Oliver POLLOCK
Patriot Celt and Merchant Prince Who Financed George Rogers Clark

Oliver Pollock, Forgotten of History, by an Act of Generosity to the Famine-Stricken City of New Orleans, Won the Gratitude of the Spanish Governors and Amassed a Great Fortune Before the Revolutionary War

Not all the heroes who helped lay the foundations of the republic in the Revolutionary War wore continental uniforms, faced the foe in the "imminent deadly breach," or delivered patriotic utterances that stirred men's souls to action. There were some big forceful men in the background who today would be classified as "big business men" or "captains of industry" without whose aid in dire emergencies the cause might have been lost. There was Robert Morris, the biggest business man of his time, who financed the Revolution, pledging his own private fortune and often those of his wealthy friends to keep the patriot armies in the field and to supply their wants, his patriotic career ending in the debtor's prison. There was Washington's "little friend on Front street," Philadelphia, the Jew, Hayst Salomon, who contributed more than half a million dollars out of his private funds for the uses of the army and navy and who conducted the secret credit negotiations with France and Holland, having been twice imprisoned by the British as a spy and once condemned to death, and who in the end was almost forgotten. And among the unremembered, recently called to mind by Frederick Palmer, in his biography of George Rogers Clark ("Clark of the Ohio," published by Dodd Mead & Co.), there is that that romantic figure of Oliver Pollock, the big business man of New Orleans without whose aid the victories of the conqueror of the Northwest might probably have availed little to the nation.

"Why the Irish in recording the part of the Celts played in the Revolutionary War neglect Pollock's part is a puzzle unless they have mistaken his race because of his English name," writes Mr. Palmer in one of the most fascinating chapters of his biographical excursion into this little known field of American revolutionary history. "Fortunate it was for Clark and the United States that the Pollock family emigrated in 1760 from Ireland to Carlisle, Pa.; fortunate that son Oliver ventured forth in what was then called 'mercantile pursuits' which brought him to Havana, and that when he went to the government palace Irishman met Irishman, for the governor general was Don Alexander O'Reilly, descendant of one of the Irish warriors who joined the Spanish army and who were to show again, that despite the then accepted belief in the inability of the Irish to govern themselves at home, they were welcome recruits in assisting other rulers to govern their realms." It was this Oliver Pollock, forgotten of history, whose staunch support of Clark's daring and somewhat visionary invasion of the Northwest Territory, enabled the conqueror of Kaskaskia and Vincennes to organize the new domain he had added in the republic and to hold it when little help was obtainable from the continental congress or the fathers of the Revolution busy on the seaboard with troubles of their own. How little we know of the inside history of an expedition that added a half-dozen states to the American union is revealed in this story of Oliver Pollock told in these pages of Palmer's biography of Clark as one of the many fateful "incidents" that destiny shaped for the conqueror of the Northwest Territory.

Clark's Financial Mysteries

There was a mystery in George Rogers Clark's governorship of the newly acquired territory - a double mystery, one of the "missing vouchers" for his expenditures which was only solved a hundred years later by their discovery in 1913 at Richmond, Va., and the other in the source of the funds that he acquired to finance his administration. Clark was his own "director of the budget," among other offices that he held in his new conquest. His little stock of continental paper money had been exhausted when he arrived at Kaskaskia - besides it was not very acceptable money on that near-Spanish frontier. Where was he to get - and did finally get - the funds to pay for his army's food and shelter, and for the financing of the Indian treaties that it was necessary to make to secure tranquility within his realms? Whence came his ammunition when he was so far away from his base? Even his staunch friend and one of the chief promotors of his project of invasion - Patrick Henry - seemed at times to have forgotten him and his needs. Henry seemed more interested i horse-breeding in that perilous period of Clark's fortunes than he did in Clark's financial needs. In one of his letters to Clark, he wrote: "I hear that the horsed of Illinois country are very fine and I am very desirous to get two of the best stallions that the Spanish settlements can furnish. I would have you value the cost of the horses and the expense of sending them in. Get good men to bring them to New Castle Town in Hanover and give them handsome wages to secure their plans to bring them safe here." And, our biographer notes, Henry, who despatched no funds to pay troops and buy army supplies, sent no cash to pay for this private venture of his. Whether or not the stallions were ever sent is not known. The incident is quoted to show that Clark had to look elsewhere than to the man who chose between "liberty and death" or to the Continental Congress for money. It was the forgotten Oliver Pollock, merchant and gentleman adventurer down the river at New Orleans, who came to his rescue and proved his unfailing friend and the friend of the Republic in those times that tried men's souls.

Fortunately for Clark, years before the tea was thrown into the Boston Harbor, Oliver Pollock had settled in New Orleans and had his argosies going and coming on the southern seas. He had made friends with Spanish merchants and Spanish governors. By one stroke of generosity, had won their unswerving friendship. At one time, during a food famine, one of Pollock's ships had arrived in the port of New Orleans laden with flour, which had risen to $200 a barrel. He could easily have profited 2,000 per cent on this cargo. But he was a sentimental Irishman as well as a canny trader. He refused to take advantage of the famine and voluntarily offered his flour at the normal price of $15 a barrel. As a token of gratitude for his generous act, Pollock was awarded by the Spanish governor with the permanent freedom of trade at the port of New Orleans, a grant that was respected by succeeding governors. And out of this privilege of trade, Pollock amassed a fortune before the outbreak of the Revolution. He held himself as an American and all the power and influence he had were exerted among the Spanish settlements and officials on the side of the colonies. His position became really that of a secret agent of the revolutionary colonists, and when the new flag was raised at Kaskaskia and Vincennes the vision of Clark, the soldier, and Pollock, the banker-merchant became one.

