Empires in the Wilderness: Foreign Colonization and Development in Guatemala, 1834-1844 by William J. Griffith

Author:William J. Griffith
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: The University of North Carolina Press
Published: 2001-12-15T00:00:00+00:00

IX

COMMERCIAL TOWNS: ABBOTTSVILLE AND SANTO TOMÁS

Young Anderson returned to London in the fall of 1839 bearing official documents and firsthand information that enabled the Company finally to formulate plans for its Central American operation. The agent’s frequent reports from Guatemala had kept the directors informed of the progress of his negotiations, but details of the arrangements he concluded were often lacking. The principal outlines of the Santo Tomás cession, for example, they learned from the summary sent by Anderson, but his acceptance of Meany’s advice not to trust a copy of the document to the mails, “lest it fall into other hands,”1 left them without full knowledge of the agreement until his arrival. For similar reasons they were only generally acquainted with the plans for developing the Company’s concessions he formulated as a result of personal observation. On the basis of the information they received, however, the directors had been able to forecast the nature and intent of the operations they would be required to undertake and to make preliminary preparations to discharge the responsibilities to which the new agreements committed them.

During Anderson’s absence the Company virtually completed the reorganization intended to give it more effective management. The directors added four new board members: Parker Duckworth Bingham, a commander in the Royal Navy; John Dawson, a merchant and ship broker of Billiter Square; William Hood, of Upper Bedford Place; and John Spurgin, M.D., a member of the Royal College of Physicians. Philip Dottin Souper left his position as secretary of the South-Western Railway Company, of which Abbott was a director, to accept the corresponding post with the Company in substitution for Leonard S. Coxe, who remained as cashier and accountant with responsibility for accepting at the central office applications from prospective land purchasers and immigrants. Some twelve additional agents were appointed to perform this function in other cities of England, and in Ireland, Scotland, and Wales. By the beginning of February 1839 the Company offices had been moved from the Lombard Street Chambers at 33 Clements Lane to 60 Moorgate Street, near the Bank. During 1840 the directors made two new appointments. They named David Pollock, Q.C., of 3 Pump Court, Temple, who had been standing counsel for the South-Western Railway, an eighth member of the board, and James A. Winsor replaced Souper as secretary.2

The financial measures taken during the interim of preparation lifted the Company, by the fall of 1839, from threatened bankruptcy to fiscal solvency. By early November the directors could report income of £18,011 10 s received from assessments paid on converting shares to debentures, sale of shares not converted, and proceeds from a call that was met on all but eighty-five of the outstanding five thousand debentures. They had spent £6,797 2s to achieve “the almost miraculous change in the position of the Company,” £7,317 8s 7d to pay off old debts inherited from the previous administration, and £3,780 9s 6d in interest on debentures. Entirely free of debt, the Company had a small balance on deposit with its bankers, Glyn, Hallifax, Mills 8c Co.

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