MRP: 20th December 1666, Letter from John Lewis to Sir GO, London

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20th December 1666, Letter from John Lewis to Sir GO, London

BL, Add. MS. XX, XXX, ff. ?

Editorial history

06/02/09, CSG: Completed transcription
18/12/11, CSG: Page created
22/12/11, CSG: Posted transcription to wiki




Abstract & context

John Lewis wrote to Sir George Oxenden from London in a letter dated December 20th, 1666.

The letter had both business and social purposes The primary purpose was to chase up some small investments Lewis had made, but he also provided news of the naval war and of the great fire in London. His own house had been spared in the fire, and he was spending Christmas in London, due to foul weather and against his own desire. As a result he was without his family, though his wife was with him, she having come to London for the funeral of her mother.

The letter writer was probably Sir John Lewis, a senior London merchant and ironmonger.
Sir John Lewis can definitely be identified as the writer of another letter[1] sent nine months earlier to Sir George Oxenden, since Sir George Smith wrote an accompanying letter, dated March 24th, 1665/66, stating:

These few lynes are only to accompany the inclosed from S:r John Lewys who now is in Yorkshire[2]

Sir John Lewys (b. ?, d. ?) was a London merchant, made knight and baronet in 1660. He was Master of the Ironmongers Company, 1657-58, a member of the Council of Trade in 1660, and of the Council of Foreign Plantations in 1661.[3]

He was a part-owner of the ship the Loyal Merchant, along with Sir George Oxenden. Sir George Smith and others.[4]


Suggested links


See March 1665/66, Letter from John Lewis to Sir GO (letter sent with Sir George Smith's letter)
See 24th March 1665/66, Letter from George Smith to Sir GO, London


To do


(1) Check transcription against physical manuscript at BL

(2) Verify the writer is Sir John Lewis. Lewis was a common name and there is no identification of other partners or places


Transcription


This transcription has been completed, but requires checking

[RH SIDE]
London: Decemb: y:e 20:th 1666

Honoured S:r

Having answered yo:s of y:e 6:th March 1664: y:e 16:th ditto 1665, & not having reced any from yo:w since, have at this time little of enlargement, more y:n to ?improve this opportunity by y:e tending of my humble service w:th these ?paxanessingers, & so reitterating former intreaties for y:e dispatching of those small ??Concernmen:ts x:th I made bold to trouble yo:w w:th; if it may ly in my power to make part of a retaliation heere, by any service, amongst many abler friends, yo:w shall find me really greatefull, & sensible of soe greate a kindnes, The not hearing from yo:w by land, as y:e not yet arrivall o:e this years ships puts us into some ?panink feares, but God, I hope, will bless us w:th auspitious tidings of y:m, & prosp: o:e royall Navy, a squadron or 2: being suddenly intended out in quest of o:e Insolent enimies, who hath made a strong Confederacy w;th both french & danes, y:e sad disolation of y:e late merciless fire brought me to towne to look after my pticular Concernmen:ts, & dispose of my house w:tch providence had spared from soe great a Consumaton & am now by fowle weather forced to keepe my Christmas in London, & not w:th my family more y:n my wife,[5] who came heither to y:e buriall of her mother[6], I shall at y:s time in large no more, but to intreate yo:e kinde respect & kindness to ?Lans y:e Comp:a linguister in Persia[7], & I doubt not but yo:w have done him justice in y:e wine business, as was by y:e Comp:a Comended to yo:w; y:e rest is y:e subscription of

[RH SIDE]
S:r
Yo:e most affectionate frend & humble servant
John: Lewis


Notes

Samuel Pepys, Sir John Lewis, Saturday 22 March 1661/62


"At the office all the morning. At noon Sir Williams both and I by water down to the Lewes, Captain Dekins, his ship, a merchantman, where we met the owners, Sir John Lewes and Alderman Lewes, and several other great merchants; among others one Jefferys, a merry man that is a fumbler, and he and I called brothers, and he made all the mirth in the company. We had a very fine dinner, and all our wives’ healths, with seven or nine guns apiece; and exceeding merry we were, and so home by barge"[8]


