(MARTINIQUE). King George III Royal Order.

(ANGLO-AMERICAN JUDAICA).

9th July

London

1762

Approval signed by Lord North and Lord Bute, to pay Moses Franks consortium (Colebrookes / Nesbitt / Franks) funds due for supplying war provisions to troops onboard ships headed to Martinique. This was in support of troop movements in Jamaica and Havana during the Seven Years’ War. Signed by the consortium members on verso.

An important document pertaining to Jewish mercantile activity in the Caribbean. Moses Franks was involved in a series of contracts to supply British troops. This document suggests that these enterprises were more extensive than in North America only. His involvement in these consortiums suggests access to the highest levels of government, which is noteworthy given his Jewish pedigree. Moses Franks (1718-89) was born into a powerful Jewish merchant family in New York. He moved to London and there represented his family’s business interests to great commercial success. He was an upstanding member of London’s Great Synagogue, Dukes Place. Regarding Jewish entanglements in Empires and the advantages derived from membership in a kinship network, including army contracting, see Toni Pitock, Commerce and Connection: Jewish Merchants, Philadelphia, and the Atlantic World, 1736-1822 (2016) https://udspace.udel.edu/handle/19716/21121. The Anglo-French conflict over their colonies in North America (The Seven Years' War 1756–63) was the most important event to occur in eighteenth-century North America prior to the American Revolution.