MRP: Sir Samuel Mico will

Sir Samuel Mico will

PROB 11/320 Mico 47-91 Will of Sir Samuel Mico, Mercer of London 24 May 1666 (See also PROB 11/321 Mico 92-138 Sentence of Samuel Mico or Micoe of Saint Andrew Undershaft, City of London 05 July 1666)

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Editorial history

01/12/11: Created page & posted completed transcription to wiki

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Abstract & context

See PROB 5/840 Inventory & probate accounts of Samuel Mico, 1666, ff. 1-27
See Lady Jane Mico will (wife of Samuel Mico)
See Aaron Mico will (relative and Alicante factor of Samuel Mico)
See Nathaniell Withers will (brother-in-law of Samuel Mico)

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Transcription

IN THE NAME OF GOD AMEN THE Twenty fift day of September One thousand six hundred sixty five I Samuel Mico Citizen and Mercer of London being sound in body and mind God be praysed) doe make and ordaine this my last Will and Testament in manner and forme following (that is to say)

FFIRST I Commend my soule into the hands of God my maker hoping assuredly through the only merritts of Jesus Christ my saviour to be made partaken of life everlasting, And I comend my body to the earth to be buryed at the discrecion of my Executor hereafter menconed

To Jane my wife over and above her due according to the Custome of London I give all my householdstuffe Plate and Jewells To my kinsman Edward Mico I give One thousand pounds lawfull money of England to be payd him when he hath a final discharge from all his Creditors of all that he owed them To my Nephew Nathaniell ?Withers I give twenty shillings of like money To Alice ?Barrett my Aunt I give Tenn pounds yearly to her daughter Lucy five pound yearly, And to Sarah Barnard my Aunt I give ten pound yearly during their natural lives to be payd the quarterly after my decease To Thomas Barnard my Kinsman sonne to the said Sarah Barnard I give twenty pounds To my Kinsman Robert Stone I give ten pounds, and to John Stone his sonne my servant five hundred pounds, To ffrancis Stone Ten pounds, To Nicholas Stone his Brother five pound. To Margarett ffooke (?) their sister five pound, to ffrances Conyard (?) their sister five pounds, To Mary Winter their sister five pound, To Bridgett Stone their sister five pound, And to Anne Rosier (?) their sister now a servant in my house two him (sic) xxxx pound To my Cosen Thomas Allen of Dorchester I give Tenn pounds To my sister Dashwood of Dorchester five pound To my sister Russell of Weymouth or Melcombe Regis five pounds, To my kinsman William Hawkes now in my house I give One hundred pounds To my Brother Peter Robinson of Cheshunt I give ffifty pounds, To my Brother William Robinson of Cheshunt ffifty pounds, And Winifride his wife Tenn pounds To their Daughters Mary and Elizabeth Tenn pound a peece And to their Daughter Jane my wives God daughter twenty pounds To Andrew Barker Esquire my Brother in Law I give fifty pounds, To Elizabeth his wife twenty pound, To their sonne Samuel Barker my Godsonne One hundred pound To their daughter Elizabeth Barker Tenn pounds, And to their daughter Mary Tenn pound, To my Cousen Thomas Barrow I give Tenn pound To Anne his wife five pound, To my Cousen Stephen ?Fearne five pound, and to Katherine his wife five pound, To my Cousen William Stratford Tenn pound, To my Cousen John Hawkins five pound, To John Mordant now in my [seems to be a missing word in orginal copy] I give fifty pound, To Bernard Michell my Apprentice I give fifty pound, To my other servants not herein menconed that are my servants at the tyme of my death I give forty shillings a peece To M:r George Baker CHECK SPELLING of Billingsgate at Greenwich I give tenn pound To the Towne of Melcome Regis in the County of Dorset I give my house standing on the East side of the Key of that Towne called the George Taverne or Inne with the yarde or any other grounds thereunto belonging with the profitt thereof to putt out three poore Children Apprentices yearly To the Corporacon of Weymouth and Melcome Regis in the County of Dorsett I give ffive hundred pounds of lawfull money of England to be layd out in land, the profitts whereof to be bestowed Twenty shillings yearly or some good summe that they shall yearly choose when he hath preached a sermon in the Church of Melcombe aforesaid on the ffryday immediatly before Palme Sunday every yeare, The rest to bee payd that day to Tenn poore decayed seamen of that Corporacon of the age of Threescore yeares or upwards in equall proporcons or soe many of them within that number that are soe qualified who are

