Patersons stock brokers
DUNLOPJAMESbusinessman and militia officer; b. The Porteouses were members of a family connection which included a number of Patersons equally active in the trade of the colony, was already well established in the province, and was also of Ayrshire origin.
Like many other Scottish merchants in the colony, Dunlop was involved in the scandal surrounding John Cochrane, agent at Quebec between and of a British firm responsible for providing Governor Haldimand with the specie needed by the colonial administration. He continued, nevertheless, to import and export to some extent through Quebec where he maintained an agent, John Pagan. It was probably from there that he sold the large assortments of dry goods, cutlery, alcoholic beverages, sugar, and other products that he continued to import.
Foreseeing the possibilities in the flour and lumber trades, he began in the early s to travel extensively throughout the colony, negotiating purchases of grain and timber. His activities in this business, and the wide range of contacts he established, had placed him in a strong position by when an act of the British parliament permitted vessels from Canada to carry lumber and provisions to the West Indies and to bring back, free of duty, sugars and rum to the value of the outward cargo.
By he was also exporting shiploads of choice Canadian oak to Leith, Scotland. Wines and spirits were another specialty. Dunlop imported high-grade rums and whiskies from Greenock and found a ready market among habitants and fur traders.
His rum, identified by the initials J. Before the war with Spain began inhe imported from Cadiz shiploads of Spanish, Madeira, and Portuguese wines, supplying the domestic cellars of most of the fur-trade magnates, including Simon McTavish.
Dunlop also imported from Cadiz on a large scale rum, sugar, and tobacco. He maintained a useful network of agents, mostly Scottish firms, in Tuscany Italy at Leghorn, in Spain at Cadiz and Barcelona, in Portugal at Lisbon, and on Madeira.
In their petition for hundreds of thousands of acres in the Beauharnois region of Lower Canada was rejected, as was another in by less important men, in an association of which Dunlop was leader, for the entire 64, acres of Derry Township on the north shore of the Ottawa River. His liveried servants were invariably brought from Scotland. Dunlop also participated in the public life of the city. In he offered himself as candidate for the House of Assembly in the riding of Montreal West, but the electors preferred James McGill and Jean - Baptiste-Amable Durocher.
Dunlop exploited fully the favourable economic conditions in the period of potential and open conflict with France and then the United States that lasted from to In he wrote that his business activities had become so numerous and so varied that he required additional staff from Scotland. By his headquarters on Rue Saint-Paul were among the largest mercantile premises in the colony.
His original import business had by then been overshadowed by new lines of activity; in he stated that his imports from Scotland made him no profit, but that he was rapidly accumulating a large fortune through bill brokering, shipowning, and the export of bulk products.
Dunlop had engaged in bill brokering since the Cochrane scandal, and in the interim he had learned to deal in government bills of all kinds, routing them via New York where good gains could be made in specie.
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It was the war with France, however, that launched him into the field of high finance. Bill brokering was his major activity as a financier, and he conducted it with skill and foresight. The war with France had also spurred Dunlop to move into shipbuilding.
Paterson Securities
From this yard came the vessels for his trade with Europe and the West Indies, as well as for privateering. The following year Dunlop laid the keels of three more large vessels, one of them, the George Canningof tons. Shipbuilding costs in Lower Canada were approximately 35 per cent higher than on usd pkr exchange rate history Clyde, but Dunlop had faith in the future of the industry in British North America if first-class materials were used by competent craftsmen.
By he was considering the ambitious project of cornering Canadian flour and potash supplies, and in he nearly succeeded in monopolizing the latter, which he exported on a large scale at patersons stock brokers handsome profit for use in the cotton, linen, and woollen mills on the Clyde.
With the Scottish market, supply contracts for the British army on the Iberian peninsula, and provisioning of the forces in North America during the War ofhe bid fair to being the key operator in the Canadian grain trade.
Even making allowance for his natural ebullience, there seems little reason to doubt the assertion: He had earned the confidence of the Montreal merchants from the time he settled in the city, and in the s and s was frequently called upon to act as trustee for the estates of deceased businessmen.
