MAY, PATRICK [SSNE 7149]
Text source
Patrick May was a merchant in the service of Patrick Thomson [SSNE 6475], James Thomson [SSNE 6332] and Andrew Russell [SSNE 143]. He travelled around the North Sea and Baltic on their behalf and was also a friend of David Melvin [SSNE 1159] in Elsinore. In July 1685 he wrote a letter from Elsinore describing the various merchants he had met. In particular he pointed to two Dutch men arrived from Lisbon (Simon Nobell and Padro Poglin) who he felt were well connected in Rotterdam. In an interesting aside he observed that he did not trust the English men he had met and that he only trusted "our countrymen". He singled out Thomas Gourlay [SSNE 7148] as "a good honest man and of good trade". From Elsinore, May sailed to Norrkoping where he loaded a cargo of 428 ships-pounds of iron and 292 dozen thick and thin deals. Patrick Thomson informed Andrew Russell in a letter of 26 August that May had sailed with this cargo two days previously.On 6 July 1686 he wrote to Russell again from Elsinore to inform him that by James Thomson's order, John Gib elder had arrived from Norrkoping and was bound for Amsterdam with 470 ships pounds of iron and 200 deals of other goods. He asked Russell for the best advice on markets. Thomson had advised that May should go to Stockholm where, from a letter from Thomson to Russell, we can deduce that Thomson was becoming impatient for the delivery of wool and tobacco from May.
Sources: National Archives of Scotland, Russell Papers, RH15/106/574. Various letters of Patrick Thomson (1685); RH15/106/576/4. Patrick May to Andrew Russell, 10 July 1685 and 576/6, David Melvin to Andrew Russell, 11 July 1685; RH15/106/608. Patrick Thomson to Andrew Russell, 26 June 1686; RH15/106/609/1. Patrick May to Andrew Russell, 6 July 1686 and passim; Steve Murdoch, Network North: Scottish Kin, Commercial and Covert Associations in Northern Europe, 1603-1746 (Brill, Leiden, 2006), pp.81, 245.
Service record
- SCOTLAND, ELSINORE
- Arrived 1685-07-10
- Capacity MERCHANT, purpose TRADE, COMMERCE
- DENMARK-NORWAY, SCOTLAND, ELSINORE
- Arrived 1686-07-06
- Departed 0000-01-01
- Capacity MERCHANT, purpose TRADE, COMMERCE