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soe qualifyed who are to be at the hearing of that sermon as soe many of them as are able Moreover I give to the the President and Governor of Christs Hospitalll in London ffive hundred pounds to be layd out in land to the benefitt yearly of the poore Children of that hospitall, To the Company of Mercers in London whereof I am a member I give five hundred pounds to be lent five young men of that Company One hundred pounds to each for three yeares gratis on good security to the liking of the Assistants of that Company, and soe to other five young men every Three years successively gratis on the like security And I give to the poore of the parish of Saint Andrew Undershaft where I am an Inhabitant ffifty pound to be disposed of as the Minister Churchwardens and those of the Vestry shall thinke fitt, Alsoe I give to Nathaniell Wythers senior My Brother in Law Twenty shillings, And to Richard Mico son to John Mico of Crowscombe in the County of Somersett I give Two hundred pounds

The remaynder of my Estate I give to my Kinsman Samuell Mico sonne also to the said John Mico to be disposed of by my Executor for his use and benefitt, as they shall think fitt untill he be of age and can give them a right discharge in Law, And of this my last Will and Testament, I make and ordaine Jane my wife, my Brother in Law Andrew Barker of ffairford in the County of Gloucester and William Robinson of Cheshunt aforesaid to be my Executors, And desire the aforesaid ?S:r John Mordant John Stone Bernard Michell and William Hawkes to be assistant to them in the Recovering in of my Estate And doe revoke and adnull any other former will

IN WITNES whereof I have hereunto, and to two more of the same tenor and date being all written with my owne hand subscribed my name and affixed my seale the day and yeare above written in the presence of the witnesses hereafter mentioned, the one accomplished the other to be voyd and of none effect:

SAMUEL MICO

Signed sealed and published in the presence of

JO:o MORDANT NATHANIEL BARROW THO. BARROW JOHN HAWKINS NATHANIEL BARROW MINOR W:M HAWKINS JOHN STONE

PROBATUM fuit huismodi Testamentum suprascriptum Apud London coram honorabili vivo Thomas Read legum Doctore Surrogate venerabilis et egregij vivi domini Guilielem Merrick militis legum etiam Doctoris Curiae Prerogative XXXX XXXX Magistri Custodis XXX Commisarij etxxx Constituti Viresimo quarto die Mensis May Anno due Millesimo sex centesimo sexagessimo sexto Juramentis XXX Jana Mico Relicta defuncti et William Robinson Duoxxx Executori in dicto Testamento nominatorum Quibus Commissa fuit Administrato omni et singXXXX bono XXXX et creditor XXX defuncti de bone et fideter administrando eadem Ad sancta dei Evangelia in debita Juris forma Hurat Reservatta XX Executori in XXX Testamento XXXX mommat cum venerit XXXX XXXX in debita Juris forma: admisser

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Commentary

Sir Samuel Mico was apparently quite deeply involved in trade with Spain, and had a kinsman, Aaron Mico, acting as his factor in Alicante, Spain, in the early 1650s, who predeceased Sir Samuel Mico. In 1650 Mico was exporting woollens from England to Alicante, in Spain, and importing “in Raisins, Anniseeds, Almonds, Figs, and some Wines, &c”. Pauline Croft comments in her study of the Spanish Company on the close link between Spain and the expanding (east) Mediterranean trade in the early C17th, and notes that the puchase of currants from Zante was dependent on trade with Spain, since currant purchase was “largely financed by the dollars and pieces of eight picked up en route at ports such as Lisbon, Cadiz, Malaga and Alicante”. Crofts adds “A third of the charter members of the revived Levant Company of 1605 were also members of the Spanish Company, and the proportion would probably have been higher had not the latter been abolished soon after the incorporation of the former.”

