The fourth William Courten was born in London on the 28th March, 1642. He was baptized at St. Gabriel Fenchurch, on the 31st of that month. The downfall of his family was therefore very nearly contemporaneous with his own birth, and makes it explicable that no record can now be found of the places of his education, or of the course of his early years. But the first trace which does occur of him is in exact harmony with the one fact which makes his existence memorable to his countrymen. |Museum Tradescantianum, (1656).| He appears, at the age of fourteen, in the list of benefactors to the Tradescant Museum, at Lambeth, a collection which afterwards became the basis of the Ashendean Museum at Oxford.
The Tradescants—father and son—hold a conspicuous place in the history of Botanical Science in England, and they are especially notable as the founders of the first ‘Museum’ worthy of the name, which was established in this country. The next collection of note, after theirs, was that formed by Robert Hubert, in his house near St. Paul’s Cathedral. Other collectors—as for example, John Conyers and Dr. John Woodward—soon followed the example. But in this path all of them were far outstripped by Courten, who had marked his early bias, and also his characteristic liberality, by his gift to the Tradescants in 1656.
Part of Courten’s youth was passed at Montpelier, where he formed the acquaintance of several men then, or afterwards, famous for their scientific acquirements. Amongst them, and with the local advantages for the study of the natural sciences, in particular, for the possession of which Montpelier was already noted, his tastes for observation and study were developed, and his character took the ply which soon became indelible.
If he ever possessed any share at all of the qualities and predispositions for mercantile adventure, which had marked so many generations of his ancestors on the father’s side, that share was far too weak an element in his composition to resist the discouragements of adverse circumstances. But as he attained manhood, he found himself immersed—unwittingly in part—in a sea of litigation which boded ill to his prospective enjoyment of leisure for scientific studies, whatever might prove to be its ultimate results upon his worldly fortunes.
The suits and claims instituted by George Carew, on behalf of Courten and of the Creditors.
Some of the later enterprises of Sir William Courten had been carried on in conjunction with another famous merchant, Sir Paul Pindar, who like himself was a large creditor of the Crown. The administration of Pindar’s estate had fallen into the hands of a certain George Carew, who seems to have imagined that the restoration of royal authority in England would bring with it opportunities, to an energetic man, of winning a new fortune out of the remnants of the old fortunes which the fall of royalty had helped to ruin. |Courten Papers, in MSS. Sloane, 3515; 3961; and 3962.| Just before Charles the Second came back, this man busied himself in buying up claims against Courten’s estate as well as claims against Pindar’s. He had a stock of energy. He had also the prospect of acquiring a good standpoint at Court, in addition to his present possession of a good training in the mysteries of English law. He was ready to devote all his energies to the business, and to encounter at once with the Dutch East India Company, the Dutch Republic, the Government of Barbadoes, and a host of adversaries at home.
There had, however, been no Commission of Bankruptcy. It was necessary that the battle should be fought as well in the name of the heir and representative of the family, as in the name of the collective body of creditors. Carew used Courten’s name and used it, as it appears, for some years without authority from the legal guardian. Courten himself did not become of age until 1663.
The Restoration was hardly effected before Carew besieged the King and the Courts with Petitions, Memorials, Claims, and Bills of Plaint. He would lose nothing for lack of asking. And he was undeterred by difficulties or rebuffs.
The Barbadoes Claim.
The case of Barbadoes was thus put before the Committee of the Privy Council for America:—