MORTON, THOMAS [SSNE 8542]
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Thomas Morton was a Scottish merchant in Amsterdam and Rotterdam from the 1630s to the 1660s. He was 28 years old by 2 October 1638 when he married Janet Comyn (Jannetje Camijn, 19 years old, also from Edinburgh) in Amsterdam. He conducted business regularly in there, maintaining a residence on the Ridderstraat until around 1656. On 22 April 1642, Morton complained to the Scottish Privy Council that a ship carrying his goods from Amsterdam had been arrested by the Committee of Victuals in Leith, and he was concerned that the merchandise would spoil. The Privy Council granted him a warrant to reclaim the goods.
Morton (and Comyn) frequently did business with other Scots in Rotterdam and Amsterdam. In July 1648, Comyn gave Matthew Patton and Thomas Fleming, merchants in Rotterdam, a chest of gold and diamond rings to be sent to Morton in Scotland. However, the ship which bore the goods (master William Cunningham) was attacked by John Baker, an Irish pirate or perhaps privateer, operating out of Ostend. It was later reported by Patton and Fleming that Baker's wife had a number of diamond rings in her possession while Baker himself had sold gold rings.
In October 1653, Patton's widow Maria Pieter Signor testified to a debt of 1,800 guilders owed to Morton by her late husband. She authorized Morton to collect 560 guilders from William Davidson [SSNE 5382] in Amsterdam alongside an additional 572 guilders from Robert Alexander, also in Amsterdam. After Signor's remarriage, she remained in debt to Morton, granting him a promissory note in April 1656. On 19 May 1656, Signor sold her house at the end of the Schiedamsedijk in Rotterdam to Morton, with part accounting for Patton's remaining debts. The house was named 'Het Wapen van Schotland' (the Scottish Arms) and had a garden. Signor was allowed to remain in the house until 1657, at which point it appears that Morton sold his house in Amsterdam and moved permanently to Rotterdam.
Morton and Ancram, 1650-1655
After the execution of King Charles in January 1649 and the subsequent Cromwellian invasion of Scotland, Sir Robert Kerr, 1st Earl of Ancram [SSNE 8213] fled to the Dutch Republic. By October 1650, he had taken up residence in Thomas Morton's Amsterdam house, subsisting on bonds from his son, William Kerr, Earl of Lothian [SSNE 8103]. In April 1651, a bond was signed between Morton and Sir William MacDowell for 2,000 guilders for Ancram's living expenses. However, by May 1652 Morton had returned to Scotland demanding the 2,000 guilders from Lothian for debts due from Ancram and from Sir William MacDowell. In July 1652, Morton's wife (presumably still Janet Comyn) wrote to the Countess of Ancram that 'if a course be not taken to satisfy the charges she has been at all this while, she must be forced to take a course that will be disgraceful and prejudicial to [Ancram] and [his family].' Lothian, through merchant James Tallyfeir, paid this debt by 14 October 1653, when Morton wrote to Lothian, reporting Ancram's good health and that he was providing Ancram with: 'fyre, lodging, and all furnifhing for a kitchen and for making his meat ready, and nepery for his table and his fervantis, and cupp and canis for wyn and bier, for I fell non, bot fhowis them wher it can be cheapeft, faufing the excyfe of the moft pairt of it.' Ancram continued accruing debts to Morton until Ancram's death at Morton's house in 1654. Morton undertook the repatriation of Ancram's goods to the Countess of Ancram in Covent Garden and to Lothian in Scotland.
ENTRY IN PROGRESS
Sources:
SA, Ondertrouwregister, 5001, inv.nr. 449, p. 418.
RPCS, Series Two, Vol. 7, p. 251.
Created by Dr Jack Abernethy.