Földvári Books

CARIBBEAN LEGAL DOCUMENT

[Dodge, John]; [Perking, Thomas Handasyd]

Report of the Case of John Dodge, Executor of the Last Will and Testament of Unite Dodge, Deceased, vs. Thomas H. Perkins, Decided at the March Term of the Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts, Boston, County of Suffolk. Present the Whole Court. [With Appendix.]

Boston: Printed by F. Ingraham, No. 34, Congress Street, 1830. First edition. Bound by sewing, with no wrappers, as published. 85, (1), L [50], (2) p. First and last leaves are slightly dusted spotted and discolored. Last, blank leaf damaged. Inside clean. Overall in very good condition.

Reprinted documents of the legal case of John Dodge versus Thomas H. Perkins related to an unpaid interest on a loan paid for the French army in Saint Domingue.

Before France finally abandoned her former colony, Saint Domingue, as the result of the revolution on the island in 1804, one of the final acts of the French army was to extract a loan from the local merchants. One of them was Unite Dodge, who paid $2,000 to the French leader, and in return, he received a receipt. Dodge commissioned his friend James Perkins in Boston to sell the receipt for him. Perkins went to France and left Dodge’s receipt with his local bankers, who could trade them for interest-paying French government bonds only after the death of Unite in 1815. Unite’s brother John learned about the case in 1827 and he claimed the bonds, or their equivalence in money with interest on Thomas Handasyd Perkins, James’ descendant. As he refused to pay the interest Dodge sued him. Eventually, the jury decided for Dodge and he was paid by Perkins with the interest included. After the jury’s decision John Dodge published this pamphlet detailing his side of the case and reprinting all of the pertinent documents with a short triumphing conclusion leaving “Mr. P. to his own conscience and his God”.

“John Dodge was a merchant in Boston, Massachusetts, who along with his brother Unite Dodge and a partner William Gray, conducted mercantile business in Haiti in the late 17th and early 18th-century. He was involved in the establishment of Marple, Dodge & Company, which was one of the largest American establishments on the island. Due to frequent political unrest, the company withdrew from the island about 1826.” (Dodge, John. John Dodge papers concerning Haiti, 1784–1830. Guide. Houghton Library, Harvard Library, Harvard University. MS Fr 12. URL: http://oasis.lib.harvard.edu/oasis/deliver/~hou02568)

Sabin 96859

Ref.: Seaburg, C., Paterson, S.: Merchant Prince of Boston. Colonel T. H. Perkins, 1764–1854. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press, 1971. pp. 345–350.; Grant, F. Jr.: Merchants, Lawyers, and the China Trade of Boston. In: Boston Bar Journal, Vol. 23, No. 8. September 1979. pp. 9–10.

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Price: €1,600.00