John Ripley letters

1795-1798

John Ripley (1738-1823), of Hartford, Connecticut, was a merchant, shipowner and military officer. He was the son of Joshua Ripley and Mary Backus of Windham, Connecticut and the uncle of Dwight Ripley (1764-1835) of Norwich. Ripley was major of a Connecticut state regiment during the Revolution, and major of the 13th U.S. Infantry from 1799-1800. The John Ripley letters, 1795-1798, chiefly consist of letters addressed to him at Coventry and Hartford, Connecticut; Bath, Maine; and New York City. These are written by American merchants; his Liverpool agents Anderson, Child & Child; and Captain David Jewett, master of the ship Alliance. A letter from Ripley at Boston to merchant Henry Huntington at New York, and a letter from Cordis & Langdon to David Trufant, 1795, both referring to the construction and fitting of a new ship in which Huntington and Ripley were invested, are included. Jewett's letter of 1798 September 13 at Liverpool concerns business related to the capture of the Alliance by a French privateer and its recapture by British ships, with comment on the French invasion of Ireland, the imprisonment of Americans in France, and piracy on the seas. A letter from Roylance Child at Boston, 1796 October 13, is written on the back of a bill of prices current from his partners in Liverpool. An additional undated bill from the same firm is possibly the enclosure to Jewett's letter.