© Mike Spathaky 2010

Researching the life of John Cree, merchant of Dacca and of Thornhill House, Dorset, became a major project during September and October 2011, with both Trevor Cree and Mike Spathaky actively researching aspects of his life. Research has continued, at a less intensive rate, since then. Basic biographical details are also listed in our Database Section under the John Cree entry

This introductory web page of the Merchant of Dacca story records the current state of our researches into the complex and amazing life of John Cree, merchant of Dacca. Links in the text are generally to transcriptions of relevant documents. Links in the margin notes are to external web sites and these open in a separate window. Your opinions, corrections and other feedback sent via the Contact Section will be welcomed.

This page is followed by extracts from relevant books and transcriptions of documents relating to John Cree, as listed in the menu on this page. The documents will eventually be in chronological order - not as at present in random order!

The page will be updated as the "work in progress" continues.

See also:

• Person entry for John Cree in the Database

Origins

The person who was known as John Cree for most if not all of his life was almost certainly born in Ireland. Adventure and controversy seemed to seek him out wherever he went, whether in India, in Belgium or in England. Details of his birth and childhood are virtually a blank slate; mystery surrounds many aspects of his life; we have a detailed account of his last days and controversy continued after his death.

According to a manuscript pedigree in the official records of the College of Arms in London, his parents were James McMahon of Ennis, County Clare, and Ellen daughter of John Cree of Ennis. The prima facie conclusion when a son has the maiden surname of his mother is that he was born out of wedlock, before she married. The pedigree was drawn up in 1815, twenty years after John's death. I see no reason to doubt that his mother was Ellen Cree or that his father was James McMahon (senior). Moreover in several documents John Cree referred to Terence and James McMahon as his brothers. The 1815 pedigree is the only document that records the description John McMahon otherwise Cree. In his lifetime all known records of him name him as John Cree.

"His brother Terence McMahon" and the other known brother, James McMahon, were both apothecaries. Terence and his wife Rachel lived in Aungier Street, Dublin, at least from 1777 to 1790, for they had four children who were born there. James also lived in Aungier Street. But we have found no record of the births of the three brothers themselves. They may have been born in Ennis, County Clare, as their father, James McMahon senior, was described as "of Ennis" in the College of Arms pedigree.

A grant of arms was made to John Cree in 1786 and confirmed to his nephew John McMahon in 1815. In the latter, John Cree was described as late of Calcutta in the East Indies but then [i.e. in 1786] of St Mary la Bonne... and also of the County of Clare... We have to point out that it is only in this 1815 confirmation and in the pedigree registered in that year that there is mention of County Clare. It is not mentioned in the original grant of 1786. Nevertheless County Clare is the only suggestion we have of John's place of birth. Although John's two brothers lived in Dublin, there is no evidence that they or John were born there (1). Since their father died in Ennis, County Clare, we might deduce that the sons moved to Dublin as young men, or perhaps for educational reasons as two or them became apothecaries.

There were ancient branches of McMahons in and around Ennis for some centuries before John's time. The Creaghs were prominent citizens of Ennis too, but the name Cree was barely known there before the Nineteenth Century (1a). It is fair to assume therefore that Cree was a spelling change from Creagh and that John's ancestry lies in County Clare on both his father's and his mother's sides. While his father, James McMahon, may have moved moved from Ennis to Dublin before the brothers were born it seems more likely that they were born in County Clare, and that the family then moved to Dublin.

The problem is that there is no mention of John's age in any of the many later records we have of him. So we are left guessing about his date of birth. He was probably in India some time before 1765 because he married a widow, Anna Ritta Scott, who wrote a will in 1767, and so probably died in that year, having been widowed in 1765. John was already an established merchant by 1773 and had been engaged in the Country sea service before that. If we suppose he was in his late twenties by 1773, his birth would have been no earlier than about 1740. John was initiating fisticuffs in Spa, Belgium, in 1791 so was unlikely to be over fifty at that time (a subjective judgement, I know). So I would tentatively put his birth year as between 1740 and 1750.

John was later a close friend of Philip Francis who was born in 1740. I suspect they knew each other as young men and perhaps even went to the same school in Dublin. We know that Philip Francis's father, Dr. Philip Francis, left his young son in care of his Dublin relations, to receive the first rudiments of education in a free school of which Mr. Roe, an eminent schoolmaster..., was then the head. Dr. Francis, was curate of St Peter's Church of Ireland parish in Dublin. This church was in Aungier Street where the McMahon family lived. Dr. Francis moved to England in 1746 while his son Philip stayed in Dublin until 1751. If my suspicion about the childhood friendship of John Cree and Philip Francis is correct, it would suggest that John too was born around 1740, but that is hardly more than speculation.

Another friend whom John may have known in Dublin was Thomas Mercer, who was born in Newry, County Down, the son of a merchant. They may have met as young men for it is recorded that Mercer, received such an education as fell to the general lot of merchants' sons at that day in small commercial towns... He was sent to an uncle, a merchant in Dublin, at the early age of thirteen, in whose counting-house he remained a short time...(1b). It's possible that John Cree, Philip Francis and Thomas Mercer all knew each other in Aungier Street as children around 1750.

It seems likely that John Cree too went to England but we have no record of him there at this period of his life. It later becomes clear that he has good accounting skills and a well developed literacy - his letters are well written, even if the sentences are somewhat complex by modern standards, so it is possible he trained and worked as a clerk at some time, possibly in the Government service, as Philip Francis did.

The discovery in 2014 of the baptism record of a John Crie at the church of St Martin in the Fields in London in 1740 does nothing to dispel the clouds around John Cree's origins. The parents in this case were, tantalisingly, named as "John Crie and his wife Eleanor." They had another son, William, baptised on the same day. Were it not for the College of Arms pedigree and John Cree's will we might have provisionally accepted this baptism as being that of John Cree.

(1) John MacMahon, otherwise Cree, of Thornhill in the parish of Stalbridge... was the son of James MacMahon of Ennis, Co. Clare (died 1783) by his wife Ellen, daughter of John Cree of Ennis. (College of Arms MS 10D14/209 registered 1815)

(1a) We have found but one reference to the name Cree, which was in a diary entry for the year 1741, during the "Black Spring" when there was serious famine in Ireland and some landlords distributed oats and wheat to their starving tenants and labourers:

April 1741

1st Wednesday. Gave cousin Natt Lucas half a barrel of oats by James Cree's directions, which was paid his foster brother Connellane,...

2nd Thursday. Gave cousin Natt Lucas another half barrel of oats on the same account to be allowed my father at the time of paying his rent.

The Lucas diary 1740-41 by Brian Ó Dálaigh in Analecta Hibernica, Volume 40, 2007

(1b) The Monthly Magazine, Volume 12, Dec 1, 1801 by Sir Richard Phillips pp 469ff.

John Cree in India

At some time before 1765, perhaps some years before, John finds himself in India. George Hurst, the East India Company's Commercial Chief at Dacca, later wrote, Mr. Cree... came out in one of [the East India Company's] ships and deserting, was left in India. For a time he engaged in the Country sea service... Hurst had an interest in destroying John Cree's reputation and is openly hostile, writing, I mention this circumstance merely to expose the principles which have swayed this man in life. It is an exercise in character assassination which we will return to later. On the other hand the assertion that John Cree deserted from an East India Company ship may well be true. Hurst would have been unwise to make allegations that were verifiably false (2).

The country sea service refers to the privately owned merchant ships that traded along Indian coastal waters. Their officers and owners were Europeans. Family tradition has it that John made his fortune as the owner of an East Indiaman, the Carnatic, and that this is the ship portrayed in his coat of arms (3). However the country sea service ships are explicitly not East Indiamen. All the same, it seems likely that John gained experience as an officer, or even master of a ship, and used this as a stepping stone to becoming a merchant. It was the merchants who made fortunes in India.

Hurst also wrote of John Cree that his sea service, not answering his interested views, on the death of Captain Alexander Scott who succeeded Captain Barton in the office of Master Attendant, he pursued and married Captain Scott's widow, an old black woman, to whom Captain Scott united himself when he was Pilot's Mate, and separated from, on her becoming of notorious character to the whole Settlement. Captain Scott's humanity however induced him to support her and at his decease or a little before it he settled on her what he judged might be a comfortable maintenance to her in her old age. Alexander Scott died in August 1765 and from his will we know that he did indeed leave his wife Henrietta a comfortable annuity and the use of a house for her lifetime. (3a) (3b).

