Ketland Contract--Joe Puleo

[spgordon]

This draft of a contract between the State of Pennsylvania and Thomas and John Ketland (Philadelphia) is in the Records of Pennsylvania’s Revolutionary Governments, 1775-1790, Microfilm Reel 11, Item 817. It's among undated items and filed with 1775 and 1776 but clearly is of a much later date.

[WESTbury]

Scott,

This is an excellent document for musket nuts like me, thank you for posting it.

I'm very certain that it is refering to the Nov. 15, 1797 Pennsylvania contract to Ketland.

Attached is a link to the Spring 2005 presentation by Bill Reid and Dave Stuart on the PA Contract Muskets, Charleville Pattern.

Kent

https://americansocietyofarmscollectors.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/06/2005-B91-Pennsylvania-Contract-Muskets-1797-Arms-.pdf

[spgordon]

I'm very certain that it is refering to the Nov. 15, 1797 Pennsylvania contract to Ketland.

Bingo! That's surely it.

This document is really misfiled--entirely lost, in effect--in these materials, which largely cover the Revolutionary War years but also extend until 1790. But this dates to nearly a decade after that ...

[WESTbury]

Bingo! That's surely it.
This document is really misfiled--entirely lost, in effect--in these materials, which largely cover the Revolutionary War years but also extend until 1790. But this dates to nearly a decade after that ...

This is the first time I have ever won at Bingo!

Kent

[JV Puleo]

The contract was also printed in the Thomas Mifflin papers but I confess I hadn't seen the original.
It was never fulfilled. There have been several references to it in secondary sources that say it was cancelled by the British government. I have reservations about that, though not in effect. I don't think the government cancelled it. It is much more likely that they refused an export license which ALL overseas shipments of British arms required, even if they were going to British colonies. I have not found out why and likely can't until I can get into the microfilm of the Rufus King papers in the Massachusetts Historical Society. King was the US charge' de affairs in London that handled the transaction for Gov. Mifflin who corresponded with the pertinent British officials through him. Mifflin's papers contain a report to the Pennsylvania Assembly that the British Government effectively nullified the agreement. My guess - which I will not publish unless I can prove it – is that Pennsylvania balked at posting the bond required for an export license by the Privy Council. This was six times the value of the cargo, which, for a contract like this would have been a stupendous amount of money...they may not have had the means to do it because the bond would have to have been posted in London.

All exporters posted the bond... When the State of New York and the US Government purchased muskets in Britain, they bought them directly from the British Ordnance Office. I am not certain that the Ordnance Office was subject to Privy Council licensing in this situation but otherwise they were certainly exempt under the 1757 law that required the licenses. The Privy council regularly refused licenses for the export of "muskets with bayonets" until after the New York purchase at which point they wrote to the Ordnance Office to ask if such sales were now permitted. Again, I haven't found the reply to that question and won't be able to until I can get back into the British Archives but it is clear that after the New York sale, muskets started to be sold to America.

[JV Puleo]

[EDIT] A correction to the above...The New York muskets were purchased from the Ordnance Office. The muskets purchased by the US Government were commercial India Pattern guns but the transaction was handled by F&W Baring - the most powerful banking firm in London. Baring Brothers handled all US government transactions through the Civil War. If a bond was required, the Barings would have had no problem with it. Some of these (I forget the quantity) were issued to the US Marines to replace the French-style muskets they carried because it was felt, with their shorter barrels, they would be handier aboard ship.

It's also quite possible that work began on the Pennsylvania muskets before it was discovered that they could not be shipped. The British government purchased a significant quantity of "French-style" muskets in Birmingham at a slightly later date in the chaotic time when a French invasion was anticipated. Actually, the Ordnance Office refused them because they were the wrong caliber but they were picked up by a different branch of the government. I'm not certain where they ended up but I suspect went to arm British allies on the continent.