Hero in the Footnotes: The Life and Times of Richard Cadman Etches: Entrepreneur and British Spy

By Michael Etches

The book tells the story of Richard Cadman Etches, born in Warwickshire in 1753, who left home while still a youth to seek his fortune in London. He set up a successful liquor and wine importing business and soon acquired his own ship to deal directly with European suppliers. When, in 1784, news came from James Cook’s fatal expedition that huge profits could be made from buying sea otter pelts from local tribes on the North Pacific coast of America and selling them in China, he seized his opportunity and set up a trading base in Nootka Sound. Unfortunately, one of his vessels was captured by Spanish forces who believed they controlled the coast, and this almost led to a war with Britain. Richard then became a full time British agent during the turbulent times of the French Revolution and Napoleonic wars and, among his many exploits was the organisation of Sir Sidney Smith’s escape from a Paris gaol. He died in penury in a debtors’ prison in London in 1817.

• Language: English
• Publisher: AuthorHouse UK
• Release date: Mar 14, 2021
• ISBN: 9781665584562

Michael Etches

Michael Etches was born in south London and attended Emanuel School, Battersea. For many years he then worked as an insurance broker in the City. He has always been interested in tales of exploration as well as history, especially that of the 18th Century. Upon retirement, he devoted much of his time to researching his own family history during which he discovered an ancestor who had survived the Titanic disaster. He has written several magazine articles, but this is his first book. Besides researching and writing, Mike likes to sing with Rock Choir and is an avid supporter of Fulham Football Club. He is divorced with two grown up sons and has a partner, Valerie.

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Copyright © 2021 Michael Etches. All rights reserved.

No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted by any means without the written permission of the author.

Published by AuthorHouse 04/14/2021

ISBN: 978-1-6655-8457-9 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-6655-8458-6 (hc)

ISBN: 978-1-6655-8456-2 (e)

Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Getty Images are models,

and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

Certain stock imagery © Getty Images.

Because of the dynamic nature of the Internet, any web addresses or links contained in this book may have changed since publication and may no longer be valid. The views expressed in this work are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher, and the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.

Cover Image: London Bridge from The Old Swan by Herbert Pugh (c.1735-1788). Accession 0366, Bank of England. Image © Bank of England.

Contents

Preface

Introduction

Chapter 1    Early Days

Chapter 2    The King George’s Sound Company

Chapter 3    Richard’s First Northwest Coast Venture

Chapter 4    Richard’s Second Northwest Coast Venture

Chapter 5    The Nootka Sound Incident

Chapter 6    Richard the Foreign Agent

Chapter 7    Final Years and Summing Up

Chronology of Principal Events

Bibliography

Preface

Towards the end of 2003, long before I had considered researching my family history, I read a book about the quest for the North-West Passage. It was called Voyages of Delusion, by Glyn Williams. As I marvelled at the exploits of Captain James Cook, Christopher Middleton, William Moor, and Francis Smith, I mused to myself that I had never come across anybody intrepid or famous who bore the surname Etches. But a few chapters on, I was amazed to see reference to not just one Etches but two! They were Richard Cadman Etches and his brother John, two entrepreneurs who had formed the King George’s Sound Company to trade in sea otter furs off the Northwest Coast of the United States.

Naturally, my first inclination was to try to discover whether the brothers were ancestors of mine. I made a few forays, including a visit to the Natural History Museum in London. There I met Neil Chambers, who was editing the letters of Joseph Banks, a friend of Richard. Neil was aware that there had been correspondence between the two. He gave me the name of Martha Whittaker of the Sutro Library, San Francisco, where a significant amount of Joseph Banks’s correspondence and papers are kept. Neil felt that here might be a useful starting point to discover more information about Richard.

But my busy work life as an insurance broker in the City of London, and my family life with teenage sons, somehow distracted me from my quest. It was not until seven years later, when family records became more accessible via online genealogy websites, that I became interested in researching my immediate forebears, but it looked as though any connection with Richard Cadman Etches was remote as I had traced my ancestors to the Worcestershire area, whereas his had come from Ashbourne in Derbyshire.