The Patriot Friend of Spanish Governors

From the outset of the war Pollock exerted his friendly influence in emergencies. In the face of a British blockade, the need of the army was great for arms, munitions and medicines, including quinine, in which Spain had a monopoly. Early in the summer of 1776, Captain Gibson and some armed men disguised as hunters, made their way by the river route to New Orleans. The British consul demanded Gibson's arrest. Spain, being neutral, Governor Galvez complied, as his friend Pollock advised, but Pollock ascertained that no request had been made for the arrest of William Linn, Gibson's second in command, procured for him 9,000 pounds of powder and a supply of quinine. With these Linn was sent up the river, and though it was seven months, rowing upstream at the rate of six miles a day, before Linn landed his cargo at Pittsburgh, the supplies arrived when ammunition was almost exhausted and the soldiers suffering from "fever and ague."

From that time on, Oliver Pollock was a busy "blockade runner." He kept gathering supplies for the Continental Army to be forwarded by sailing vessels, but the blockade stiffened. Some of his vessels were captured, but many of them reached their destined patriot ports. Pollock turned privateersman. He fitted out armed boats in the bayous and took a British frigate or two - it was all a catch-as-catch can game. Governor Galvez gazed in the other direction and seemed not to be concerned with the prizes that his friend Pollock took. They were Pollock's property to do with as he pleased and Pollock was taking them for the good of his cause, which was the cause of the United States. He considered his private purse to be only a subtreasury branch of the states," comments biographer Palmer. The British demanded that he be delivered to them as a prisoner of war, but neither friend Galvez nor Don O'Reilly, governor general of Cuba, would surrender him, though they almost ran out of plausible diplomatic reasons for refusing to comply with the British demands.

To the end Oliver Pollock, with his daring ventures on the seas, and out of his private fortune, backed the cause of the revolution. When Patrick Henry no longer had any cash to pay for goods, he still had pen and ink and paper with which to write orders for Pollock at New Orleans to fill and they were promptly honored. When bad news came from Washington's army, he always had the solace that he could write another letter to a Spanish governor, knowing that Pollock, the friend of the governor and the "free trader" of the port, would come to the rescue. And out of the sales of his contraband prizes and even from loans from his private friends, Pollock kept on buying supplies and shipping them to the front.

The Gold Supply That Never Failed

When Clark received his paper money for his expedition, the question arose, what should be done when the paper money was exhausted? Again the shifty governor of Virginia turned to Pollock. He made this appear to Clark as a mere matter of detail - nothing simpler. If Clark could no longer pay in paper money, the thing to be done was to draw bills on that never failing source of gold supply - Pollock of New Orleans. And that is what Clark did do, time and time again. "All that stood between Clark and the collapse of the empire built on his personality was the personality of that Irish trader to whom the states were already in debt," comments biographer Palmer. But he did not fail. When Pollock received the news of Clark's success, there were more bills to be paid, more money to be raised for the cause. "I have succeeded," wrote Clark to Pollock, "and am necessitated to draw bills on the state and have reason to believe that they will be accepted by you." They always were accepted by Oliver Pollock. There was a ring of achievement in Clark's letters in character with Pollock's letters to Clark. Both are preserved in the Draper collection with the ornate addresses on thick rag paper envelopes which appear still fresh, showing how carefully the messengers guarded them.

Then the time came when creditors were pressing very hard on Pollock owing to the loss of may of his cargoes. With his personality as collateral, he got further loans from friends and Clark was kept supplied, Pollock always finding a way to get past the British river guard. And it was Pollock, whose vision ran with that of Clark, who finally wrote appealing to Clark to gather a force and push down the river "so as not to lose a valuable conquest which might now be easily obtained" - nothing less than the conquest of New Orleans. But that time was not yet ripe.

The Days of Adversity

Then, when the war was over, came the days of disaster to many who had figured in the great achievements of the war. Morris, the patriot banker, found his way to a debtor's prison. Oliver Pollock reached a similar refuge from creditors in Havana. Clark, heart-broken with supposed ingratitudes and haunted by debts and "missing vouchers," was eating his heart out by the "falls of the Ohio." One of his greatest griefs, as he struggled with his own debts, was that he was not able to lend a helping hand to his friend and backer, Pollock. But Pollock was a "singing Celt," and a canny one. He managed to get a parole, went to Philadelphia, where he found a sympathetic listener in Robert Morris, another patriot debtor. Morris secured a sum in case from moneys due by the government to Pollock. With this as capital, the gallant merchant-patriot gained time from his creditors, returned to mercantile pursuits, paid all his debts and before long made another fortune.

The Delmarvia Star
Wilmington, Delaware
October 27, 1929

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