MOYER, Samuel (c.1609-83), of London and Clapham, Surr.

Moyer came from a family of merchants and mariners which had been settled at Leigh in Essex since at least the beginning of the 17th century. Having completed a nine-year apprenticeship, Moyer obtained his freedom of the Mercers’ Company in 1633. Through family contacts, he built up extensive trading interests, particularly in the Levant and the East Indies, entering into partnership with a group of ‘interloping’ London merchants, including Maurice Thomson, William Pennoyer and Thomas Andrewes, which became notorious for its attempts to by-pass the established trading companies.30Brenner, Merchants and Revolution, 327n, 379. By 1640 the ‘poor cabin boy’ had become an influential City merchant with an enviable reputation as the most successful financier and businessman of his time.31Mystery of the Good Old Cause (1660), 48 (E.1923.2).

In the months before the outbreak of civil war, Moyer supported Parliament. In January 1642 he was among a group of merchants, including Pennoyer and Thomson, who offered ships for Parliament’s service.32PJ i. 200-1. He invested £300 in the Irish adventure in April 1642, a further £300 in the sea adventure in June, as well as supplying ships as part of a consortium that included Thomson, Pennoyer and Andrewes.33Bottigheimer, English Money and Irish Land, 187; CSP Ire. Adv. 105; LJ v. 144a; Brenner, Merchants and Revolution, 402, 404. Moyer signed a petition of the adventurers against the king making a treaty with the Irish rebels in September 1643, and, later in the month, he was one of the citizens appointed to negotiate with the Committee for Scottish Affairs – a parliamentary committee to raise money for the Scots’ forces in Ulster and those soon to enter England – the body that evolved into the Committee for Compounding.34LJ vi. 202b; HMC 13th Rep. i. 715; HMC Lords n.s. xi. 358. In November Moyer was added to the assessors working with the Committee for Advance of Money, and he was active in this capacity during 1644.35CCAM 27, 137, 484. From July 1644 Moyer became one of the most regular attenders at Goldsmiths’ Hall, and he was involved in subsidiary committees that supported its work36SP23/2, pp. 1-137; SP23/3, pp. 1-358. In November 1645 he was appointed to a committee to examine those royalists who came to London without presenting themselves to the Committee for Compounding.37A. and O. In August 1646 he was involved in moves by the committee to raise money for the disbandment of extraneous regiments.38LJ viii. 485a. Moyer was appointed as a compounding commissioner in February 1647, and continued to be one of the most assiduous attenders at Goldsmiths’ Hall during the next 18 months.39A. and O.; SP23/4, ff. 8-217v; Eg. 2978, f. 214; Add. 36452, f. 123. In the meantime Moyer and his business associates were patching up their difference with the East India Company. Moyer joined the governing body of the company in August 1647, although he refused to take the traditional oath of allegiance to the king. He went on to act as the company’s spokesman before parliamentary committees, but tensions rose between Moyer and his fellow ‘interlopers’ and the company over their private ventures on the coasts of Africa and Malabar.40Cal. Ct. Mins. E.I. Co. 1644-9, pp. xvi, xviii, 218, 238, 303, 305; Brenner, Merchants and Revolution, 179.