So it seems from Hurst's later allegation, that John Cree had given up the sea service by 1765 and pursued and married Scott's widow. He knew her as Annaritta (or Anna Ritta) - Henrietta was probably a corrupted form. Whether she was an old black woman or of notorious character to the whole Settlement as described by Hurst, we should perhaps reserve judgement, given Hurst's known motivatons.

The documented facts of John Cree's personal life at this period are that Anna Ritta wrote a will in 1767 in which all my worldly Estate & Effects I give bequeth and dispose thereof unto my dear Husband John Cree. The document gives no date of death or probate but we may deduce that she died soon after writing the will (3c).

Next we find that John and a partner called Nancy had two children, James Cree born on 12th August 1774 and Eleanor on 14 December 1775. They were not baptised until 12 February 1778. Each is described in the baptism register of the Mission Church of Calcutta as a natural, that is "illegitimate", child of Mr John Cree and Nancy. This means that she was not married to John. James and Eleanor Cree's godparents were Thomas Mercer, William Walker and Elizabeth Hamilton.

Nancy now drops out of the record, unless she is the same Nancy who is reported to have had an affair with Nathaniel Brassey Halhed while the latter was in Bengal from 1771 to 1776 (4). We have no knowledge of her surname. John seems to have taken responsibility for their children however - James and Eleanor Cree seem to have thrived, as we come across them later.

(2) Reports from Committees of the House of Commons Vol. 6, East Indies 1783, London, 1806. p 232.

(3) Moignes and its medieval windows by Hugh Montgomery-Massingberd, in The Field, April 1986.

(3a) Will of Alexander Scott, Gentleman, Calcutta, East Indies proved Calcutta, 16 August 1765; The National Archives, Kew, Ref PROB 11/918/193.

(3b) That it was the same Alexander Scott is shown by the report of the Decease of Capt. Alexander Scott, our Master Attendant, on the 12th ult... transmitted by Clive and the EIC board in Calcutta to the EIC Court of Directors in London and dated 30 September 1765. See Reports from Committees of the House of Commons Vol. 3, East Indies 1765, London, 1803. pp 389-390.

(3c) Will of Annaritta Cree dated 16 July 1767, British Library, India Office Reading Room, Bengal Wills 1767-1769 Ref P/154/53 Page 54. Abstract by Trevor Cree.

(4) See Wikipaedia article on Halhed.

A free merchant in Dacca

Certainly by 1776 John Cree was referred to as a free merchant in Dacca and one can read into the references to him at this time that he had been in this role for some time. His time as a merchant in Bengal coincided with events which would eventually lead to one of the greatest dramas in British political life. John Cree's actions in opposing corruption were part (a minor part perhaps) of a chain of events that would result in the resignation, subsequent impeachment by parliament and ten-year trial in the House of Lords of Warren Hastings, first Governor General of India.

As Edmund Burke reported to parliament in the Ninth Report of the Select Committee of the House of Commons on the Affairs of India in 1786:
The Dacca merchants begin by complaining that in November, 1773, Mr. Richard Barwell, then [the East India Company's] Chief of Dacca, had deprived them of their employment and means of subsistence; that he had extorted from them 44,224 Arcot rupees (4,731l.) by the terror of his threats, by long imprisonment, and cruel confinement in the stocks; that afterwards they were confined in a small room near the factory-gate, under a guard of sepoys; that their food was stopped, and they remained starving a whole day; that they were not permitted to take their food till next day at noon, and were again brought back to the same confinement, in which they were continued for six days, and were not set at liberty until they had given Mr. Barwell's banian a certificate for forty thousand rupees; that in July, 1774, when Mr. Barwell had left Dacca, they went to Calcutta to seek justice; that Mr. Barwell confined them in his house at Calcutta, and sent them back under a guard of peons to Dacca; that in December, 1774, on the arrival of the gentlemen from Europe, they returned to Calcutta, and preferred their complaint to the Supreme Court of Judicature.

The Regulating Act of 1773 had been passed largely as a result of the rapidly declining state of the East India Company's finances. By it, the post of Governor General of Bengal was created with Warren Hastings as its first appointee. All British controlled territories in India were combined and he was rule them through a five-man Bengal Supreme Council based in Calcutta. The members of the Council were Hastings himself, Mr. Barwell who, as we have seen, had been Factory Chief at Dacca, and three appointees who arrived from London in 1774, Philip Francis, General Clavering and Colonel Monson. These last were the "gentlemen from Europe."

As Edmund Burke wrote, The new Council nominated in the act was composed of two totally discordant elements, which soon distinguished themselves into permanent parties. One of the principal instructions which the three members of the Council sent immediately from England, namely, General Clavering, Colonel Monson, and Mr. Francis, carried out with them was, to "cause the strictest inquiry to be made into all oppressions and abuses," among which the practice of receiving presents from the natives, at that time generally charged upon men in power, was principally aimed at... (5).

The three "gentlemen from Europe" were soon at loggerheads with Hastings who, with Barlow, was in a minority on the Council. Philip Francis led the majority party. He was bitterly opposed to Hastings and their relationship descended into personal animosity. Whether Philip Francis and John Cree were good friends at this stage is not clear, although it is certain that they were later, back in England.

It appears that the Dacca merchants who were so mistreated in 1773 were native merchants, although this is not explicit. As a "free merchant" John Cree also came into conflict with the East India Company at about the same time. The peasant weavers traditionally sold their cloths through agents called dellols (or delals). Both the East India Company and the free merchants employed their own agents called gomastahs, who dealt with the dellols. This system had worked satisfactorily in the area for some time, no doubt due to increasing demand, especially from Europe, for woven cotton cloth.

In about 1773 the local managers of the EIC in tha Dacca area, prominent among whom was George Hurst the EIC's Commercial Chief at Dacca, attempted to enforce a monopoly of the supply of cloth. Even though they were buying only a quarter of the cloth produced by the Bengal weavers, the Company's gomestahs were instructed not to deal with dellols who were supplying cloth to free merchants. This was partly done due to the financial crisis in which the Company found itself. However it was clearly detrimental to the weavers, the dellols and the free merchants.

John Cree, as a free merchant, was one of those whose livelihood was threatened by these actions. In a letter of 2nd July 1776 to the East India Company's Provincial Chief he complains that his gomestah had been placed under house arrest by Hurst. In concert with other free merchants of Dacca, he took up the cudgels again, writing directly to the Governor General and Supreme Council on 8th July 1776. There were five signatures on the letter but there is little doubt that John Cree was its main instigator. In it, he expands his criticism of local EIC officials, accusing them of following a policy of monopolising the cloth trade to the detriment of free merchants and those acting for foreign companies. Incidentally John mentions being unable to travel due to illness. Is this an early sign that he is not a well man?

It is in Hurst's reply to the allegations of John Cree and the other free merchants of Dacca that he attempted the destruction of John's reputation referred to above. The correspondence between John Cree, the various officals of the EIC including George Hurst, the Governor General and the Supreme Council, was later published in Appendix 51 to the Ninth Report of the Select Committee on the Administration of Justice in India and is reproduced in Letters of John Cree, Merchant of Dacca in the Archives Section of this web site.

(5) Eleventh Report of the Select Committee, Burke, 1783.

Trading under the Danish flag

It is difficult to find out whether any effective measures were taken to remedy the complaints of the Dacca merchants or to revive the cloth trade in Bengal. Two members of the Supreme Council died, both of the majority party, Monson in 1776, and Clavering in 1777. Many Europeans died or had their health ruined through living in the Ganges delta. Parliament had given the Council itself the power to replace its members, so with Francis isolated, Hastings was able to install a tractable majority. In 1780 the animosity between Hastings and Francis reached the stage where the two fought a duel after Hastings had cast aspersions on the morality of Francis's private life. Francis was badly injured but recovered. In 1781 he resigned his position and returned to England.

