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1921 IN THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY 383 of a few weeks the new members were declared to be admitted. The title of the society indicates that the membership was confined to merchants. No doubt this was so, but it is very difficult to make any further decision as to the scope of the membership. A consideration of their own interests would probably, however, lead all the prominent merchants to attend the meetings. The attendance varied considerably ; there were six or eight members in the early years of the society who were usually present, and there were also a very large number who attended more rarely, some very seldom indeed. From the rule that all members of the society should be merchants even the colonial agents do not appear to have been exempt. One of the most constant attendants at the meetings was Stephen Fuller, the agent for Jamaica, and Richard Maitland, agent for Grenada, St. Vincent, and Tobago, 1 was also a member ; but the agent for Barbados, George Walker, does not appear. 2 Stephen Fuller and Richard Maitland we know to have been merchants, and George Walker was an absentee planter, so it seems safe to assume that the agents were admitted as merchants and not in virtue of their agency. Nevertheless, the merchants who were also agents had a very prominent place in the society, and matters were frequently referred to them on the ground of their position as agents. 3 The chairman of the society, in its early years, was, as has already been indicated, Mr. Beeston Long, of the firm Long, Drake and Long. There was a paid secretary, James Allen, without whose signature, it is stated in the minutes of the year 1776, no advertisement by the society should be taken as authentic. 4 The treasurer was a member of the society, Mr. Samuel Long, of the same family and firm as the chairman. The fund of which Mr. Samuel Long was treasurer gives a most valuable indication of the nature of the society. It was not merely a group of traders combined to further their own interests and to regulate the conditions of their trade : it was not merely the counterpart for the merchants of the Planters' Club. It shows a definite advance towards the fusion of interests that resulted in the formation of the West India Committee. The origin of the fund was the charge on trade, 5 an imposition similar 1 Tobago after 1772. 2 George Walker and his successor Samuel Estwick appear later when there are joint meetings of planters and merchants. 3 e.g. in 1770, when the agent for Jamaica had submitted to him a petition relating to exorbitant fees said to be exacted at Savannah-la-Mar (Merchants' Minutes, vol. i, meeting of 2 October 1770). 4 Ibid., meeting of 2 April 1776. 5 The charge had been levied for some time ; in the year 1746, ' to prosecute the Fellows called Lampers, when detected in stealing sugars on board ' (Letter-book