Although often described as a Baptist, Moyer in fact belonged to the circle of influential merchants who attended the congregation led by the Independent divine, Thomas Goodwin.41BDBR ii. 251-3; M. Tolmie, Triumph of the Saints (Cambridge, 1977), 105, 141; Woolrych, Commonwealth to Protectorate, 217. His religious affiliation probably explains the slowness of his advancement before the Independents took control of the City government in the summer of 1647. Thereafter he secured positions of considerable influence. He was appointed to the London militia committee on 2 September alongside others deemed acceptable by the Independent faction, including Maurice Thomson and Francis Allein*.42Rushworth, Hist. Collns. vii. 798; Brenner, Merchants and Revolution, 513-4. This was followed by appointments to the Tower Hamlets committee on 8 January 1648, and to the London assessment committee on 24 April.43A. and O. In the December elections to the common council, designed to purge the City government of Presbyterians, Moyer was returned for Aldgate Ward.44Farnell, ‘Politics of London’, 235. It was later claimed that after Pride’s Purge of the House of Commons, Moyer became ‘a sworn servant to the Rump, a notorious sectarian and in at all games’.45Mystery of the Good Old Cause, 48. His career in the early months of the commonwealth does much to confirm this view. His connections with the new regime were strong. He was an active compounding commissioner in the early weeks of January 1649.46SP23/5, ff. 36v, 42, 43v, 49. On 16 January he was made a commissioner for the navy and customs, joining his old associates Thomson and Andrewes, and later in the month he negotiated a loan from the East India Company to fund the spring fleet.47A. and O.; Cal. Ct. Mins. E.I. Co. 1644-9, p. 312; Brenner, Merchants and Revolution, 553. Although he took no part in bringing the king to trial, Moyer was a member of the second high court of justice and signed the 1st duke of Hamilton’s death warrant on 6 March.48HMC 7th Rep., 71. He became a commissioner for indemnity in June, and remained a member of the Compounding Committee until its re-organisation in April 1650, when he became chairman of the new joint commission that took its place – a body that included on its membership such radicals as Josias Berners* and Arthur Squibb*.49A. and O.; HMC De L’Isle and Dudley vi. 478; CCAM, 91, 750-1, 1342; Aylmer, State’s Servants, 103; Eg. 2978, ff. 274-6, 287-8. Moyer’s sympathy with radical ideas had been apparent since January 1649, when he represented the City Independents in negotiations with the Levellers over the drafting of the second Agreement of the People and was one of the 12-man commission appointed by the Rump to supervise the establishment of the new constitution.50Tolmie, Triumph, 178-9; Leveller Manifestoes, ed. Wolfe (1967), 344. As chairman of the compounding commission he went on to support John Lilburne in his dispute with Sir Arthur Hesilrige* over a Durham colliery, but according to Lilburne pressure from Hesilrige meant that Moyer was eventually outvoted by his colleagues when they came to their final verdict in November 1651.51Just Reproof to Haberdashers’ Hall (1651), 33-34, 40 (E.638.12); Juryman’s Verdict on Case of Lt. Col. Lilburne (1653), 4 (E.702.6); Aylmer, State’s Servants, 149. There is little doubt that Moyer himself benefited from the ‘games’ of the new republic. He remained a prominent member of the East India Company, being re-elected to its committee in August 1649, and the following month he joined Thomson and others in a new project to establish a plantation on the island of Assada as a staging post for the trade to the Indies.52Cal. Ct. Mins. E.I. Co. 1644-9, pp. xxii, 342, 359-60. He invested the profits of his various ventures in episcopal land, spending nearly £7,000 on lands in Essex and Norfolk between August 1649 and November 1650, and in July 1651 he purchased the manor and advowson of Pitsea in Essex for a further £2,000.53Bodl. Rawl. B.239, pp. 35, 47, 52; Hunts. RO, CON.3/5/1/18. Moyer did not take up residence at Pitsea – it was immediately leased for 21 years to a local gentleman – but he did move from London in the autumn of 1651, establishing his family at Clapham in Surrey for the remainder of the decade.54Hunts. RO, CON.3/5/2/1.

The aftermath of the battle of Worcester was a frustrating time for Moyer. In January 1652 the Rump appointed him to the Hale commission on law reform with his friend Josias Berners, but there were only five radicals on the 21 member commission, and progress was slow.55Whitelocke, Mems. iii. 385-6; Underdown, Pride’s Purge, 278-9. Moyer remained in contact with the Levellers, and in April the council of state intercepted a book sent to him by Lilburne from his continental exile, and referred the matter to its committee for examinations.56CSP Dom. 1651-2, p. 204. Despite the council’s suspicions, Moyer continued to be involved in the administration. In June he was named to the new Indemnity Committee and added to the committee to redeem captives in North Africa.57A. and O.; CSP Dom. 1652-3, p. 402. In September he was appointed commissioner for relief upon articles of war.58A. and O. In December Moyer used his position as leader of the combined Committees for Advancing Money and Compounding, to support some of the unsuccessful radicals who had lost their seats in the elections to the common council, by prosecuting the members of the wardmote as delinquents.59A. and O. Moyer was reluctant to increase his involvement in the City, however. Although elected alderman for Cheap Ward on 23 January 1653 he was discharged without fine on 3 February because of ‘many public employments discharged by him for the Commonwealth’.60Beaven, Aldermen of London i. 103, 106n; Farnell, ‘Politics of London’, 226. He was appointed judge for the probate of wills on 8 April.61A. and O.

