Balancing debt in the absence of money: Documentary credit in New South Wales, 1817-20

This article analyses three sources of financial data recording details of bills of exchange and promissory note transactions in the New South Wales (NSW) colony, 1817-20. These sources are the minute books and the customer accounts ledger of the Bank of NSW, and the records of the Supreme Court of Civil Jurisdiction, Sydney. We show how documentary credit was employed to balance debt in a currency-deprived colonial society. The analytical perspective is microeconomic, using the lens provided by the transactions of the convicted Margate embezzler and Sydney dealer, John Croaker. An eight-step protocol is introduced to show how to calculate conservative money-denominated estimates of turnover and 'profit' for traders in the colony. This protocol has potential to provide important commercially related dimensions to the biographical profiles of dealers, traders and merchants - not only in NSW, but in similar societies as well.