Lot 1212

1780S TRADE, LAND GRABS, AND THE MARBOIS-LONGCHAMPS AFFAIR

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1780S TRADE, LAND GRABS, AND THE MARBOIS-LONGCHAMPS AFFAIR

Estimate: $300 - $400

Starting Bid: $160

(0 Bids)

by Alexander Historical Auctions LLC
July 31, 2026 10:00 AM EDT
Live Auction
106 East Main Street, Suite 103
Elkton, MD, US 21921

1780S TRADE, LAND GRABS, AND THE MARBOIS-LONGCHAMPS AFFAIR
Interesting A.L.S. 4pp. legal folio, ‘Stratford Place' [London], May 4, 1785, penned by an unnamed merchant in London to his agent in America regarding difficulties in his trade and land concerns as well as mentioning the infamous Marbois-Longchamps diplomatic incident. In part: ‘…I have received both of your long letters of Jany & March. They have been a long time coming, as have been all letters from the Westward, as we have had nothing but Easterly Winds from the 25th Febr. to the 25th April…I am much obliged to you for the contents of yours, & particularly for your ? of businesses in your Country. We shall not be alarmed at seeing your Ambassadors but rather the contrary, and tho' looking on you now entirely as a foreign nation, since you have chose[n] to be one, yet we shall look on you as a friendly one, unless you give us reason to otherwise. Your laying the 10 pounds [duty] on our goods & only 2 ½ on those of other nations is very absurd. In the first place, it is taking [?] yourselves, if it be true, that the credit we give, & the goods we furnish suit your own conveniency better than any other nation can do. In the next place the reason for doing this is more absurd than the thing itself. For you yourselves are the cause of the inconveniency you labour under. If I guess right that it is the business of the West India Trade for the single cause of that it, as you well know, not any real disinclination towards America, but because America is becoming a Foreign Power, and without some specified agreement we cannot give a Revenue to one Foreign Power over another, and you know that…having the Laws of Trade are regarded not only by us, but by all the powers of Europe as the main source of our Naval power & wealth which therefore they have wished to break them, and we to maintain to the utmost of our power. I think too that by your laying such a duty on our goods as confessing that our Laws of trade are of at least that value to us, and therefore better worth preserving, and you have not very wisely in teething [enforcing] it. As for the duty, as I said before…we must charge it or the goods we send you…Now as to my lands in Vermont, if in Vermont they are, I can say no more than I have done that I agree with you in opinion to sell then even if I got but one [penny] per acre for it is impossible I [should] manage them and if the parties cannot pay and wd give a mortgage on the premises…I wd even take. As to my title, it is unquestionable. I have not heard any body [question] it other than that Odd Fellow Christie who…chose to vote the land to be Canada, as such to take it by himself. If he claims it now it must be in the teeth of the Treaty of Peace to wit…all Land within the degree of 45 N. Lat. to belong to America…as to the patent of Henry Brown I know not where it is, indeed I never saw it, having left all that to Riley [?] of New York who you know is long since gone to the devil, and if your state papers in such [disorganization] God knows if I will ever be paid again…As to maps of New York, I am quite at a loss to gauge by your several letters whether they have been received or not. Certainly they can't be found here after the most diligent search nor do I know what to do…I will however send you…which is at least a correct if not a fine one. Your account of Mr. [Julien de] Longchamps it is truly entertaining. We hear that the French sent a File of soldiers on board ship all the way to America to seize him but they missed their Bay [?]. It shows however their disposition…He wd have gone to the Bastile [sic]…'. In Philadelphia in 1784, Charles Julien de Longchamps—an employee of the French army who had recently naturalized as a citizen of Pennsylvania—assaulted and verbally threatened François Barbé-Marbois, the Consul General of France to the United States in the residence of the French minister. The Court decided to neither charge nor deport Longchamps even though he had attacked a public figure, stating: ‘The person of a public minister is sacred and inviolable. Whoever offers any violence to him, not only affronts the Sovereign he represents, but also hurts the common safety and well being of nations; he is guilty of a crime against the whole world'. Instead, Longchamps was fined 100 French Crowns, and sentenced to almost two years in jail. Ironically, he would not serve out his sentence: Longchamps was killed in a duel in 1787. Folds, one fold tear at right margin, overall good.

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