John Cree had undertaken to supply a large quantity of cloth to the Danish East Asiatic Company who had previously only bought through their sircar (agent) and other Indian merchants (6). It seems unlikely that John mentioned this to anyone in the EIC. The Danes had a settlement at Serampur just a few miles from Calcutta. It appeared that John Cree was still able to buy cloth in the Dacca area. The next year, writes historian Ole Feldbaek referring to 1777, the [Danish] Asiatic Company's cloth contracts were divided between the sircar and John Cree. Feldbaek also wrote, In the period 1772 to 1778, the Anglo-Indian remittance capital was received in ready money, which the Councils thereupon invested in the purchase of return goods. In Bengal, the [Danish Asiatic Company's] sircar, Tilluck Ram Mullick, received this money at Calcutta and then invested it in cottons, mostly from John Cree and from himself - and most of these amounts remitted never got as far as the Danish factory... (See Danish Flag p 31.)

The Factory at Serampore renewed in 1779 its contract for 50,000 rupees with John Cree, who had informed the Factors that he was willing to double his delivery to 100,000 rupees, and would accept only one quarter of the amount in cash and the rest in bills on Europe. At that moment, he regarded the outcome of the war with France as so threatening that he wanted to see himself and his fortune in safety in Europe. He took heart again, however, and renewed his contract for 1780 - likewise for 100,000 rupees in the form of bills on the Asiatic Company - and agreed, moreover, to an increase of only 20% on the aurung price, obviously because there were no other European buyers than the Company... (See Danish Flag p 51.)

Most of these transactions were arranged orally or by private correspondence, and both the British suppliers and the Danish Head Factor had private interests that were not for the eyes of either the British Court or the Danish Board. Head Factor J. L. Fix was in close contact with John Benn at Benares, and assured Benn that he need not fear too close an inspection of the piece goods he delivered... The Head Factor - who later became a director of the Asiatic Company - was interested in everything in cloth that Benn could supply, both for the Company and for his own private trade, and the goods, which, as a precaution, were brought ashore at Serampore at dead of night, were paid for with bills on the Danish Board of Directors... (Ibid.)

In Bengal also, the Asiatic Company was greatly dependent on the English Company's policy towards its servants and on the textile production of the provinces, but in the years between the wars, the factors did not usually find much difficulty in procuring the necessary cloths... (See Danish Flag p 88.)

John Cree, as a free merchant was able to play a pivotal role, both as a supplier of cloth and as an agent for remittances to Europe:

John Cree of Dacca... from 1779 to 1783 had been the agent for considerable Anglo-Indian remittance via Copenhagen, and had also delivered large quantities of cloths to the Asiatic Company, which was represented at Serampore by his father-in-law, the Head Factor, J. L. Fix. (See Danish Flag p 143.)

In January 1783 Britain signed a preliminary peace treaty with France and Spain and a few days later officially declared an end to hostilities in America. Spain, Sweden, Denmark and Russia officially recognised the USA. In March, John Cree married Caroline Mathilda Fix. Her father Johan Leonhard Fix was the Head Factor of the Danish Asiatic Company at Serampore and gave forty thousand rupees as dowry. Caroline had previously been married to Herman Frederick Hinckel who was only a year older than her father and had been the previous Head Factor until his death in 1770.

James and Eleanor Cree were eight and seven years old respectively when John and Caroline Mathilde married and it seems that they became fond of their step-mother. Possibly she had been caring for them for some time. At any rate James was later to christen his own daughter Caroline Matilda.

Even during the first years after the war, writes Feldbaek, the Company's purchase was dominated by John Cree's cloths from Patna, Benares, Luckipore and Dacca, while other European suppliers, such as Ambrose Lynch Gilbert, by comparison occupied a more modest position. (See Danish Flag p 88.)

In fact John Cree cannot have held this dominant position for more than a year, as he himself left for England in January 1784. With the peace there was a rush by European merchants in India to get the first shipments to Europe to take advantage of the high price of cotton there which had resulted from its scarcity during the war. Many also wanted to get their fortunes to Europe and settle down there. Three ships were acquired by various consortia of merchants and loaded with some of the most valuable cargoes ever sent to Europe. The ships were renamed with Danish names, the nominal owners were Danes and the cargoes were consigned to agents in Copenhagen, with the aim that payment of duty to the EIC could be avoided. The Christianus Septimus, formerly the Resolution, newly launched at Calcutta, was nominally owned by John Cree's father-in-law, Johan Fix. The real owner was Thomas Mercer, a rich merchant who had been shipping bullion to Canton and who was, as we have seen, godfather to John Cree's children James and Eleanor. Travelling on board in charge of the cargo and all its related commercial dealings was John Cree. As Felbaek writes, Beyond the purchase of Danish passport, flag and owner, the 'Christianus Septimus' had nothing to do with the Danish settlement in India, and the 'rekognition' on a cargo worth 707,535 cr. was paid in Copenhagen by Fabritius & Wever, to who the cargo was formally consigned. The three ships left Bengal in January 1784 and arrived in Copenhagen later that year. (See Danish Flag p 96.)

(6) India Trade under the Danish flag 1772-1808 by Ole Feldbaek, pub. Studentlitteratur, Copenhagen, 1969. This is referred to as Danish Flag in links to the page John Cree and trade under the Danish Flag in the Archives Section of this web site, where extracts from the book are shown.

Back in England

We have every reason to believe that John's period in India had been enormously successful financially. He had become the leading cloth merchant in Dacca. As a "free" merchant, that is one who was not shackled by the rules applying to servants of the East India Company or the Danish Asiatic Company, he had been able to supply both the Danish Asiatic company and the servants of both Companies acting privately, with cloths for shipment to Europe. He had also been a principal remittance agent for European merchants, both free and Company servants who had built up fortunes in Bengal and who wished to transfer their fortunes to Europe. On his voyage home in the Christianus Septimus, there is no doubt that he was finally remitting his own fortune to Europe and increasing it by taking a cargo described by Ole Feldbaek as extraordinarily rich, mainly of cloth, to Copenhagen at a time when the prices it would fetch at auction there were at their highest peak. (The following season, three direct expeditions carried cargoes valued at only 30% of the expeditions of the previous year (6).)

John was accompanied on the Christianus Septimus not only by his cargo and his fortune represented in bills drawn on the Danish Asiatic Company, but also by his wife Caroline Matilda and his children James and Eleanor (by his former partner). During the voyage John and Carolina Matilda had a son of their own, born on 13th October 1784 at sea. On 15 December 1784, the family assembled at the Copenhagen house of cloth manufacturer and merchant, State Councillor Abraham Schneider for the baptism ceremony of John and Carolina's son. He was christened William Johansen Cree and the event was recorded in the records of the German Reformed Congregation of Copenhagen. By 1786 the family was living in Marylebone, the fashionable part of London. William, being legitimate, is now John's heir and we can imagine that John would have been anxious to spend his fortune on something which he can pass on to him. What he needed were a coat of arms and a country estate.

In 1786 John obtained a grant of arms from the Ulster King of Arms in Dublin. The blazon is Argent three olive branches slipped proper on a chief Gules a ship in full sail Proper between two bezants. Crest - a dexter hand holding a civic crown Proper. Motto - The Reward of Integrity.

What is interesting and perhaps significant about the coat of arms is the similarity of the shield to those of several Creagh families in County Clare. Also important is that John Cree is described in the grant of arms, and nowhere else that we know of, as also of the County of Clare (7).

(7) Confirmation of Grant of Arms in Martin Cree papers

Thornhill House

In 1787 John bought an estate in Dorset which included an impressive mansion, Thornhill House. The estate was described in 1796 as a mansion house, stables, coach house and garden. Also... a farm called Thornhill Farm consisting of a dwelling house or farm house, one barn, stable, ox stalls, dairyhouse, an orchard and garden and also 470 acres of thereabouts of arable meadow and pasture land with a small coppice. Also... a cottage and two acres of ground... (11). Thornhill House is now a Grade II* Listed Building.

John was all set for the life of a country gentleman. However life was not all a bed of roses for the returning nabob. In 1788 his son William died at the age of four, taking with him John's hopes of an heir. He was buried at Romford, Essex, where his tombstone may still be seen in the churchyard: Here lies the body of Master William Cree, Son and Heir of John Cree, Esqr, [of] Thornhill in the County of Dorset, Born the [...]ctober 1784 And died a[t Ro]mford in Essex, the 21 Day of March 1788: Aged 3 years, 5 months and 8 days. A Child Remarkable for his Beauty and Attractions.

Mercantile activities

Meanwhile John Cree continued his involvement in the India trade, but now as ship-owner, or part-owner, for return expeditions. He had already good connections with Copenhagen agents such as Fabritus & Wever. It is reported that friends suggested that he sail under the Tuscan or the Prussian flag, but he continued his illicit trade under Danish protection, no doubt due to his relationship with J. L. Fix, his father-in-law, who was still Head Factor at Serampore.

