Notice of Peter Hasenclever. 



203 



which was 860 feet long and twelve feet high ; roads and 

 bridges had to be built; an incompetent manager who had 

 been sent over to supplant him had made useless and very 

 expensive changes while Hasenclever was on a visit to Eng- 

 land ; and the ore of some of his mines on which he had 

 expended much labor contained too much sulphur to be 

 profitably melted. Besides, he had justly quarreled with 

 and separated from Rupert, his potash manufacturer; and 

 his potash did not turn out to be of prime quality, and 

 sold at a loss in London. Thirty pounds of hemp seed 

 which he had imported from Europe and sowed, yielded 

 no returns. 



While he was struggling with ardor and hope against a 

 thousand obstacles to immediate success, he learned in 

 October, 1766, that Seton, one of his partners, was a bank- 

 rupt and had wasted the capital of the company, and that 

 his commercial house had been fraudulently sacrificed. 

 He succeeded, however, in making an arrangement with 

 his co-adventurers for the continued prosecution of mining 

 in America, and came again in 1768 to New York as their 

 agent. But the new manager of the works whom they 

 had sent out was utterly ignorant of the business. His 

 difficulties here and in London increased, his bills were 

 protested, and he proceeded in 1769 to London for the last 

 time. He represents in his statement of his case that the 

 American Company, sometimes called also the London 

 Company, was engaged in an unworthy clandestine con- 

 spiracy against him, and that it was by their machinations 

 in 1770 that he was declared a bankrupt. Indeed, Lord 

 Hillsborough, secretary for the colonies, at their solicita- 

 tion, wrote to Gen. Clinton to sustain the new manager of 

 the company against the interference of Hasenclever. 



In part that he might be able to justify his proceedings 

 before the Court of Chancery, Gov. Franklin of New Jer- 

 sey, by official request appointed a committee consisting of 

 Lord Stirling, Col. John Schuyler, and others to visit all 



