Irving, Jacob Aemilius

Saddled with the debts of his deceased father, Jacob Aemilius Irving left his family's sugar estates in Jamaica in July, 1809, to try to right his affairs. Traveling first to New York, to renew commercial contacts and try the waters at Ballston Spa, Irving was greeted with the disconcerting news that he was to be arrested for nonpayment of debt, the result of losing an old lawsuit recently revived by the mercantile firm of Moulton & Livingston. Rescued by his business associates, the Gansevoorts, Irving settled with Moulton & Livingston and continued on to Charleston, S.C., to bring his three sons home to England with him. "Not at all satisfied with the state of Education" in Carolina, Irving wished to provide the children with better schooling, but added tartly that he did not wish them either "to imbibe a partiality for this Country!" (to Joseph Birch, 1810 April 26).

In July, 1809, Irving left for Liverpool. Although professing to "shrink with horror" when thinking of the "disasters, and distresses of various branches of my poor Father's family" (1809 September 13 to Capt. Jackson), Jacob had little inkling of what the "various branches" held in store. Within a year of his arrival in Liverpool, he was called upon to bail out a nephew, James, who had been imprisoned for an enormous debt of over £4,000, accrued through scandalously high living. At considerable personal expense, Jacob assisted in James' liberation from prison during the summer of 1811, and arranged for his nephew to work off his debt in Jamaica -- though he held little confidence in James' success. Jacob wrote that his "unfortunate" nephew had "seen so much of the dissipation of fashionable life, we are not to expect much steadiness from him, although he professes to be determined in working his reformation by oeconomy & an attention to the business of planting &c.," adding parenthetically, "At any event it is better he should go out, than remain here a certain prey to his Old Associates..." (1811 November 8 to Alexander Peterkin). In a separate letter to his clerk, J. Pigot, Jacob suggested that the wine on the estate should be well hidden. To Jacob's credit, James proved just as unsteady as feared, and even more underhanded. James' ongoing efforts to gain a share in the receivership vexed Jacob so highly that he was finally forced to cut off his nephew entirely in March 1813.

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