In June 1786 John was one of the owners, perhaps the principal owner, of The Five Sisters, a large Indiaman which sailed from Gravesend with a crew including a substantial contingent of English and Irishmen. Papers had been obtained from Copenhagen on the usual conditions - a Danish captain and discharge of the return cargo at Copenhagen.

Once at sea therefore, Captain Harway (who had travelled to Copenhagen to obtain Danish citzenship) hoisted the Danish flag and repainted the ship's name as the Grevinde Reventlow. On her arrival in India, the Governors of both Bombay, where she called, and Calcutta, her destination, turned a blind eye to her obvious evasion of the British EIC monopoly, although the ship's connection with its flag country, Denmark, was of the smallest possible extent compatible with Danish recognition. The ship engaged in some country trade on the Malabar coast while waiting for a cargo of cotton to become available in Bengal. On return to Europe she called first at Ostend, claiming necessity through damage to the ship, where discharge of the cargo would have given great financial gain.

John Cree cannot himself have accompanied the ship to India as it was away some two years, during which time, as we have seen, he visited Dublin about his grant of arms and also bought his mansion in Dorset. But by July 1788 he was in Brussels, writing to the Danish agents Fabritus & Wever about the conditions of Danish registration. They tried to help in vain. In August he was in Ostend, no doubt meeting the Grevinde Reventlow, and from here wrote to the Danish Minster of Finance, complaining about having to proceed with his cargo to Copenhagen. But discharge and sale at Copenhagen was the Danish Government bottom line for Danish flagged ships and the Grevinde Reventlow yielded in the end and discharged at the Danish capital. (See Danish Flag p 143-4.)

In 1789 John Cree was mentioned, along with his commercial partners George Taswell and Peter Moore, as receiving a cargo of cotton imported by Danish merchants (12). It seems almost certain that this related to the return of the Grevinde Reventlow. George Taswell was a master attendant for the East India Company at Madras (13) while Peter Moore was later described as a "nabob Whig." (14).

We know that John Cree had dealings with an Irish trader, Francis McMahon. We think Francis must have been one of John's McMahon relatives, but not a brother since Francis's father is named as Daniel McMahon. In October 1789, while in Nice, Francis McMahon became seriously ill and, having already written a will while still in England, wrote two further wills on 26 October and 29 October 1789. He died on 4 November 1789. We presume that his English will was voided by the wills written in Nice. In the first will, 26 October 1789, he left among other things 1000 pounds to John Cree, of which 750 had been lodged at traders Leclerc and partners in Nice. In the second document he nominates John Cree and Andrea Ferrandi (of Nice) as his executors, together with suitable recompense (presumably for Ferrandi).

When Cree tries to access his legacy, Leclerc say that they would like to pay but are doubtful of the validity of the will, as it is written by hand by McMahon, and on ordinary paper, contrary to the local law in Nice, which requires wills to be on "stamped paper" (carta bollata). John Cree then arranges for an official request dated 3 October 1790 to be presented to the King of Italy (?=Savoia-Sardinia) to validate the will, which in fact he does. It is that request, kindly translated from the Italian and interpreted for us by John and Tonina Lomas, that is the source of our information. The net result for us as Cree researchers is that we know John Cree had some sort of relationship with Francis McMahon, an Irish merchant, and we know that Francis McMahon was not his brother but a son of Daniel McMahon.

It seems likely that John was involved as a part-owner in a further return expedition under the Danish flag, that of the English ship Eliza. He certainly spent some time in Belgium during 1791, probably awaiting its arrival at Ostend. The journey time from Bengal was unpredictable and perhaps John particularly wanted to be present when it arrived there. Through inability to find a return cargo in Bengal, the ship loaded a cargo of Chinese tea, porcelain and nankeens at Bombay, in defiance of the Danish Asiatic Company's very strict monopoly of China trade. In for a penny, in for a pound, the Eliza discharged at Ostend in 1791 and the agents eventually had to pay a hefty fine to the Asiatic Company for the infringement.

As a result John Cree issued an ultimatum to the Danish government, demanding to be freed of the obligation to discharge and sell at Copenhagen. He wrote, I made you an offer of the business now in agitation but I fear the discouragement of your government will oblige me to take either an Imperial or French passport, therefore if the conditions I require can not be obtained, there ends all further negotiations. (See Danish Flag p 148.)

The Danish government stood firm on this issue, wishing to maintain the market in Indian goods at Copenhagen that resulted from discharge there. The payment of duty to the government and commission to the Danish agent was not sufficient recompense for the use of the Danish flag. Feldbaek writes, John Cree carried out his threat, and in the following years sailed on Indiamen under the Genoese flag (Danish Flag p 149). Although we have yet to find any record of such further mercantile activity we have seen that he had already had dealings with an Irish merchant, Francis McMahon, who it appears was a merchant in Nice in the Kingdom of Savoy and who, on his death in 1789, left John Cree a legacy of £1000

We have already, over his stance on the EIC's treatment of his agents in Dacca, gained an insight into John Cree as a pugnacious, perhaps even confrontational character who would not yield to any perceived wrong done against him. Our impression is supported by his ultimatum to the Danish Government and is confirmed by another incident at around that time. While he was in Belgium he got into a fist-fight with a Mr Macnamara in Brussels after the latter had impugned the honour of his wife Caroline Mathilda. John avoided fighting a duel with Macnamara over the matter. Afterwards he published a long and vitriolic pamphlet about the incident in order to justify his position but we do not know what the insult to Mrs Cree was (15).

As part of that paper a note is reproduced in which John states, "that his departure for Spa which was well known by the Society to be fix'd for the 15th [April], is put off to the 20th inst. to convenience Mr. M[acNamara]."

John spent some time at Spa for on 6th July 1791 he wrote a letter from there asking for a friend, Mr Reading, and his household to be issued with a passport. "He is a person of respect and property," John wrote, "and does not desire to travel in such critical times through France without a proper passport." Mr Reading's household consisted of "Mr and Mrs Reading, Miss Dick, a femme de chambre and three men servants." Both the pamphlet and this letter are important in showing him as a well educated man with a good command of French. But they also show John Cree's rather verbose style of writing portraying a degree of self-importance, echoed in the flourish of his signature (15a).

(11) Draft Special Commissions to inquire into and seize the [effects or] lands of Aliens: Carolina Matilda Elphinston

(12) Declaration by Danish merchants, Copenhagen as to apportionment made of a cargo of cotton imported by them between John Cree and his partners George Taswell and Peter Moore, Sept. 15, 1789. Dublin, Public Record Office Manuscript.

(13) In the wake of Cook: exploration, science, & empire, 1780-1801 by David Mackay.

(14) The House of Commons 1790-1820 by Roland G. Thorne, History of Parliament Trust (Great Britain)

(15) A Minute Detail of the Quarrel at Brussells

(15a) Letter from John Cree, Spa, Belfast, PRONI manuscript T2761/53

John Cree's 1794 will

Later in 1791 John Cree was nominated to be Sheriff of Dorset, unsuccessfully we assume, as we hear nothing of him being in that post (16). More significantly, he took out an insurance policy with the Sun Fire Office in 1792 (16a). We have seen that John Cree had been unwell at various times during his life and this was not unusual at the time for Europeans who had spent time in Bengal. By 1794 when he was probably in his mid-fifties it seems likely that John felt he might not live much longer. On 16 July 1794 he made a will.

We do not have an official copy of this will and we have seen no record of it having been proved. However its terms are repeated in part in the report of the 1799 Commission of Inquiry, so we have transcribed the will as far as possible from that document in our Archives page, The 1794 Will. In it John Cree appoints as executors and trustees William and Thomas Raikes (17), David Godfrey and James Archdekin. William and Thomas Raikes were London merchants with connections to the Copenhagen shipping agents such as de Coninck & Rejersen who were so intimately concerned with the Anglo-Indian trade under the Danish flag. They would have been involved in the transfer to England of John Cree's funds which were initially represented by bills drawn on the Danish government or Danish agents.

Apart from just three annuities, John gives the income from both his real and personal estates to his wife Carolina Matilda for her life. This was on condition that she accepted this as being in satisfaction of the forty thousand rupees settled upon her when they married.

