Letter of Alexander Willson, Quebec to Robert Leslie, Grand Secretary

Letter of Alexander Willson, Quebec to Robert Leslie, Grand Secretary, Antients' Grand Lodge, informing the latter that he received two letters from London on returning from Jamaica where he spent six months. The new Lodge was consecrated in his absence under a dispensation as No. 40B and apologises that John Hair did not pay the five Guineas for the warrant. Willson will atempt to settle a dispute between [Charles] Chambers, [Archibald] Ferguson, tailor and [Thomas] Ferguson, publican, members of St John's Lodge, No. 182 [SN 1103], Quebec, who objected to the new Lodge being granted a warrant to meet as No. 40B at the Merchants' Coffee House. Remarks on the departure of the last Governor General and the arrival of HRH Prince Edward Augustus, Duke of Kent with the 7th Regiment of Foot (Royal Fusiliers) from Gibraltar.

Merchants' Lodge was granted a warrant by the Antients' Grand Lodge to meet as No. 40B, later 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.