Jean de Neufville
Jean de Neufville or John de Neufville (Amsterdam, May 25, 1729 - Cambridge, Massachusetts,
Biography
Jean was the son of Leendert de Neufville Jansz (1698-1762) and Agneta de Wolff (1703-1750), who inherited from her mother Catharina de Neufville 350,000 guilders when she was 27. Their son Jean, a
De Neufville traded on the West-Indies. Already in 1761 he did business in America.[4] In 1768 he started a cotton printery. In 1773 he bought coffee and sugar plantations in Suriname; he sold his part in 1778. In 1779 he began to direct shipping of goods (including weapons) to the US.; France had already started doing so two years earlier. One of the guests he received in his house, was John Paul Jones, a prominent figure during the Revolutionary War. De Neufville bought 7326 acres in South Carolina and his son in Albany County, New York. In September 1780 the Mercury on its way to the Dutch Republic was seized by the British near Newfoundland. The draft treaty of 1778, stored in a lead coffin, was thrown overboard by Henry Laurens, a native of South Carolina. Laurens had the mission to borrow 10 million guilders in the Republic.[5] The British ambassador Sir Joseph Yorke demanded satisfaction. The previously closed secret agreement between American diplomat and Virginian planter William Lee and De Neufville, who were acting on their own name, but approval was given by Engelbert François van Berckel an Amsterdam magistrate, led to the severing of ties between Britain and the Republic, and on December 20 to the Fourth Anglo-Dutch War.
On March 1, 1781 John Adams commissioned the Neufville on behalf of the Congress to open a loan of ƒ 1,000,000.[6] In 1782 a consortium of banks granted a loan to the US for an amount of five million; there would be another four million within a few years.[7]
De Neufville corresponded with
His mother, the widow, received after 1796 a pension by the Congress.[13] The glass factory relaunched as Albany Glass Works.[14]
References
- ^ Thomas Barclay (1728-1793): Consul in France, Diplomat in Barbary by Priscilla H. Roberts, Richard S. Roberts
- ^ Amsterdam in zyne opkomst, aanwas, geschiedenissen, voorregten, koophandel ...
- ^ Resolutien van Holland, Deel 2
- ^ Wynkoop Family Papers
- ^ Sir Joseph Yorke and Anglo-Dutch relations 1774-1780 door Daniel A. Miller
- ^ NNWB, p. 1213
- ^ S. Schama (1987) Patriots and Liberators, p. 59
- ^ Franklin Papers
- ^ Franklin Papers
- ^ Worldcat
- ^ Letters from George Washington
- ^ Worldcat
- ^ Diary entry: 12 June 1785
- ^ Albany Glass House