386 THE LONDON WEST INDIA INTEREST July was no absolutely impassable line between planters and merchants and shipowners. Sometimes, possibly frequently, the merchants were also owners of vessels employed in the trade, and sometimes, probably not very often, they were planters. It seems likely, however, that this double interest in the West Indies was less common in the eighteenth century than it was later. At any rate, it does not appear to have been sufficiently usual in the eighteenth century to account for the fact that a fund to which the planters were the main contributors was administered by a society of merchants. The explanation lies, more probably, in the fact already stated that the merchants acted in business and private affairs x as the representatives of the planters, and therefore it was regarded as natural that they should act as their representatives in the use of this fund. The main point at issue between the resident and the absentee planters — the Deficiency Laws — had been settled in 1764 ; the quarrels between the merchants and the absentees had disappeared. It was possible, therefore, for the Society of West India Merchants to act as the executive of the whole West India interest. A consideration of the business undertaken by the society leads to the same conclusion. To a certain extent the meetings were taken up with matters of trade ; they fixed the rates of freight outwards to the colonies, they concerned themselves in the prosecution of thieves on the wharves ; later in the century they played a very prominent part in the institution of the marine police office. 2 But these were not their sole functions. In these early years they dealt with all kinds of business affecting the sugar colonies : for example, in 1770 they appointed a committee to promote the passing of the bill * for the better enabling Aliens to recover Money lent in all His Majesty's Colonies in America' : 3 and frequently sums of money were subscribed for the sufferers from a fire or a hurricane in one of the islands, or for the printing of some pamphlet on a subject in which the colonies were interested. The Society of West India Merchants did not falsify its trust. In 1769 the Planters' Club was still in existence. Probably, however, it was always more social than political in character, and now that the merchants had developed so strong an organiza- tion it fell gradually into insignificance. In 1771 it was reported at a meeting of the merchants that some of the merchants had 1 The merchants played a prominent part in recommending planters with whom they were connected to be members of council in the islands or holders of offices there. This appears from the Letter-books of Messrs. Lascelles and Maxwell and also from the Colonial Office Papers, especially Colonial Office Papers 391 (Board of Trade Journal). 2 Merchants' Minutes, vol. iv, meeting of 12 January 1798 et seq. 3 Ibid., vol. i, meeting of 4 December 1770.