J.R. Woodhead (1966), Alderman Thomas Lewis


"LEWIS, Thomas

Ald Broad Street, 11-20 Jun 1661, disch, F £620 (1) St Mary Colechurch, 1647, St Helen, 1677 (2) VIN, appr, 1632, to Edward Darling (£300 bond), fr, 1640, L, 1645 (3) f George Lewis of Peckleton, Leic, gent, mar (A) 1647, Frances, da of Ald Zachary Highlord of St Olave Hart Street, (C) Elizabeth, da of Ald Francis Dashwood of St Botolph Bishopsgate, Turkey merchant (4) RAC stock £1,000 of original stock, 1671 (5) Land Bucks (? land agent for Samuel DASHWOOD) (6) MP Wycombe, 1679, 1679-81, 1681, 1689-90 Sheriff of Bucks, 1673-4 (7) ? Dissenter (8) Bro-in-law of Samuel DASHWOOD Son Thomas Lewis, MP Wycombe, 1690-5, 1695-6 (d) (9)

(1) Beaven, I, p 75 (2) Boyd 28161, VBk, St Helen (3) Beaven, I, p 75, VIN, Appr Pres, 6 Nov 1632, Co Bk, 1638-58, ff 11, 184 (4) VIN, Appr Pres, 6 Nov 1632, Boyd 28161, Pink MS 306, f 172, Lipscombe, Buckinghamshire, III, p 654 (5) PRO, T 70/100 (6) Lipscombe, Buckinghamshire, II, p 482, III, pp 653-4 (7) Pink MS 306, f 172 (8) H of L, MS 154 (m) (9) Boyd 14016, Pink MS 306, f 172"[9]


Possible primary sources

  1. ↑ "March 1665/66, Letter from John Lewis to Sir GO"
  2. ↑ "24th March 1665/66, Letter from George Smith to Sir GO, London"
  3. ↑ XXX Latham & XXX Mathews, XXXX (XXXX, XXXX), p. XX
  4. ↑ See Bill of Complaint in Court of Chancery by 'S:r John Lewis of London Kn:t and Barronett, S:r James Maddifford Kn:t and Barronett, S:r George Smith of London kn:t S:r George Oxenden Knight Thomas Hussey of London Esq Henry Sparstow of London Esq Daniell Pennington [??] Jonathan Dawes, Phillip Mirell [Mirsell?] and Richard Binly of London Merchants and part owners of the good shipp called the Loyall Merchant of London' (C10/488/141)
  5. ↑ John Lewis' wife was XXXX. See Missing faces
  6. ↑ John Lewis' mother-in-law was XXXX. See Missing faces
  7. ↑ CHECK THE NAME. This may be an Armenian. Several years earlier, a letter from the English East India Company in London to Surat had stated: "Wee have received a peticion from one William Bell an Armenian, whoe hath formely lived as an interpreter to Mr William Garway and Mr Buckridge in Persia. Hee hath peticioned to us, to recomend him to you, that hee may bee imployed as one of those for the making of wine in Persia, to which his request wee condiscend, and referr him unto you." ('Company in London to Surat, 10 August 1663, E/3/86 Extract from ff. 150-150v.' in Vahé Baladouni, Margaret Makepeace, Armenian Merchants of the Seventeenth and Early Eighteenth Centuries: English East India Company Sources, (Philadelphia, 1998), p. 54)
  8. ↑ http://www.pepysdiary.com/archive/1662/03/22/index.php, viewed 24/01/12
  9. ↑ 'Lewis, Thomas', in J.R. Woodhead, 'Lambert - Lytler', The Rulers of London 1660-1689: A biographical record of the Aldermen and Common Councilment of the City of London (1966), pp. 104-101

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