JOLLY, ROBERT [SSNE 7088]
Text source
Robert Jolly was a Scottish merchant who traded and sometimes resided in Hamburg. On 28 October 1687 he was ordered by William Bogle in Glasgow to pay Andrew Russell [SSNE 143] in Rotterdam a bill of 239 and 2/3 (rixdaler?) to Mons Joan Temming, merchant in Amsterdam. In October 1689 Jolly looked after fellow Scottish travellers including Mungo English [SSNE 7070], Mr Hume [SSNE 7126] and Mr Elliot [SSNE 7127]. In one letter from Mongo English to Andrew Russell, dated Hamburg 26 October 1689, English notes that we have "addressed our selves to our country-man Mr Robert Jolly, Mercht. here who as soon as we shewed him your letters and acquainted him that yow are our Mercht. immediately offered very kindly to advance us what money we stood in need of", Jolly followed this up with his own letter to Russell dated Hamburg, 10 December 1689. In it he said "Some weeks agoe, [I] had the honor of Mr Eliot, Mr Hume and Mr Mongo English companie from Dutchland, who shewing me your letters & giving them Credit & recomendatione to some parts in Germanie; oblidged me to give them f240 guilders for their bills on yow with advice and other bills on their friends in Scotland at £25 Scots per Gulder wich were sent to Mr Alex Pyper". In 1701 he suggested a scheme for setting up a Scottish company to trade on a monopoly between Hamburg and the Shetlands from which he expected to make a profit of 30-40% each voyage (after expenses).National Archives of Scotland, RH15/106/637. Bill of Exchange, 28 October 1687; RH15/106/689 (various letters of Mungo English to Andrew Russell, (1689); National Archives of Scotland, Pyper Manuscript, 230, (1701); T. C. Smout, Scottish Trade on the Eve of Union (Edinburgh & London, 1963), pp.87, 231; Steve Murdoch, Network North: Scottish Kin, Commercial and Covert Associations in Northern Europe 1603-1746 (Brill, Leiden, 2006), p.137.
Service record
- SCOTLAND, HAMBURG, HAMBURG
- Arrived 1689-01-01
- Departed 1701-12-31
- Capacity MERCHANT, purpose TRADE, DIPLOMACY