffered by a Similar Conduct of Capn. Mackintosh. - I asked him particularly when I understood they had been left at <?> bay, if they had been carefully Stored, which he assured me was the case, but it turns out quite otherwise, for the few fragments that been [sic] collected were scattered over all the different Wharfs, left in the most careless manner. In short he did not know what had been done with them. | Mr. Maclellan writes me, that many Articles are discovered to have been stole by that most infamous of all thieves & miscreants Rochard, [...]'. On the following page he reports 'Major Winnett's opinion' that Rochard should be prosecuted, and Johnstone declares that he will 'proceed against him with the utmost vigour, and never to lose sight of him until he has hung at least fifty minutes; the defense he pretends to make, is, that our mark had been put upon the goods'. He describes and gives an example of the mark which he has 'adapted for the Estate' and which he wishes in future to bee 'put upon Stores sent to Westerhall Plantation'. He also discusses 'Insurances made upon my property' and the 'bill of Lading to Capt. Mackintosh when he left the Island'. The third page carries the postscript: 'It is the opinion of every body I have seen, that Sugar will still rise considerably above the present high Price, therefore it would be wrong to think of Selling for some time.' From the Hankey business papers.