Letter of Alexander Willson to James Perry, Deputy Grand Master

Letter of Alexander Willson to James Perry, Deputy Grand Master explaining that members meeting in Quebec under a Moderns' Grand Lodge warrant (Merchants' Lodge, No. 151 [SN 467], Quebec) have been pursuaded to obtain an Antients' Grand Lodge warrant. Captain [David] Kippen of HMS General Woolf to bring the Petition for this new Lodge to London. Mentions members are unhappy with the conduct of Sir John Johnson, Superintendent General of Indian Affairs, who was appointed Provincial Grand Master of Canada for the Moderns' Grand Lodge.

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.