He never engaged in the fur trade as did many of the Montreal merchants, but out of solidarity with them he had signed in and several petitions in patersons stock brokers the fur magnates requested from the ringless trading system protection and freedom in the prosecution of that trade.
Although he separated from Andrew Porteous, Dunlop empire stockbroker series 65 his connection with the Paterson-Porteous group; its members, and especially the younger ones the Robertsons, John Ogilvy, and their close allieswere active in opposition to the NWC in the s and, as part of the Parker, Gerrard, and Ogilvy empire, the group became one of the most important elements in the trade between Quebec and Britain.
Unlike the merchants of the fur trade, whose business was transacted through London, Dunlop conducted his affairs in Britain largely with Scottish correspondents.
He had contacts with James Dunlop of Garnkirk, the Dunlops of Lockerbie, and his brothers Alexander, a bookseller, and Robert, a linen manufacturer, who still acted in Glasgow as purchasing agents and exporters for the wide range of dry goods and other commodities Dunlop imported.
However, his most important Scottish agent was Allan, Kerr and Company of Greenock, a leading firm in the trade to the Canadas. Throughout the early s Dunlop continued to participate enthusiastically in the Montreal militia.
A captain inhe became a major, commanding four companies of the 1st Battalion, including the artillery. He was accused of insulting a subordinate officer at Lachine named Hart Logan when an enemy attack was expected, and of being drunk at the time. Ordered to apologize to Logan by a military court presided over by his friend James McGill, Dunlop refused and lost his commission. The incident did Dunlop no damage in the community; he was commended by many for his pride and sang-froid before the tribunal.
At the time of his death he was full of new projects: In Dunlop the colony lost a lively businessman who might have made a great contribution in the ensuing period of commercial growth and formation of banks.
Within two years of his death, the Bank of Montreal was founded, and his vision of regular transatlantic passenger service was being pursued by other men. Throughout his life, though very much a progressive businessman of the enterprising 18th-century type, he had been keenly conscious of his heritage, coming as he did from a cadet branch of the ancient Ayrshire house of Dunlop, and being linked as well to the Scottish national hero William Wallace.
He took fortune by storm, and dared his all to secure it. James Dunlop was a mercantile man of outstanding talent and originality, far beyond his contemporaries, even the fur-trade magnates, in techniques and vision. He was directly responsible for opening up several important lines of Canadian commercial activity, and, certainly, he was one of the founding fathers of Canadian finance.
James Dunlop seems to be the only British merchant of prime importance in Canada in the 18th century whose personal business correspondence at the height of his career has survived.
PAC, MG 19, A2, ser. Dunlop of Doonside Ayr, Scot. Alexander Dunlop of Clober, Reminiscences of Alexander Dunlop of Clober, — Ayr, Town of York, — Firth—17, Quebec Gazette— Quebec almanac— Bayne, Dunlop parish; a history of church, parish, and nobility Edinburgh, Archibald Dunlop, Dunlop of that ilk; memorabilia of the families of Dunlop, with special reference to John Dunlop of Rosebank. Reid Toronto, ; repr. Toronto84no. The citation above shows the format for footnotes and endnotes according to the Chicago manual of style 16th edition.
Information to be used in other citation formats: Richardson Title of Article: DUNLOP, JAMES Publication Name: Dictionary of Canadian Biographyvol. Suggest corrections or additions. Biography — DUNLOP, JAMES — Volume V — Dictionary of Canadian Biography.
Print Advanced Search Send. KOYAH — Volume IV Richardson James Dunlop seems to be the only British merchant of prime importance in Canada in the 18th century whose personal business correspondence at the height of his career has survived. Related Biographies FORSYTH, JOHN Vol. Related Biographies HALDIMAND, Sir FREDERICK. CRAIG, Sir JAMES HENRY. We acknowledge the support of the Government of Canada through the Department of Canadian Heritage.