Annuities are grants of income for life. The first was £100 per year to John's daughter Eleanor provided she was unmarried, to be paid annually until she marries. Surprisingly (to me) if she was already married at John's death, or if she should subsequently marry she would receive a larger annuity, £150 per annum, to the intent that the same might be for the sole and separate use of the said Eleanor Cree and might not be subject to the debts, control, disposition or engagement of any husband or husbands. There was also an annuity of £50 to his "natural son" John Cree and a £25 annuity to his butler John Parsons.

The executors were then instructed to hold the real estate themselves in trust and invest the personal estate. The rent of the real estate and the interest on the money were to be paid to John's wife Carolina Matilda for life. After she dies the estate (real and personal) - not just the income and interest - is to go to John's eldest nephew, not named but stated to be living with and in the care of James Macmahon. It was then to pass to his heirs, or in default of such issue to his other nephew and his heirs. If the issue of the other nephew should fail then the estate was to pass to John Cree's own right heirs.

In order to understand the complexity that was involved after John's death in carrying out his testamentary wishes, it is important to understand the distinction between real estate and personal estate. Real estate consists of land and buildings. Personal estate consists of money and investments, and moveable belongings. The law applying to real estate is different to and somewhat stricter than the law applying to personal estate.

(16) London Gazette No 13361 12-15 Nov 1791.

(16a) Insured: John Cree, Thornhill, Dorset, esq Other property or occupiers: Boncey. Date: 1792. Guildhall Library MS 11936/387/602500. Archdekin's record is MS 11936/389/602226.

(17) William & Thomas Raikes was a firm of London merchants: Thomas Raikes was a London merchant, governor of the Bank of England... and a personal friend of Wilberforce and the younger William Pitt. (From Records of the House of Newbery from 1274 to 1910 by Arthur Le Blanc Newbery, 1911, p 66).

Separation

Within a year of John Cree writing his will, disaster struck his relationship with Carolina Matilda. All we know of the cause of the break-up is that John blamed it on the unexampled misconduct of my Wife Carolina Matilda Cree.

John and Carolina Matilda were legally separated under mutual articles of Separation executed at Copenhagen in the presence of four Witnesses on 15th April 1795. He agreed to pay her £1015 that he had received from her father's estate.

The 1795 will

A few months after his marriage break-up John Cree was clearly still angry about it. In October 1795 he wrote a second will, in which he writes, The unexampled misconduct of my Wife Carolina Matilda Cree compels me in Justice to Society and my own honor to revoke the will made in her favor... Carolina Matilda Cree having to the utter astonishment of every one that knew her and my unspeakable Grief undergoing in the space of a few months such an unhappy change from Virtue to Vice that she is no longer worthy of my Bounty and therefore I abandon and punish her for her vicious Courses as far as it in me lays.

We have an unusually precise description from a later probate document of the circumstances under which the will was written: John Cree... being then at his house at Thornhill... being then of sound and disposing mind, memory and understanding and having a mind and intention finally to settle his worldly affairs and make his last Will and Testament in writing, did with his own hand write or draw the very Will now remaining in the Registry of this Court... and after he had made the same he read it all over and liked and approved thereof and in Testimony of such his good liking and approbation he... did set and subscribe his name thereto....

In this 1795 will John Cree leaves Carolina Matilda only the forty thousand rupees he is obliged to pay by their marriage settlement, together with £1015 which he agreed to pay according to their mutual articles of Separation. John directs that his entire estate be sold and the money invested to provide ten annuities, some for friends and others for family members, though neither his brother Terence McMahon nor his nephews John and James McMahon are so much as mentioned. The executors and trustees were the same as in the 1794 will.

Annuities, being grants of income for life, eventually come to an end. So John makes provision for this eventuality. He says that Philip Francis and his heirs are to be the ultimate beneficiaries of John's estate once all the annuities have dropped in.

The annuitants were:
my Daughter Eleanor Cree now living at Thornhill - £300 p.a.
James Cree fifth Mate of the Carnatic East India Man - £100
my Relation James Mac Mahon Esq of Swansea - £200
Miss Elizabeth Francis, Daughter of Philip Francis Esq - £200
John Godfrey Esq - £100
John Byrn Esq late a Major in the East India Company's Service - £100
Miss Jane Harris of Stalbridge - £60
my Butler John Parsons - £40
my ever respected Friend James Archdekin Esq - £100
my dearest Friend David Godfrey Esq - £100
and the first Annuity of the Great Ones that drops in I will and desire may devolve on the Eldest Child Male or Female of William Harwood of Hanwell.

John Cree's social circle

An important aspect of John Cree's two wills is that they allow us a glimpse of the social circle in which he moved and from which we can deduce his political views and outlook. They turn out to be predominately Irish and Whig and many had spent time in India. One day this knowledge may in turn guide us in solving the currently intractable problem of his origins.

Apart from members of John's family and household, we have firstly an implicit confirmation of John's friendship with Philip Francis. Francis is well known as a Whig politician of the time and is now acknowledged to be almost certainly the author of the Letters of Junius (18c). John Cree intended that the heirs of Philip Francis should be the ultimate beneficiaries of John's estate once all the annuities had "dropped in". John would definitely have met him when both were in Bengal, if not earlier in England or Ireland. Francis was in Calcutta from 1774 to 1781 as a member of the newly constituted Supreme Council of Bengal at a salary of £10,000 per annum. He had a prolonged and bitter struggle with Warren Hastings, the governor-general of India. As we have seen, John Cree had become established at Dacca as a free merchant some years before Francis arrived and in 1776 was complaining to the Supreme Council about the injustices perpetrated by employees of the East India Company at Dacca.

After Warren Hastings' return to England, Philip Francis, having already returned, worked closely with Edmund Burke over Hastings' impeachment and trial. I think it no exaggeration to say that Francis was the behind-the-scenes leader and Burke the front man. In Doctor Bissett's Life of Edmund Burke Bissett states that, A very initimate friendship had subsisted from their early youth between Mr. Burke and Mr. Francis. to which Francis replied, This is not the fact. I had known Mr. Burke a little at an earlier period; but it was in the year 1773... that we were introduced (18).

It would be interesting to know if Burke also knew John Cree socially - he certainly knew of him since Burke was the author of the Ninth Report of the Select Committee on the Administration of Justice in India in 1783 which features John Cree's complaints about the EIC. It would also be interesting to know if John Cree and Philip Francis were close before they both went to India. In any case, I would suspect a degree of collusion over the letters John Cree wrote to EIC officials and the Supreme Council. As the anonymous author of the Junius letters before he went to India, Philip Francis was no stranger to secrecy. We know that he returned to England in 1781 on the same ship (the Fox) as William Harwood, a voyage which included "an enforced, lengthy stay at St Helena". This was three years before John Cree's return.

No doubt John continued his friendship with Thomas Mercer, his children's godfather and 'real' owner of the Christianus Septimus which had carried John Cree as supercargo (commercial manager) and his family back to Europe. Mercer appears to have been part of the same social network as John, a network that was intimately involved on the side of Philip Francis and Edmund Burke in the impeachment and trial of Warren Hastings. Mercer, who was from Newry, County Down, had spent a few years as a boy at school in Dublin. In 1787, he appeared at the bar of the House as a prosecution witness in the case. The evidence relates to his thwarted expectation of a contract from the Supreme Council of Bengal, for the transport and sale of opium to China. The record shows him clearly to have been a 'free merchant' in the same sense as John Cree had been. It also shows his close involvement in the prosecution of Hastings with Philip Francis, James Archdekin (John Cree's ever respected friend) and a certain Major Webber, formerly aide-de-camp to General Clavering in India. (Clavering was a member of the "majority party" led by Francis and opposed to Hastings, in the five-person Supreme Council.)

We know that John Cree joined the Whig Club (the one founded in 1784) on 6th March 1786. A record of members (18b) shows his address as New Cavendish Street, although a later edition of the book gives it as Berner's Street (which is James Arcdekin's address). More importantly, almost all the people whom he later mentioned in his will, also joined: John Claridge of Craven street on 13th May 1784, David and John Godfrey of Adelphi Terrace on 14th and 26th June 1784 respectively, William Harwood of Hanwell (later of Caroline Street, Bedford Square) on 6th December 1784, James Archdekin of Berner's-street on 2nd January 1786 and the well-known scourge of Warren Hastings, Philip Francis MP, of St James's-square on 6th December 1786,

In 1792 a group of mostly young Whigs led by Earl Grey formed the Society of Friends of the People, a group that favoured parliamentary reform but attempted to steer a middle course of radicalism between the republicans and revolutionaries on one side and more conservative brand of Whig politics represented by Edmund Burke on the other. The members who signed the founding declaration included James Archdekin, David Godfrey, John Godfrey, William Harwood and Philip Francis - again they were all beneficiaries of John Cree's will and his close friends - and also John Claridge, John's solicitor (19).

