Autograph Letter, signed. 2 pages plus integral address leaf. Approximately 9¾x8"

To Daniel Gilman & Co., Boston on French trade restrictions: “….by a late law of the French Government, it is requisite that all Colonial Goods whatever, that are shipt for France, be accompanied by a Certificate of the French commercial Agent, to prove that such Goods are not the Produce of any British Settlement. Any Goods imported into France without such a Certificate, are not allowed to be consumed in the Country unless an equal value be exported in the same Vessel of French manufactured Goods, not wines nor Brandy. I have thought proper to guard you against the effects of this new Law by the earliest information, the Formality of a Certificate can…be easily accomplished...Our Market is rather dull for Colonial Produce, but towards Winter it is expected Prices will take favor. Tobacco and whale oil are much in Demand….” During a brief lull in the Napoleonic Wars, Napoleon’s Government, determined to prevent trading with a past and future enemy, imposed this modest regulation on imports from the US. The writer, John Lewis Brown, was a Scot with a love for both America – where he sent his teen-aged sons to study Yankee commerce – and his adopted land of France. The epicurean Brown was so successful in business that he was able to buy up several wineries in the Bordeaux area, one of which survives to this day with the un-Gallic name of “Chateau Brown”. His grandson, despite having the same “so terribly English” name, was a notable French painter of thoroughbred horses.