Horatio Gates (businessman)

Horatio Gates
Born	(1777-10-30)October 30, 1777 Barre, Massachusetts
Died	April 11, 1834(1834-04-11) (aged 56) Montreal, Lower Canada

Horatio Gates (October 30, 1777 – April 11, 1834) was a Canadian businessman, office holder, justice of the peace, and politician. He was the third president of the Bank of Montreal, and served on the Legislative Council of Lower Canada. Gates is influential in Canadian history as his career "well illustrates the economic development of Montreal from 1800 to the mid 1830s." Gates had made his fortune selling meat to the British army through the commissariat department in Canada during the War of 1812 and at one point was supplying almost all of the garrisons below Quebec (the name for Quebec City at this time, as modern Quebec province was still called Lower Canada) - these contracts for meat continued well after the war ended in 1815 until at least 1826, and Gates began to expand his business into other sectors like importation and exportation of wanted items.

Gates was part of the group of "urban middle class in Montreal who started from a weak economic base and improved the commercial prospects of Montreal which led to the transformation of the small town into a trading hub for the Saint Lawrence Basin." The merchants in Montreal (many of which were American by birth) at this time had "amassed fortunes for themselves" but went on to steadily improve Montreal for every denizen - be them citizen or visitor - through wanting "to enhance to town's economic power." Gates specifically contributed to this cause through "setting up institutions and instruments which enabled business to function more efficiently" in Montreal because Gates "had an early grasp of the importance of setting those institutions and instruments up for the mercantile community."

The actions of Gates in Canada

Gates arrived in Montreal in 1807 with a fellow Massachusetts businessman named Abel Bellows and the two rented a store together on Rue Saint-Paul which was the heart of their business enterprise, however Gates had earlier business connections with Montreal "around 1802" as he was the middleman for the marketing of agricultural products into Montreal coming from Vermont and New York states.

During the War of 1812, Gates refused to immediately take the oath of allegiance to the Crown coming from the orders of Governor-General Sir George Prevost for all Americans living in the BNA colonies - this action was dangerous as he could have been suspected of disloyalty to the Crown as an American-born man. This rift in the beginning was apparently so severe that Gates was debating on selling all of his holdings and leaving Lower Canada in 1812, but he didn't - this was essential in Gates becoming wealthy as he undertook an "unauthorized trade" later as a citizen living in Canada. Gates ended up taking the oath of allegiance in late 1813 or early 1814 but it wasn't a complete oath, as he "was exempt from bearing arms against the United States" as Gates declared earlier that he "did not want to fight against his native land." Despite this, Gates actually proved his loyalty to the British army as a derision of the Crown through his actions. Gates did this by conducting regular trade runs into the United States in order to source provisions that were intensely wanted and needed (for the winters) by the British army - especially meat. Gates retained his old business connections with his American agricultural partners in Vermont and New York and went to them to supply these provisions en masse as "he found no difficulty in filling these orders." These actions were technically considered to be disregarding of prohibition - but Gates was in fact backed by the British and American armies together as enemies in cooperation. This connection was surfaced due to the efforts of historian Adam Shortt when he stated that "one of the men in the Kingston area of Upper Canada in charge of the commissariat department was related to the officer commanding the American troops". The two men "were in constant contact by letter in order to share veiled information about the traffic of Gates as well as to organize with every precaution the rounds of their sentries so their exchanges would not disturb the traffic" of Gates out of the United States and into Canada.

The War of 1812 exponentially grew both the personal finances and the business prestige of Gates, as it allowed him to do business that hitherto was not available to him (like selling meat to the British army). In turn, Gates became fabulously wealthy, as an example: in 1810 (before the war) Gates was still renting his store in Montreal but in 1816 (after the war) Gates had made enough money to buy himself two pieces of lot land in Montreal - one with two stone houses (one of which Gates would live in until his death) on Rue Notre-Dame and the other being (apparently empty) on Rue de l'Hopital. The business prestige of Gates grew as well, evident as he now signed regular supply contracts with the commissariat department, and these contracts were nothing less short of extreme, as the British army grew dependent on Gates for meat, and at one point "Gates was supplying almost all of the garrisons below Quebec." It is assumed that it was pork Gates was trading (as he dealt mainly in pork and flour after the war ended) but occasionally he would provide beef for the British troops as well if he had done any collaborating with a fellow merchant named Reuben Miles Whitney.

After the War of 1812, Gates "chiefly supplied pork and flour" through his appropriately named company of "Horatio Gates and Company" with his orders clearly showing the growth of his finances and connections in business, as in 1826 the company had delivered some 1000 barrels of flour and 900 barrels of pork, which grew into 1200 barrels of flour and 1200 barrels of pork only the next year. However, before 1818 and during the War of 1812, it is likely that it was a company called "Horatio Gates and Nephew" (the nephew being Nathaniel Jones) that did this supplying on paper, as HGN was the predecessor to HG&C, after it ceased to exist in 1818 when Charles Bancroft would be introduced to the mix, Bancroft and Jones becoming "the Company".

Gates around 1815 began to expand his sales into other sectors besides agriculture, as he got into importing general-use goods and luxury items, which displayed "the extent of his trade (connections) with the United States" through both the quality and variation of the goods - goods including tea, assorted fabrics, blankets, shawls, tables of "the best London make", butter, and tobacco - besides the usual flour and pork he supplied. Gates also got into exporting items from Canada into the United States but it wasn't with as much variation (natural items really) mainly pork, flour and wheat, potash, and staves. Horatio Gates and Company was "at the forefront of Montreal exporters" in 1818 and by 1825 it had shipped the most potash period for that year with 6726 barrels.

Gates banking-as-a-business:

Gates was a charter member of the Bank of Montreal as he was part of the "private company" organized in 1817 by the Montreal merchants responsible with the founding of a bank in Lower Canada; Gates may have been part of the unsuccessful attempt of founding a bank in 1808 but there is no proof.

As Gates was a founding and charter member of BMO, he was responsible with a great deal of tasks for the creation (and within the operations whilst in business) of the bank, such as "assembling the capital necessary to begin the Bank of Montreal, renting the first premises, buying the lot, constructing the building, and obviously acting as its president twice, once in 1826 and once from 1832 until his death" plus "hiring personnel, acting as a director, and serving on various bank committees". Gates achieved the gaining of the capital in an influential way which shows evidence of his business acumen, having "found takers" for nearly half of all the shares in New York, Boston, or "other parts" of New England, likely contacts found through acting as the agent for a New York bank called "Prime, Ward, and Sands". This connection demonstrates the necessity of the Americans in the creation of this Canadian bank.

The Bank of Montreal was not the only banking project that Gates was active in throughout his life in business, as he was also instrumental in the founding of the Bank of Canada in 1818 - a year after the founding of the BMO - as Gates was "on some of the BOC's committees" before it was created officially as well as "signing the partnership deed and acting as president from 1826 until 1831". According (again) to Adam Shortt, it is suggested (by Shortt) that "the BOC was designed originally to specialize in trade with the United States" apparently the case because Gates was working with another American-born Montreal merchant and Canadian politician named Jacob De Witt (born in Connecticut).

Gates worked on a merger between the BMO and the BOC from 1823 onwards (after both the BMO and BOC received their government charters in 1822) which would eventually "become effected" in 1831.

References

• "Biography". Dictionnaire des parlementaires du Québec de 1792 à nos jours (in French). National Assembly of Quebec.
• "Horatio Gates". Dictionary of Canadian Biography (online ed.). University of Toronto Press. 1979–2016.