Memorandum of Alexander Willson, Quebec to Captain David Kippen

Memorandum to Captain David Kippen, HMS General Woolf informing the latter that Doctor Alexander Willson, Royal Artillery, expects James Perry to support the Petition to form a new Antients' Lodge in Quebec with Dr James Davidson as Worshipful Master despite opposition from lodges meeting under the Moderns' Grand Lodge supported by Sir John Johnson. Mentions that St John's Lodge, No. 182 [SN 1103] in Quebec 'is composed of men of too little consequence to establish the fame and reputation of Antient Masons'. Willson wishes Kippen 'a good passage'.

Merchants' Lodge was granted a warrant by the Antients' Grand Lodge to meet as No. 265 in December 1790. The Lodge was reconstituted on 13 June 1791. The Lodge purchased the warrant of Lodge No. 40A [SN 379], which met at Warrington, Lancashire until c.1765, for Five Guineas in December 1791. The Lodge met at the Merchant's Coffee House, Quebec, Canada. By 1804 the lodge was associated with the regiment of Royal Artillery, Quebec. After the Union between the Antients' and Moderns' Grand Lodges to form the United Grand Lodge of England in 1813, the Lodge met as No. 77 at an unknown location in Quebec. The Lodge appears to have lapsed about 1824, was renumbered as No. 68 in 1832 but was erased in June 1862. The lodge was named as Merchants' Lodge in 1792.