It is interesting to note that there were, at least initially, fraternal links between the Society and the Dublin Society of United Irishmen one of whose leaders was Wolfe Tone. In fact James Archdekin, who still owned an estate in Kilkenny, seems to have been the link between the two societies.

November, 27, 1792. To the President of the Society of United Irishmen, in Dublin... Sir, We have received by the hands of Mr. Archdekin, the favour of your Address, and shall take the earliest opportunity of laying it before the Society of the Friends of the People... (19)

Archdekin had dined with Wolfe Tone in Dublin about three times in July 1792. Tone wrote in his diary, Dined with Warren and Archdekin again. No conversation. Wish to introduce Archdekin to Grattan on the subject of India, &c., &c. and later: James Archdekin, whose sister married Thomas Warren, went to India in his youth and 'having fortunately gained the good will of Mr. Warren Hastings, the governor-general, obtained a grant for a term of years of a portion of the salt contract by which he realized... £50,000.' (20). So now we find that James Archdekin was also in India!

John Cree penned significant expressions of friendship towards his executors James Archdekin and David Godfrey in his 1795 will. That these friends were also friends of Philip Francis is made clear in a letter from Francis written in April 1793 to an American cousin, Edward Tilghman: This letter of introduction will be, I hope ere long delivered to you by one, who is to be accompanied by another, of my oldest and most intimate friends. The first is Mr. David Godfrey, the second Mr. James Archdekin... (18a).

The one beneficiary of John Cree's will who has not figured so far (apart from his family and household) is John Byrn, whom he described as late a Major in the East India Company's Service. It is likely, from the spelling Byrn and the rank, that he was the Major John Byrn whose wife, according to an inscription in Great Staughton parish church, Huntingdonshire, was "Mrs. Margaret Byrn Wife of Major John Byrn Who... Departed this life May 20th, 1791 aged 33 years." John Byrn himself was buried there on 3 Nov 1798. Margaret was probably Margaret Kirwan who married John Byrn Esquire by licence in London in 1784.

In January 1794 the John Cree and his wife Caroline Matilda appeared to be living in a harmonious state at Thornhill House. They have as a house guest Philip Francis who, as we have seen, had been a member of the Supreme Council of Bengal at the time when John was addressing his complaints about corruption to that Council. From Francis's account of his stay at Thornhill we learn that John Cree was a friend of the family. How far back did that friendship go? Did they first meet in India? Were they in the Civil Service together in London before that? Did they know each other as boys in Dublin where they were born into families of similar status?

At any rate Francis, writing to his daughter Elizabeth from Thornhill on 11th January 1794, describes his stay there as very comfortable and very uniform, plenty of Stuffing, excellent beds, and everlasting Fires... Mrs. Cree is as good-humoured & agreeable as possible. Upon the whole our State of Existence is much to my satisfaction. Mr. Cree has put me into possession of a piece of plain Muslin for you, which, I believe, for Beauty and Value, is not to be surpassed. (John was later to make a bequest to Elizabeth in his will.) There was no hint of any marital discord that might have presaged the break-up of John and Carolina Matilda's relationship the following year (18a).

Perhaps the most significant link binding the members of John Cree's social circle, is that Philip Francis, Thomas Mercer, James Archdekin and John Byrn, were all born in Ireland as was John Cree himself, and probably all brought up in Dublin, as were Richard Sheridan the playwright and politician, who was a member of the Whig Club and signatory of the Friends of the People declaration, and indeed Edmund Burke.

From all this we may deduce that John Cree was politically radical during the heady period following the French Revolution. He associated with the proponents of parliamentary reform, an association not without danger. Apart from joining the Whig Club he himself did not, as far as we know, declare any political views, let alone revolutionary or reformist ones, and, like Edmund Burke, did not sign the declaration of the Society of Friends of the People (20a). Many, perhaps even most, of his associates were of Irish origin and most had spent time in India.

(18) Both quotations appear in Memoirs of Sir Philip Francis by J Parkes and H Merivale, Londonm 1867, Vol. 2.

(18a) The Francis Letters by Sir Philip Francis et al., ed. Beata Francis and Eliza Keary, pub. Hutchinson, London, 1901. Tilghman was a barrister who had joined Francis in Bengal but left with him in November 1780.

(18b) Whig Club instituted in May 1784 by John Bellamy to be composed of gentlemen who solemnly pledge themselves to support the constitution of this country according to the priniples established at the Glorious Revolution, London, 1792, p 66.

(18c) Letters of Junius Wikipaedia article quoting Who was Junius? by Alvar Ellegård, Stockholm, 1962.

(19) Proceedings of the Society of Friends of the People, London, 1793, p 66.

(20) The writings: 1763-98. Tone's career in Ireland to June 1795 by Theobald Wolfe Tone, ed. Theodore W. Moody et al., Oxford, 1998. p 229. (Henry Grattan was the leader of the majority national party in the Irish House of Commons. Thomas Warren was a cotton manufacturer and a member of the Dublin Society of United Irishmen.)

(20a) London Lives 1690-1800 website

The Carnatic

John Cree's will of 1795 shows us that his son James was by then sailing the high seas as fifth mate of an Eastindiaman, the Carnatic, presumably at the time the will was written. Of the many ships that have borne the name Carnatic, the one John's son James Cree sailed in was launched in 1787. She was one of three of a new class of Eastindiamen of over 1000 tons burthen built specifically for the China trade. She was 132 feet long, 40 ft. 6 in. broad and of 1169 tons registered burthen (22).

There is a tradition among present descendants that John himself made his fortune as owner of the Carnatic and that it is the ship depicted on his own coat of arms and that of his nephew and successor John McMahon/Cree (1780-1853) (21). We have seen no documentary evidence that John Cree owned or part-owned a ship called the Carnatic, but it does seem possible. The East India Company did not own ships itself but contracted with private owners. These were individuals or syndicates that would commission the building of an Indiaman and then engage with the East India Company to undertake voyages to the East. So it is certainly possible that John Cree owned or part-owned the Carnatic that was launched in 1787 (21a).

Having recently arrived back from India he was certainly looking to find ways to spend the fortune he had made there. It was in that year that he purchased Thornhill House and he was certainly engaged in the India trade through ownership of Danish registered ships that landed their cargoes in Copenhagen. Unless he was persona non grata with the EIC due to this activity and his earlier contretemps with them in Bengal, one might expect him to invest in at least part-ownership in the latest class in Eastindiaman to be built on the Thames. And when his son James became of an age to go to sea John would then be in a position to obtain for him a position such as that of fifth mate on the Carnatic.

Journals, ledgers and pay books of the Carnatic confirm James Cree's position in 1794 as Fifth Mate. The ship was employed on the China run and made six voyages there over the period 1786 to 1802, each round trip taking about eighteen months. James sailed on her third trip to China at the age of nineteen leaving Gravesend in December 1793 (23) and Portsmouth on 2nd May, 1794. The pay book shows that James "ran" (that is, jumped ship) at the island of Pulau Pisang on 15 Nov 1794. How James reached England from this small (1 km diameter) and remote island on the south-west coast of Sumatra is not known. He later married and settled in Lambeth. He named his two daughters Eleanor, after his sister, and Caroline Matilda after his step-mother.

(21) Montgomery-Massingberd op. cit. (3)

(21a) Trade in Eastern Seas 1793-1813 by C. Northcote Parkinson, 1966, Routledge, London.

(22) A register of ships, employed in the service of the Honorable the United East India Comapny 1760-1810 by H and C Hardy, London, 1811. The register lists ship's officer's for each voyage down to 4th Mate. James Cree, being a Fifth Mate, is not mentioned.

(23) Some account of the diseases that prevailed in two voyages to the East Indies in the Carnatic East Indiaman by John Milne, London, 1803.

