Chilled by Tom Jackson

Author:Tom Jackson
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
Published: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

In 1806, William was packed off to England to attempt to negotiate a trade deal for the West Indian colonies. He was accompanied by his little sister Delia and his parents. They were using the trip as an opportunity to mix with the high society of London – and later Paris – in an attempt to marry off Delia to a wealthy suitor.

It was becoming clear that business acumen was not a family trait. The land deal that Frederic and his father had entered into a few years before was not proving to be quite as sure a thing as they had hoped. Their plots south of Boston were not making anything. It would seem they had bought the only land that no one wanted to build on as the city expanded in all other directions.

Reckless optimism did run in the family, however, with Judge Tudor borrowing heavily to pay for the European jolly. The family fortune was running out, and only Frederic had a plan, thoroughly reckless and optimistic, to make another. But having taken full control of the business, Frederic would find that he was still at the mercy of other forces – this time it was the justice system and international politics.

Learning a lesson from the debacle in 1805 in Martinique, Frederic arranged for an ice house to be built in St Pierre. This would prevent his stock from disappearing faster than he could sell it. The other thing 1805 taught him was that there were not that many customers for ice on tropical islands. His response to that problem was to expand. He built another ice house in Havana in preparation for a supply run in the spring. He felt sure that the demand for ice cream and cool drinks would be higher in the Caribbean’s largest and most modern city.

In 1807, the second shipment of New England ice was sent to the Caribbean, this time as stock for the Havana ice house. Frederic did not go with it and instead entrusted its sale to another cousin, William Savage, brother of James. The Cuban ice house seems to have been barely fit for purpose, but William sold $6,000 of ice in two weeks. The ship that had carried the ice down – the Trident, the Favorite having been long since disposed of – was signed up to bring a cargo of molasses back to Boston. This would have boosted the takings further and put Frederic into profit. However, the customer for the molasses went bust, and Frederic was back in the red. There was no money left to supply Martinique, and the brand new Tudor ice house there was left empty.

With impeccable timing, William Tudor wrote to Frederic with news, both good and bad. The British had granted the Tudors exclusive rights to sell ice in their West Indian colonies. It appears that the authorities had been suspicious that the venture was cover for smugglers, and were minded to turn down the request. However, William managed

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