Eventually, in common with many researchers, I hit the legendary brick wall and decided to employ a professional genealogist to help me. She found Etches family records that had not yet been put online. Suddenly I was looking at ancestors of mine who lived in Ashbourne. In fact, many people bearing the surname of Etches had been born in that town and its environs.

Although Richard was born in Shipston-on-Stour, Warwickshire, his family moved to Ashbourne probably around 1760, where his father, William, who was a wine merchant, established premises in the marketplace.

With a lot of patience and the assistance of other online researchers who also belong to the Etches family, I have been able to trace my branch back to the point where it links in with his.

Richard Cadman Etches, I believe, is my third cousin, five times removed.

This is his story.

Introduction

Virtually everything that is known about Richard Cadman Etches’s life emanates from a book called The History and Topography of Ashbourn, published 20 June 1839 by Dawson and Hobson. The Preface of the book states that it is an attempt to illustrate in a popular manner the history and topography of that highly beautiful and diversified tract of country, the Valley of the Dove; of which, from its locality, the town of Ashbourn may be said to form a central point. The book appears not to have a single author but rather several anonymous contributors. Its contents are said to have been originally published in a periodical form, and the success of this venture presumably led to the public demand for a reprint as a book.

The memoirs of Richard Cadman Etches, who had spent part of his early life in Ashbourne, take up the whole of Chapter 4. The publishers show obvious delight in his inclusion and make special mention of him in the Preface:

One portion of this work, from the attention it has excited, seems to require a passing allusion, that is, the memoir of Mr. Richard Cadman Etches. Had the career of that enterprising individual been less extraordinary, and his services to the country less important, it would have been needless for the compilers to assert, that they believe every tittle of this narrative to be literally and strictly correct; that no fact is exaggerated and that the testimony of his contemporaries will confirm a statement derived from clear and incontrovertible documentary evidence.

If all the events described in Richard Etches’s memoirs are literally and strictly correct, then he had indeed led an exciting and fulfilling life, one that has been sorely neglected by biographers and historians alike.

A review of the book contained in The Gentleman’s Magazine, volume 12, page 507, published in 1839, summarises the achievements detailed in the book, but it adds the following:

Mr. Etches appears to have been honoured with the confidence of the government to a high degree, during the time when his utility was felt; but in common with many other political characters, may have been forgotten when his services were less needed.

I was very keen to prove the authenticity of his memoirs—or otherwise—and, if they were true, to determine why the exploits of Richard Cadman Etches were not more widely known. What kind of man was he?

As the oldest son of a successful wine merchant and saddler in Ashbourne, Richard had a reasonable start to life. I like to think of him as entrepreneurial and ambitious from an early age. He came to London to seek fortune and success, both of which he did indeed find. But he was also possessed of a sense of adventure. Had this, coupled with his contacts in high places, steered him into becoming a British spy? His initial business as a wine, spirits, and tea merchant meant that he needed to travel to Europe extensively. Was he therefore a prime candidate for a career in espionage? Until recently, it was thought that he was the inspiration for Baroness Orczy’s The Scarlet Pimpernel. She was supposed to have visited Ashbourne in 1901 to research her first novel, which was published four years later.

What happened to Richard later in life, though? Why did he end up in a debtors’ prison? He banked at Messrs Hammersley, which was founded in 1796 at 76 Pall Mall, but following the death of Hugh Hammersley, the last surviving partner, it was taken over by Coutts & Co. No records of Richard’s bank account were found, but Charles E. Etches, who began to compile details of Richard’s life in 1950, wrote to the Bank of England about the possible existence of one. He received a letter from the chief cashier dated 19 June 1951, which said:

There is a joint account, RCE [Richard Cadman Etches] is one of the constituents. The account has remained dormant since 1788 and has a balance of less than 10 shillings.

The letter added a warning that the cost of proving entitlement would vastly outweigh the proceeds!

