Page:New Brunswick Magazine Issue 1.djvu/152

The circumstances under which James Simonds and Wm. Hazen formed a company, early in the year 1764, for carrying on at St. John what was rightly deemed quite an extensive business for those times, have been already described in this series of papers. In the course of the first two years the character of the original company was essentially altered by the death of Richard Simonds, the retirement of Samuel Blodget and Robert Peaslie, and the admission of Leonard Jarvis as a new partner. Questions also arose with regard to the rights of the several partners in the lands that had been granted in 1765 to James Simonds, James White and Richard Simonds. In order to settle these questions a new business contract was drawn up at Newburyport, April 16, 1767,^[1] and signed by William Hazen, Leonard Jarvis and James Simonds. Under this contract, Hazen and Jarvis were to have one half of the business, James Simonds one third, and James White one sixth, and all the lands at St. John (no matter to whom originally granted) together with all lands that might be granted during the continuance of the partnership, were to be put into the common stock and divided in the following proportions, viz., one half to Hazen and Jarvis, one third to Simonds and one sixth to White.

The new contract was signed by James Simonds, as he tells us, with extreme reluctance and almost under compulsion, but Hazen and Jarvis declined to furnish any further supplies for the trade unless their