John Cree's last days

As we have seen, John Cree made two wills, one before the break-up of his marriage and the other after he had he legally separated from Carolina Matilda. However he had written the second one himself at Thornhill House, without the aid of his solicitor. It seems also that, although he had signed it and had prepared an attestion clause, he had not actually had the will signed by witnesses. So for these reasons, and perhaps also because the attestation clause was on a separate sheet of paper, he had some doubts as to its validity. James Archdekin said, in a Chancery Court hearing in 1796, very soon after [John Cree] had wrote the aforesaid memorandum or Clause of Attestion to his said last will... he determined that his Solicitor should obviate all doubts... by drawing up a new will. Critically, it was alleged that John Cree did not recognise and publish his said Will although he still meant that his intentions as therein detailed should operate and have effect...

On Saturday 14th November 1795 John Cree left Thornhill and travelled to London. On the following Tuesday he visited his solicitor, John Claridge, at Craven Street in the Strand. He left his will with Claridge and said he would call on him again on Friday 20th November in order to settle his affairs.

The next day he was at the house of his ever respected friend James Archdekin in Berners Street. A report of a later Chancery Court case heard in 1798 gives us a dramatic glimpse of what John Cree was doing. Archdekin noticed that John was spending some time writing. He asked him what he was so attentively committing to paper... and John answered, that he was making out a statement of the amount of his fortune, as a preparatory step towards enabling him to give proper directions to Mr. Claridge for a new will; as he had altered his former testament...

Archdekin said that he particularly remembered, that... while he was writing down instructions for a new will... [he said] that the said John Byrn was his particular friend; and as he had a large family, he... would not on any account distress him by calling on him for the money, he had lent him.

We do not know the cause of John Cree's death, but his attention to preparing a new will indicated his awareness of his imminent mortality. He was perhaps not aware of how imminent. On that same day John Cree was suddenly taken ill and died on the next morning (to wit) Thursday the nineteenth [of] November without having published his aforesaid last Will and Testament in the presence of Witnesses or having seen the said John Claridge after [his visit on Tuesday 17th] (24)

(24) The account of John Cree's last days comes from the report of a case in the Chancery Court brought by his "particular friend" John Byrn, against the executors of John Cree's will (including James Archdekin) who had, it seems, deducted the amount of the loan from the legacy paid to Byrn. The Court reluctantly decided against John Byrn. What is written down - John Byrn's promissory note and John Cree's will - takes precedence over any wishes a testator may have expressed verbally to his friends and even to his excecutors. See Byrn v Godfrey.

Sweet Asiatic

We can only guess at the emotional effect of John's death on his children, James and Eleanor, orphaned at the age of twenty-one and nineteen. Eleanor turned twenty on 14th December 1795. She had been living for some months in a little village called Stratford, just outside Salisbury, probaby with a man called John Davis, who had gone to sea in 1787 at the age of twelve as a ship's boy on an Indiaman and had ended up as an acting lieutenant in the Navy. A biographer of John Davis, J Morris writes John Davis was a vagrant from his youth (25). John David later claimed he left the Navy in 1797 but was clearly with Eleanor at New Year of 1796. He was described by another biographer Thelma Louise Kellogg as a traveller, poet, and romancer (26). The two young persons, she wrote of John and Eleanor, had a common bond in their love for poetry. We know of three of her poems, Ode, The Adieu to the Village and The Village Church-Yard. The first two are explicitly about Stratford. The last is a An imitation of Gray's Elegy written in a Country Churchyard (27).

Did Eleanor find solace in John's arms in her grief at her father's death? Did he take advantage of the situation? Did she she know of the terms of her father's 1794 will, which would have made it financially advantageous for her to marry as soon as possible, but not of the 1795 will, which gave her a greater annuity whether she was married or not.

For whatever reasons, at around New Year 1796 they set off for Scotland together. One can imagine the discomforts of such a journey in the middle of Winter, especially for Eleanor who had been raised in the tropical climate of Bengal. We have a record of their marriage on 6th January 1796 at Gretna Green, a favourite venue for runaways to marry, for under Scots law under-age brides and bridegrooms could marry without their parents' consent. A further marriage ceremony was held a few weeks later, on 2nd March 1796, in the church of St Edmund, Salisbury, where John Davis had been baptised.

John seems to have abandoned his young wife after not much more than two years of marriage. According to his own hand, he went to Bristol on 15th December 1797 and set sail for America on 7th January 1798. Did he persuade her to part with one of her six-monthly annuity payments in order to finance his travels? Within six months Eleanor died of tuberculosis.

John Davis submitted her three poems for publication, alongside some of his own, but hers only ever appeared under her first name, Eleanor. Her Ode was published in magazines in both London and New York. In his later autobiographical writing he omits to mention Eleanor and their marriage, and claims not to have returned home to Salisbury until 1798. However there is a description of a fictitious naval lieutenant who elopes with his lover to Gretna Green in one of John Davis's novels, The Post Captain. The account of their elopement and subsequent travels may or may not echo those of the real John Davis and Eleanor Cree. It is surely not coincidence that the lieutenant is named Tom Echo.

Davis had some transient popular success as a writer in America and also in England, where he returned in 1818. He died in an almshouse in Finsbury, London, where he was described as an author and a Pensioner, aged about 76.

(25) Introduction by A J Morris in Travels of four years and a half in the United States of America by John Davis, London, Dublin and New York, 1803.

(26) The Life and Works of John Davis, 1774 - 1853 by Thelma Louise Kellogg, University Press of Orono, Maine, 1924.

(27) Elegy written in a Country Churchyard signed "Eleanor." The poem is in couplets rather than quatrains, and follows Goldsmith's The Deserted Village in developing its topic as a series of verse characters of persons in humble life: a minstrel, an aged parent, a shepherd, and the village sexton, who, "Nor heard, depress'd, the bell in solemn toll, | Announce his neighbour's late departed soul, | But to his labour at the summons sped, | To form another hillock o'er the dead." The poem, "Written in England, 1797," was submitted to the Monthly Magazine, a New York publication, by John Davis, an Englishman who had for some years been

John Davis: "Sir, The following Poems form part of a collection that was presented me by their lovely Authoress, whose genius will not confer less celebrity on Dacca, the place of her birth and early residence, than that of Eliza has on Anjengo. I should be gratified by seeing them published in your collection, that Eleanor may be not less known on the banks of the Hudson than on those of the Ganges. They were written at the little Village of Stratford, three miles from Salisbury (England.) It is painful to relate that this sweet Asiatic fell a victim to a consumption at the age of eighteen, June 19, 1798. I am, Sir, &c. John Davis. New-York, February 20, 1800"

The story continues...

The carrying out of John Cree's wishes seems to have been a complicated process - it is certainly confusing to try and understand it two centuries later because both of the wills which John Cree wrote, the July 1794 one and the October 1795 one were carried out in part. The problem arose because the later 1795 one had not been legally attested (witnessed in writing). This is where the distinction between real estate and personal estate come in. Within four days of John's death, two persons of good standing, John Woolley and John Claridge swore affidavits to say that the will and John Cree's signature on it were indeed in John Cree's handwriting which they were familiar with. John Claridge we know was John Cree's own solicitor and John Woolley styled himself "of Lombard Street London, Gentleman." See section headed Appeared Personally in the 1795 will,

Five weeks after John's death, on 28 January 1796, James Archdekin and David Godfrey instituted what was termed a Probate Lawsuit or Allegation. The purpose of the allegation was stated at its head:

A Business of proving in solemn form of Law the last Will and Testament of John Cree late of Thornhill... Esq. deceased bearing date the twentieth day of October [1795] promoted by David Godfrey and James Archdekin, two of the Executors named in the said will against Lucy Godfrey (Wife of John Godfrey Esqr.) a Legatee named in the former Will of the said Deceased bearing date the 16th day of July 1794.

It is stated in the Allegation that Lucy Godfrey a Legatee named in a former Will of the said Deceased bearing date the 16th day of July 1794 was claiming that the first will, that of 1794, was the only valid will. This serves to suggest that the extract of the 1794 will which we have, as recited in the Inquisition of 1799, is incomplete.

On 26 Feb 1796, Godfrey and Archdekin applied to the Prerogative Court of Canterbury to have the will - again this was the 1795 will - proved. The resulting grant stated that administration is granted of all and singular the Goods Chattels and Credits of the deceased to James Archdekin and David Godfrey as executors. Of vital importance here is that administration of John Cree's personal estate only, his Goods, Chattels and Credits, is granted, not his real estate. This did mean that Lucy received nothing.