Robert Bargrave, a contemporary merchant, who kept a travel diary, identified Aaron Mico, together with Alexander Bence, Calthrop Parker, Robin Lang, and XXXX as the five English merchant families active in Alicante, and lists commodities they dealt in. There are archival index records referring to a settlement of Sir Samuel Mico’s estate with Alexander Bence, one of the five families Barker refers to in Alicante. Aaron Mico himself makes reference to Alexander Bence Junior in his own will, and appears to have been in partnership with him at his death in 1659. Bence Junior appears to be the future Sir Alexander Bence of Dublin, son of the non-conformist London merchant, Alexander Bence, from a long established of Aldburgh, Co. Suffolk, merchants, who dealt in XXXX.

It may be that Samuel Mico specialised in currants and raisins, rather than in silks. His 1669 inventory accounts contains a significant number of references to receipt of cash for sales of currants and raisins, but also for silks. These accounts show significant trading with merchants in Leghorn, specifically Thomas Dethicke & co.

A complaint by Samuel Mico to the Council of State was reported by Alderman Pennington in 1651, and appears to suggest that Samuel Mico directly employed “Thousands of the People of this Commonwealth in making of Manufactures of Wool, to be transported beyond the Seas”. Given Samuel’s close interest in the son of John Mico, clothier, of Croscombe, Co. Somerset, it seems quite possible that Samuel Mico and John Mico, who may have been cousins, had a similar family trading relationship to those of the Ashes clothier and merchant family with France and Antwerp, the Dawes family, and the Dashwood family. Furthermore, Samuel Mico’s Alicante factor, Aaron Mico, was the son of Aaron Mico, clothier of Croscombe, Co. Somerset, the father of John Mico of Croscombe. The ODNB entry on Samuel Mico simply states that there were two branches of the family, with the junior one staying in Taunton, Somerset, and is unclear whether Samuel Mico himself was born in London or elsewhere, but it seems very likely to me that he was born in Weymouth, Co. Dorset, and a secondary source states that his father was Richard Mico of Weymouth, Co. Dorset. CHECK WEYMOUTH/DORSET ARCHVIES TO SEE WHAT RECORDS EXIST OF PORT OF WEYMOUTH

Robert Brenner lists Samuel Mico as a leading "New Merchant". He also lists him as one of ten Levant merchants he had been able to discover who were significant traders in Spain during the 1630s, and argues that prior to the development of the Virginia and West Indies trade from the mid-1620s onwards, that Spain was the only unregulated market available which retailers, captains and others could participate in. A secondary source, drawing on a primary source, states that Samuel Mico was in partnership with the Grocer, Nathaniel Wright, early in his career (without giving a date or range of dates), which seems to match an apparent High Court of Admiralty record (which I cannot read properly in Google Book). Interestingly Nathan Wright had been Sir Stephen White’s master, and Stephen White was involved in the Portuguese trade. Nathan Wright was involved in both the Levant and East Indies trade, and was a significant investor in the Williams Venture. The names of Nathan Wright and Samuel Mico appear adjacent in a petition of February 3rd 1651, which reports that Wright and Mico, together with others, had bales of silk loaded upon a Dutch ship ship which was found to contravene the newly introduced Navigation Act. So it is possible that they were still in partnership then. The same petition mentions the merchants having factors at Mesina, Naples, and Leghorne. "Samuell Micott" was one of the signators to a September 1654 opinion, with Maurice Thomson, that the East India trade should be conducted differently. Other signators included Moses Goodyear, with whom Mico may have been commercially linked, as well as ‘O. Bence’ (brother of Alexander Bence, with whom Aaron Bence was partnered. The Wright and Thomson links seem consistent with a loose “New Merchant” description, though I have found no evidence of trading with America and the West Indies other than a mention of payment for Barbados sugar in his post-mortem inventory.

