Series 5 > British Linen Company, 1745-1775

204
THE BRITISH LINEN COMPANY
To Alex[ande]r Simpson, Aberdeen
22 June 1768
On Monday last a Gentleman gave in here £7300 of this Company’s Notes
& demanded Specie for them which he was accordingly paid. He said he came
from your Bank. As this Company desire to live in peace with all their
neighbours & are not sensible that they have given your Bank any just cause
of offence I am ordered to write you to know whether or not the above
mentioned demand was made in consequence of orders from your Directors.
The Directors of this Company love peace & to carry on their business in a
merchant like manner. They make runs upon no body but will not tamely be
run upon when no cause of offence is given. If this is part of your Company’s
plan they must act accordingly but wish much rather to live in harmony with
all their neighbours. I beg your answer in course. WH. [Walter Hog]
Court of Directors
18 November 1768
The Manager having informed the Court that Ebenezer Hill, the Company’s
Teller, had by an abstraction from the money lodged on the faith of his Initials
on the Cash Chest made away with Six hundred and eighty pounds one shilling
and nine pence sterling as per Account produced.
Ordered to get the Account attested by Ebenezer Hill and afterwards made
out by Mr Gordon in terms of his Bond of Cautionary and to write his
Cautioners acquainting them of the Affair & desiring payment of the contents
of their Bond of Five hundred pounds.
The Court Ordered Ebenezer Hill to be dismissed from the Company’s
Service1 and that Samuel Kinloch who has acted for these some weeks past as
Teller should be continued in that Office until another one is appointed.
Ordered to inform the warehouse keeper at Leith that the Company will
not have use for his service after Whitsunday next and to write the factor for
the proprietor of the warehouse that the Company do not intend to possess it
after said term of Whitsunday next.
1 According to C.A. Malcolm, History of the British Linen Bank (Edinburgh, 1950), 89, Hill was a man of
extravagant habits and ‘theatre-going’. His freedom did not last long: he was reported to be a prisoner
in the Tolbooth in 1769, while the British Linen Company vigorously pursued his cautioners through
the courts for compensation. George Goldie, Manager for the British Linen Company v. William Nisbet,
Linen Manufacturer in Edinburgh, Thomas Dick, Shoemaker there, Alexander Hemming, Linen
Manufacturer at Kirkliston and Robert Pearson, Linen Manufacturer at Largo. Signet Library,
Edinburgh, Court of Session Cases, 74/2, (1769).