It seems a great pity that a man who was once described by the MP Nicholas Vansittart as the most active and intelligent adventurer I have ever met with should end his days as a debtor in Fleet Prison.

Had Richard chosen a military or naval career instead of becoming an intelligence agent, his name might have been more prominent in the annals of British history.

I discovered that Richard’s life could be divided into two distinct halves. One half was spent as an entrepreneur who seized the opportunity to trade in sea otter furs on the Northwest Coast of the United States, and the other half was spent as a British government agent who was active during both the French Revolution and the Napoleonic Wars that followed. Yet despite all this, or perhaps because of it, his name is virtually unknown, and his exploits have been forgotten. I am not aware that any biography of Richard Etches has ever been published. When researching him, I counted myself lucky to find any mention of his name, and when I did, it often appeared only in the footnotes.

Hence the title of Hero in the Footnotes.

Chapter 1

Early Days

Members of the Etches family have inhabited Ashbourne for generations. At the time of Richard’s birth, it was a small, ancient market town situated on the main London-to-Manchester route close to the point where it crosses the River Dove at a place called Hanging Bridge on the Derbyshire-Staffordshire border. Its proximity to the southern tip of the Peak District mountain chain made Ashbourne a market and service centre for the Dove Valley villages and those of the nearby countryside. Farming was diverse, but the rich surrounding grazing pastures favoured livestock. Eventually Ashbourne became famous for its horse fairs and its cheesemaking. Great quantities of cheese were transported for sale in London. Industrial activity was minimal, apart from several malthouses, the tanneries, and the manufacture of domestic textiles. Despite Daniel Defoe’s description of the Peak District as being a howling wilderness, the area was slowly witnessing the birth of the modern tourist industry with an increasing number of visitors becoming addicted to the cult of the picturesque.

Richard was born outside Ashbourne, in Shipston-on-Stour, which lies about eighty-five miles south, but he spent much of his childhood and youth there. In researching my own direct family, I managed to trace ancestors living in Ashbourne in the late sixteenth century. The Etches families are said to have been farming in the area for over five hundred years. I have discovered evidence of their considerable involvement both in horse breeding and cheesemaking.

For a small country town, Ashbourne enjoyed an interesting position in English history, mainly involving rebellions by barons against the ruling king of the day. Although Richard left the town as a young man, there are a couple of historical events which he would have heard about, even if he had not witnessed them, as they both involve members of the Etches family.

The first of these events concerns Charles Edward Stuart, commonly known as the Young Pretender or Bonnie Prince Charlie, who, in 1745, marched through Ashbourne on his way to London, where he hoped to enforce the claim of his father, James II, to the crown of England. Charles, supported by the court of France, had been led to believe that as soon as he had set foot on British soil, there would be a general uprising in favour of the Stuart dynasty.

Upon his arrival on Tuesday, 3 December 1745, he billeted himself in Ashbourn Hall. The initial stay was very brief. He and his army soon marched on to Derby. But a few days later, in the absence of reinforcements arriving from France, and perhaps fearing the advance of the king’s forces, they returned to Ashbourne, where they caused great disruption to the town and its surroundings. The Derby Mercury reported that some gentlemen’s houses were plundered to a great value and that another man, living in nearby Compton, had been shot dead for refusing to surrender his horse to the rebels.

Leaving Ashbourne, Charles began his retreat northward through Yorkshire to Carlisle. He then led his Highland followers back across the border into Scotland, where they took several towns and seized hold of some important reinforcements. So far, the prince had been fortunate, but on 16 April 1746, his fate was ultimately decided at the Battle of Culloden, where his troops were massacred with dreadful carnage. Disguised as a peasant, he fled. Despite the £30,000 reward for his arrest, nobody betrayed him. He managed to wander through Scotland until he was able to secure a boat, which he took to Roseau, Brittany. With his cause now at an end, he spent the rest of his life on the Continent. He died in Rome in 1788.