According to a non-academic secondary source, Samuel Mico was an assistant of the Levant Company from 1647-49, and was a member of both the Levant and East India Companies. The same source suggests that Samuel Mico was an investor, together with Sir John Bankes and others, in the Postilion, Fredrick, Francis, John and the Bantam Frigate, which had been seized by the Dutch in 1658. His involvement in these ships links him with interloping in the far east Indies, and associates him with fellow investors Sir Richard Ford, Sir John Bankes, and XXXX. Through the Postillon it links him with Thomas Breton and Simon Delboe.

Samuel Mico was mentioned to Sir George Oxenden in a letter from Thomas Papillon, 19 March 1662/3. Mico also acted as a referee in the SVJS litigation in 1662 for the Lord Chancellor, together with John Buckworth, Richard Holworthy,Thomas Tyte, and Michael Godfrey.

It is likely that Samuel Mico had a trading relationship with Moses Goodyear.

It is also likely that Samuel Mico had a trading relationship in the early 1650s with his brother-in-law, Nathaniel Withers, who he mentioned in his will, and who may have been Master of the Merchant Taylors in 1666. A TNA inventory exists for Nathaniel Withers

The extent of Samuel Mico’s Levant trading activities is unclear. He was mentioned together with Nathan Wright, Thomas Bludworth, and Henry Spurstow, in a petition to the House of Commons, dated February 3rd 1651.

A journal article on the composer Richard Mico, an older cousin of Sir Samuel Mico, has researched the Mico family extensively. The article states that Sir Samuel Mico’s father was Richard Mico of Weymouth, a merchant, that Samuel settled in London in the 1630s, and that he was a parliamentarian supporter during the Civil Wars. The same source gives his year of birth as 16XX (1610 CHECK) and year of death as 1665. The source states that Richard Mico was the eldest of three sons of Walter Mico of Taunton, parish of St. James, Co. Somerset (the others being Walter Mico, and Emanuel Mico). The writer suggests that the father, Walter Mico, was probably in the cloth trade, and that he had two close relatives in the trade – a cousin, Aaron Mico of Croscombe, Co. Somerset, and John Mico of Taunton, a sergemaker, who was the eldest son of the composer’s brother, Emanuel Mico.

A genealogist has noted the presence of a William Mico in Leghorn in the early 1660s, with whom the Earl of Winchelsea corresponded from Constantinople, but it is unclear how William Mico was related to Sir Samuell Mico. An academic secondary source states that William Mico resided in Leghorn in 1660. A letter from Winchelsea to William Mico in Leghorn, dated Oct 6-16th, 1665, speaks of a decline in William Mico’s prosperity and fortunes and offers “good wishes for the recoverie of you from instant pressures”, noting “your present retirement deprives you of the ability, though not of the will to be as useful to me as formely”.

There were clearly a number of related Mico merchants and clothiers connected with London in the 1640-1680 period. In addition to Samuel Mico, there was his kinsman and factor, Aaron Mico, whose father was Aaron Mico, a Croscombe clothier, and whose brother was John Mico, a Croscombe clothier. One of Aaron Mico Jnr’s sisters was married to a Croscombe clothier, as was an aunt. The younger Aaron Mico’s brother, Edward Mico (Sir Samuel Mico’s kinsman), was a London merchant, whose dealings included Malaga wines and collaboration in the late 1650s with Richard Ford and John Banks to attempt to bring pepper directly to Leghorn, bypassing London. Aaron Mico Jnr had a brother, William Mico, who may be the William Mico resident in Leghorn in the 1660s who corresponded with the Levant company and with Winchelsea. There was also a Walter Mico active in London in 1680, who corresponded with a merchant in Boston in America. A Richrad Mico, who died ca. XXXX.

It is likely that Samuel Mico made significant use of the port of Weymouth in Dorset as well as the port of London. XXXX notes that he paid wharf fees in both ports in XXXX, and there is a primary record of him importing raisins, sack sherry, and Malaga and Smyrna raisins direct to Weymouth in 1650, possibly in a voyage routed from the Levant via Malaga.

Samuel Mico appears to have been on a Council of Trade (WHEN?)