It is a rambling and complex will and soon gives rise to litigation between various beneficiaries and potential beneficaries. A Chancery case heard in 1798 concerns a promissory note from one of the beneficiaries, John Byrn. John Cree had verbally cancelled the debt, but had been unable to return the promissory note because it was still at his bank and so it was declared valid. The interest of this case is that, almost in passing, it refers to the earlier decision that the 1795 will was not executed as is by law required to pass real estates. The marginal note refers to a charge on the real estate failing for want of a proper attestation of the will.

It seems therefore that administration of the second will, that of 1795, was granted in respect of the personal estate only. John's movable assets and money were to be used to pay the annuities specified in that will. But since the will was deemed to be not executed as is by law required to pass real estates, the real estate had to be dealt with according the the earlier will, that of 1794.

John had intended, by his second will that all my estates Real and Personal be converted into Money after my decease and placed on Interest on solid Land Security in order to realise the cash needed to pay the annuities. But the legal mish-mash in the probate had the result that the real estate could not be sold and there was not enough cash realised from the personal estate alone to pay the annuities in full. As mentioned in the Lucy Godfrey case, the executors believed, the assets of the testator would be by no means sufficient for the payment of the legacies and annuities given by the will.

A further Chancery case arising out of the will, Godfrey v Davis, was heard in 1801. This concerned the illegitimacy of a residuary legatee. As it concerned John Cree's personal estate it was the second, 1795 will that was considered.

Action against aliens: Carolina Matilda

At some time after John Cree's death in 1795 and before 1799, his widow Carolina Matilda married George Elphinston who was born in Denmark of Scottish ancestry.

My fellow researcher Trevor Cree discovered that the UK National Archives online catalogue listed some documents relating to a Commission of Inquiry into whether Thornhill had come into the possession of John Cree's widow Carolina Matilda. The document is unsuitable for transmission over the Internet, and when I received the paper copy I realised why - it's a huge, 900 x 815 mm page with handwritten lines stretching across its full width. The sentences are of marathon length with numerous repeated phrases and legalistic sounding clauses, but eventually I got the gist of it.

It seems that the government was very concerned about foreigners living in Britain, and particularly about them owning land there. As John's widow Carolina Matilda was a Danish citizen it set up a commission of inquiry consisting of prominent members of the establishment in Dorset.

The Commission's report stated that its jurors say that the the said John Cree... did duly make and publish his last Will and Testament in writing bearing date... 16th July 1794... and was duly executed and attested as by Law required for passing and devising real Estates and that the same hath been established in his Majesty's High Court of Chancery....

So here we have positive confirmation that John's first will, that of 1794, was the one accepted for dealing with John Cree's real estate.

Unfortunately the main immediate beneficiary of the 1794 will was John's ex-wife Carolina Matilda, from whom he legally separated after writing that will. The real estate was to be held in trust by the executors Godfrey and Archdekin. Annuities were to be paid to his children James and Eleanor Cree, so we may assume that they received these. The remainder of the rents of the real estate were to be paid to Carolina Matilda during her lifetime. After that the estate itself was to pass to John's nephew John McMahon (or failing that to John's younger brother James McMahon).

The Commission found that Carolina Matilda was indeed an alien but that she had not at any time been in possession of any of the estate of John Cree, although she was intitled for her life to the rents and profits of the said Mansion House [etc...Thornhill House and the estate].

One important part of the Commission's report lists in full the real estate which John Cree owned at the time of his death. It consisted of a Mansion House, Stables, Coach House and Garden. Also of a Farm called Thornhill Farm consisting of a Dwelling House or Farm House One Barn Stable Ox Stalls Dairyhouse and Orchard and Garden and also 470 acres of arable Meadow and Pasture Land with a small Coppice. Also of a Cottage and two acres of ground which cottage was holden by the said John Cree under the Earl of Uxbridge for two lives, all of which... are in the Parish of Stalbridge... Dorset...

The Commission confirms that John Cree was in possession of Thornhill House and the rest of his real estate at his death, when it passed to his executors David Godfrey and James Archdekin. It then, on 5 April 1797, passed to a Receiver appointed by the High Court of Chancery. The Commission themselves then seized the estate on behalf of the Crown on 5 April 1799.

My ever respected Friend

We then find that six months after the Inquisition, on 10 October 1799, the Crown leased the whole estate back to James Archdekin for 99 years at £101 13s. 4d. per annum without fine (entry fee) (28). (The other executor, David Godfrey, had died in 1798.)

So James Archdekin had a hand in all of this. To start with, after John Cree's death he was co-owner of Thornhill in trust as co-executor with David Godfrey of John Cree's will. Then he was lessee of Thornhill House from the Crown. We know that the house passed eventually to the nephew John McMahon. We must remember that John McMahon only came of age (21 years old) in 1801, and had been engaged in a military career in Holland and Egypt until that time. We may assumes that as the lessee of the Crown James Archdekin allowed John McMahon to take take up residence on attaining the age of 21.

James Archdekin died in 1803 (29). Perhaps John McMahon was then able to become the lessee of the Crown. At amy rate he married Ann Stickland in Dorchester in 1805 and their children were baptised at Stalbridge from 1806 onwards. Clearly John McMahon was Master of Thornhill, but the Crown was still the owner.

In 1815 an Act of Parliament was passed specifically to enable the Crown to sell Thornhill House. The Act (55 Geo. III.) states that the Crown had acquired the estate of Thornhill in 1799 for the period of the natural Life of Carolina Matilda Elphinston (now the Wife of George Elphinston Esquire, residing at Copenhagen, in the Kingdom of Denmark, and late the Widow of John Cree, deceased), subject to a Lease thereof granted by His Majesty unto James Archdekin. We must assume that it was now, in 1815 that John McMahon was able to take full ownership of Thornhill House and its estates. Also in 1815 Carolina Matilda's husband George Elphinstone died at sea during a passage to (or from) China. She was thus widowed for a second time. We do not know that she died in that year, but it may be that her circumstances in some way triggered the 1815 Act authorising the sale of Thornhill House.

(28) Archdekin, James: The mansion house and farm of Thornhill in Stallbridge [sic]. The UK National Archives. Exchequer: Pipe Office: Particulars, Warrants and Transcripts for Crown Leases, Dorset. TNA Piece reference E 367/6155.

(29) Will of James Archdekin, Saint Marylebone, Middlesex, 1803. The UK National Archives. TNA Piece reference PROB 11/1385.

(30) Parish Register, of Stalbridge, Dorset, 16 June 1806, birth of John McMahon's first child, John Robert McMahon.

Licence to John McMahon to take the surname and bear the arms of Cree only

It would surely have been in response to the passing of the Act of Parliament on 12 May 1815 that John Cree's nephew, John McMahon, applied for a licence that he and his Issue may assume and take the surname of Cree only, and also bear the arms of Cree only, for that Licence was granted on 8 June 1815. (31). The Licence (which is in the possession of his descendant Martin Cree) refers to the will of John Cree Esq bearing date 16 July 1794. This clearly shows that, as far as the real estate was concerned - Thornhill House and the associated land, farm and cottages - it was the 1794 will that was effective and not the later, 1795 will. The licence refers to the Petitioner (John McMahon) by the description of his, the testator's, eldest nephew, then living with and under the care of James McMahon, and the heirs of the Body of his said nephew with other remainders over. John McMahon was declared to be intitled to the Interest in the real Estate.

So John McMahon had now changed his name to John Cree, the name always used by his late uncle. His two eldest sons also changed their names to Cree.

In 1826 John Cree put Thornhill House up for sale. The following year he purchased Moignes Court at Owermoigne, near Dorchester, and moved there with his growing family.

When John died in 1853 his eldest son, Reverend John Robert Cree (formerly McMahon) inherited the Owermoigne estate and the right to bear the family's arms. However when he died unmarried at the age of 76 his nearest male relative was his nephew George John Stone, son of his sister Georgiana. George changed his surname to Cree in order to inherit the Cree estate. From then until today the surname Cree, the estate, the right to arms and the lordship of the Manor of Owermoigne have descended in the male line.

(31) John McMahon Esq., Licence, College of Arms, 8 June 1815, in Martin Cree papers.

Database details of John Cree

This page last updated 5 February 2020