Letter from William Brown and Thomas Gilmore to William Dunlap – April 29, 1768

Priamus, an enslaved laborer with printed press knowledge working in William Dunlap’s Newest Printing Office at Second and Market Streets, was mentioned in this April 1768 letter. He worked alongside, William Brown and Thomas Gilmore, printers trained in Dunlap’s printing office who then moved to Québec to open their own printing office. Click on the image to view the letter within the archive with other letters from Brown and Gilmore.

Courtesy of the Library and Archives Canada | Bibliothèque et Archives Canada.

Title: Letter from William Brown and Thomas Gilmore to William Dunlap – April 29, 1768
Date: 1768
Location: Québec, Canada
Object Information: Paper document
Repository: Neilson Collection, MG 24, B1 Volume 47, file 2: Brown & Gilmore record – correspondence of William Brown & William Dunlap, 1763–1771 (pages 1–23, 25–29). Microfilm C-15778, Library and Archives Canada. https://heritage.canadiana.ca/view/oocihm.lac_reel_c15778/644.

Description:
On April 29, 1768 William Brown and Thomas Gilmore wrote a letter to William Dunlap, an Irish-born printer in Philadelphia. Brown and Gilmore, Scottish and Irish-born printers, expressed their disappointment “with Canadian boys [of French descent] as menial servants” who they employed in their printing office in Québec, Canada over the past five years. Instead, Brown and Gilmore requested that Dunlap send “a Negro boy…between 15 and 20 Years of Age, fit to put to Press, and who has had the Small Pox, and is Country born…or your Boy Priamus.” By the time the letter arrived in Philadelphia, Dunlap, a nephew through marriage to Benjamin Franklin, had sold his printing business at Second and Market Streets to his nephew, John Dunlap. In his response to their letter, John Dunlap, printer of the Declaration of Independence, promised to settle their business with his uncle, possibly indicating his intention to fulfill their request to purchase and send an skilled enslaved person to them in Québec.

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Page 2 of the Brown, Gilmore, and Dunlap Letter

Click on the image below to see a full-size version. Courtesy of the Library and Archives Canada | Bibliothèque et Archives Canada.

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TRANSCRIPT
[Page 1]
Quebec, April 29th, 1768
Rev. Sir,

Yours of the 28th of February last we received in due Time. We heartily condole with you on W. Dunlap’s unhappy Situation, and are anxious to hear of her Recovery, which we most earnestly wish for. We are glad to find you have disposed of the Bill, whereupon we have balanced your Accompt in our Books, aggregable to the Accompt transmitted you last May, which you allow to be by rights, and say “you have copied it exactly into your Books,” in your Letter of Octr. 26th, of 1767 which inclosed the seal Signatures of our Bonds. The Exchange on the Bill we have reckoned of Part being entirely ignorant what it was in Philadelphia at the Time you disposed of it. Yours inclosing the Signatures of our Bonds, did not inform us of the Disposal of the Bill, but quite the contrary; nor did it contain a Copy of our Accompt with you as mentioned in your last. On settling your Acct. we find is a Balance in our Favour of one Guinea which, together with the £12u18u0 Your Currency, out of which we beg you may in the first Place discharge William Brown’s private Acct. of £4u12u10, and next, whatever Balance may remain due to you on Thomas Gilmore’s private Acct. (which he desires you may send him an Acct. of) and if any Balance remains carry it to the Credit of our New Acct. We expect you will send us Discharges in full of all Accts. and if not omit informing us if Gaine has paid, and we shall credit him and charge you for that Sum; if he has not yet paid, and you should not chuse to take it upon yourself it would be high Time for us to fall on some Method of getting paid. You’ll Please take Notice that Gaine’s Acct. was not charged the State of Acct. betwixt you and us sent you.

Having been long embarrassed with Canadian Boys as menial Servants about The Printing Office a who will not engage for any considerable Time and as soon as they find themselves useful augment their Wages and become intolerable insolent, we are at last come to a Resolution of trying to get a Negro Boy, wherefore we beg you will endeavor to purchase one for us, if to be had in your City, Country between 15 and 20 Years of Age, fit to put to Press, and who has had the Small Pox, and is Country born, and can be recommended for his Honesty; we would not begrudge you a pretty good Price for such a likely Negro: or if you should be inclinable to part with your Boy Praimus, we would be glad to have him, and would

[Page 2]
be willing to give what might be judged a reasonable Price. We pray you may try to procure us one so as to have him in the fall, and as soon as you shall be certain of him, or determined to with your own we beg you may loose no Time in acquainting us of the Price, which we will immediately remit you in a Bill on York, as we shall have the Cash ready till we hear from you. Should it be too late for an Opportunity from Philadelphia, there has always been Vessels from York in August and Sept. and we doubt not but there will be this year. We shall expect the Stove by the first Opportunity from your Port. We are, with profound.

Respect, Sir, your most obliged humbled servants
Brown & Gilmore

An exact Copy sent the aforesaid Date

NB The Balance of W Brown’s Acct. was in your Favour when he left Philadelphia } £6u8u8

The Interest on your Bond to him from June 23 till Nov. 25 £1u15u10/4u12u10

P.S. If you are so lucky as to get a Negro, before you embark him, we beg he may be insured.

[Outside fold]
Copy of Letter to Wm. Dunlap, 29th April 1768

Note: I am grateful to Emily Davidson for her research and for providing this transcript. See Emily Davidson, “Case Study on William Brown and Thomas Gilmore’s letter to William Dunlap, 1768: Connecting Territory Network Methodology to the History of Slavery in Canada,” Chapter 2 in Canadian Settler Colonialism: Reliving the Past, Opening New Paths (University of Regina Press, 2024),
https://opentextbooks.uregina.ca/canadiansettlercolonialism/chapter/case-study-on-william-brown-and-thomas-gilmores-letter-to-william-dunlap-1768-connecting-territory-network-methodology-to-the-history-of-slavery-in-canada/.