Ffeil NLW MS 23528E. - Letter-book,

Letter-book of Sir Andrew King, London, merchant, containing copies of his outgoing correspondence written, 1663-5, just before his departure for and during his residence in Madrid where he was in the service of Sir Richard Fanshawe, the British Ambassador to Spain (ff. 2-26 verso, 105 verso-28 verso inverted text), and, 1667-78, after his return to Great Britain and his residence in London (ff. 49-103 verso inverted text). The letters written from Madrid are mostly to British merchants in London, Spain and elsewhere, and relate mainly to his commercial ventures, especially to his designs to import grain and olive oil into Spain to alleviate the shortages of those commodities there; many of the letters are to Sir Joseph Williamson, Whitehall, informing him of the economic, political and social conditions in Spain, and of the movements of the Dutch fleet, intelligence about which King obtained from British merchants and consuls resident in Spanish ports. A letter to Daniel Wycherley, whose son, the dramatist William Wycherley was also one of Fanshawe's gentlemen in Spain, assures him that his son is not proposing to convert to Roman Catholicism (f. 125). The letters from London comprise correspondence written, 1667-72 (together with a copy of one letter written in 1662), mostly to British colonists in the West Indies, especially to Sir James Modyford in Jamaica, and merchants in England, including Giles Vanbrugh, Chester, sugar-merchant, father of the architect and dramatist Sir John Vanbrugh, mainly relating to the engaging of servants for service in Jamaica; and, 1672-8, mostly to agents of the Royal African Company in Barbados, Guinea and Jamaica, concerning the supplying of negro slaves to the West Indies.