In researching Bonnie Prince Charlie’s march into Ashbourne, I came across an interesting anecdote in Chapter 3 of The History and Topography of Ashbourn:

A private passing through the market-place, requested a lad to direct him to a shop where he might purchase spirits. The lad accordingly pointed out a spirit shop, the proprietor of which happened to be standing by at the time. He, fearing the visit of the Highlander, thought proper to deny the fact, and accused the lad of lying. The Highlander, having ascertained that the person did keep a spirit-shop, reported the occurrence to his commanding officer. A court-martial was instituted to inquire into the case, and the spirit-dealer being found guilty, was sentenced to lose his ears. His wife, a beautiful woman, was horror struck at the barbarous sentence. She flew to the Chevalier, and by her tears and urgent entreaties, succeeded in obtaining her husband’s pardon.

I cannot know for certain, but it is quite possible that the spirit shop referred to may have been owned by the Etches family in 1745 and could have been the one that William Etches took over. The lucky man who kept his ears intact may have been Richard’s grandfather.

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Ye Olde Vaults, Ashbourne

The second event concerns James Boswell, who was the companion and biographer of Doctor Samuel Johnson. During their frequent visits to Ashbourne, the two men tended to stay at the home of Doctor John Taylor, a doctor of divinity, who had been a friend of Johnson since their schooldays. In 1776 they were collected from Lichfield and transported in his large, roomy post-chaise, drawn by four stout, plump horses and driven by two steady jolly postillions. Boswell had a reputation as a ladies’ man, but he was distinctly unimpressed with Doctor Taylor’s female servants. He wrote in his diary, None of the Dr’s maids were handsome and so I had no incitement to amorous desires. He was more impressed with the landlady at the Green Man public house, a Mrs Killingley, whom he described as a civil woman who curtseyed very low. He was also impressed on another occasion when he remembered a maid at Ashbourn Hall from previous visits. Her name was Mary Etches. I do not know if she was any direct relation to Richard as the Etches families were quite widespread in Ashbourne by this time.

The Birth of Richard Cadman Etches

I have been unable to find a definitive birthdate for Richard Cadman Etches, but archives at the Warwickshire County Record Office show that he was baptised on 2 November 1753 at Shipston-on-Stour, Warwickshire, almost certainly in the Church of St Edmund. He was the firstborn child of William and Elizabeth Etches.

William was living in Shipston and started his family there. As far as is known, his wife, whose maiden name was Elizabeth Cadman, had no connection with Shipston. Probably she was born in Tutbury, Staffordshire, which is where she and William were married on 1 September 1752.

Perhaps William had left Ashbourne to find more lucrative employment in Shipston, which lies about eighty-five miles south. The town’s name derives from an Anglo-Saxon word meaning sheep-wash town. At one time it boasted a thriving sheep market. And because of its location between Stratford-upon-Avon and Oxford, it was also an important stopping place for stagecoaches. Today, many former coaching inns are still to be found in the high street area. There is no indication that William was employed in either of these occupations.

Two more sons were born to William and Elizabeth while they were living in Shipston: William, who was baptised on 8 September 1755, and John, who was baptised on 20 July 1757.

Probably around 1760, William, Elizabeth, and their three sons moved from Shipston to Ashbourne. The couple’s next child, a girl named Jane, was born there in 1761 but died within a year of her birth. Three more children were born to the couple: Elizabeth in 1762, Lydia in 1768, and Sarah in 1775. Lydia died at the age of two, but the remaining daughters survived into adulthood.

In Ashbourne, William set up a business as a wine merchant and saddler. His cellars now lie beneath a public house appropriately named Ye Olde Vaults, which is situated in the main town square. On 9 June 1795, at the age of seventy-three, William died. He is buried in the cemetery of St Oswald’s Church in a vault, together with his daughters Jane and Lydia.

His will, which was drawn up on 4 June 1795, leaves all his possessions to his wife, Elizabeth; his two daughters Elizabeth and Sarah; and his son John. There is no mention of Richard or William. I wonder if there had been a falling-out between the father and these two sons. As we shall see later, Richard had financial problems towards the end of his life and William was declared bankrupt on 7 November 1793, almost two years before his father’s death. The date