American matters
Barclay traded with the colonies in America, and had connections particularly in Pennsylvania; the firm David Barclay & Sons had connections around 1760 with New York and Philadelphia merchants, and supplied the British military in North America. In the years before the outbreak of the American War of Independence, Barclay made use of Benjamin Franklin. The Barclay brothers used their insights into the North American situation as a guide to business strategy, first of all withdrawing from sales on commission, and then reducing their dependence on exporting across the Atlantic. At the end of the War they had closed down their old trade in linen.
Franklin's relationship with Quaker bankers went back 20 years, to his first English visit as agent for Pennsylvania: on that occasion he banked with Henton Brown's firm. Brown had met Robert Hunter Morris as incoming Pennsylvania governor in 1754; and in 1755, along with Barclay, Bevan, Fothergill, and Capel Hanbury became a committee member concerned with the interests of the Society of Friends there. In 1756 Barclay was ordering muskets for Thomas Penn; he also acted as London agent for William Allen.
In the crisis of the 1770s Barclay led the Committee of North American Merchants in their campaign for repeal of the Stamp Act 1765. He did not, however, endorse the extremes of opposition of the colonists. In November 1774 he called on Benjamin Franklin, in London, to discuss the worsening tensions in the cross-Atlantic relationship. Franklin, with Barclay and John Fothergill, drafted a plan to resolve the impasse existing after the Boston Tea Party of the previous year. Barclay met Lord North in 1775 to oppose moves against American access to fisheries, though without success, while Fothergill also worked behind the scenes.
After the War, American Quaker abolitionist delegations made their way to London. Barclay found them generally too impatient, and politically naive in their view that the way to apply pressure to Parliament was through the King. He diverted the abolitionist programme to getting the case for the abolition of slavery heard by politicians, with success.