In May 1653, after the dissolution of the Rump, Moyer was added to the council of state – an appointment that suggests he now had Oliver Cromwell’s* approval.62Woolrych, Commonwealth to Protectorate, 107; CSP Dom. 1652-3, p. 339; HMC Portland iii. 201. He may also have enjoyed the support of the radical major-general, Thomas Harrison I*, who was anxious to reinforce support in the council of state for his model of the new Parliament, and of his more moderate colleague, John Lambert*.63TSP i. 395. Moyer soon became an active councillor, attending 116 meetings in the next six months, and in due course was given lodgings in Whitehall.64CSP Dom. 1652-3, pp. xxxiv-xli, 394. In the council of state, Moyer was involved in the redemption of captives in Africa, business concerning the navy, the admiralty and intelligence gathering, as well as matters relating to the compounding commission and the public revenues.65CSP Dom. 1652-3, pp. 318, 355, 434-5; 1653-4, p. 8, 12, 33, 44-5, 56, 75, 77, 87, 101, 126. His position as indemnity commissioner was extended by Cromwell’s order in early July, and his membership of the council of state was renewed in the same month.66Mercurius Politicus no. 161 (7-14 July 1653), 2574 (E.705.17); CSP Dom. 1653-4, p. 16. Moyer was also appointed to the council’s committee on foreign affairs on 3 June; during July he was involved in negotiations with Sweden; and in August he took part in efforts to furnish the state apartments at Whitehall ready to receive foreign dignitaries and in presented to the Commons a letter from the duke of Holstein.67CSP Dom. 1652-3, p. 376; 1653-4, pp. 17, 104, 113. In July Moyer was added to the committee for plantations and was ordered to receive propositions from merchants on naval convoys, and in August he was appointed to committees on the import of commodities and proposals from the commissioners for customs.68CSP Dom. 1653-4, pp. 36, 48, 102, 113-14. This led, on 1 September, to his appointment to the council’s committee to consider the improvement of customs revenue and to manage the business.69CSP Dom. 1653-4, p. 122. During the autumn, Moyer’s activity in the council seems to have decreased. Later in September and during October he was involved with moves to tighten controls over the postal service, to review the oath of secrecy taken by councillors.70CSP Dom. 1653-4, pp. 152, 188, 201. He was chosen as one of the commissioners to treat with the Dutch on 29 October, but on 1 November, when the new councillors were elected, he was not among their number, possibly because of his increasingly radical stance at Westminster.71CSP Dom. 1653-4, p. 223.

Moyer had been summoned to the Nominated Assembly in July as a representative for London, presumably because of his mercantile connections and political influence as much as his soundness on religious matters. He may have been responsible for the choice of his business associate, John Langley* for another of the London seats.72Woolrych, Commonwealth to Protectorate, 126. One of the busiest members of the House, he was involved in fiscal and naval matters and worked closely with John Ireton* and other leading radicals. He was also an important link between the council of state and the parliamentary radicals and made numerous reports from the council to the House, especially during July and August. On 5 July he was one of the MPs sent to Cromwell to request his membership of the new Parliament.73CJ vii. 281b. When the House held a day of humiliation to ask God’s blessings on their proceedings, Moyer and his fellow radical, Arthur Squibb, were among those called upon to preach.74Clarke Pprs iii. 8-9; Impartial Intelligencer no. 2 (5-12 July 1653), 9 (E.705.8). Moyer was appointed to the committee to recommend suitable councillors on 9 July, and retained his own seat on the new council.75CJ vii. 283a-b; HMC de L’Isle and Dudley vi. 618. Moyer apparently concentrated on his conciliar duties during the opening days of the Assembly, as he is not mentioned in the Journal again until 19 July when he was appointed to the committees on tithes, trade and corporations and ‘the business of the law’.76CJ vii. 286a, 286b, 287a. He was now in a position to help the East India Company, which sought his advice on how to gain reparation for their losses during the Dutch war.77Cal. Ct. Mins. E.I. Co. 1650-4, p. 249. A few days later he opposed the appointment of the admiralty judges recommended by the council of state, and he and Major-General John Disbrowe* were ordered to nominate a suitable person to act as the government’s solicitor in naval matters.78CJ vii. 288b, 289a. On 25 July the council required Moyer to move Parliament to pass the bill authorising the council to sit.79CSP Dom. 1653-4, p. 47. He was added to the committee for inspecting the treasuries when it considered how the excise could be collected without causing hardship on 1 August.80CJ vii. 293b. Over the next fortnight Moyer was an intermediary between council and Parliament on matters of security. On 8 August he reported the council’s recommendation that rewards should be given to all naval commanders involved in the recent victory over the Dutch off the Texel.81CJ vii. 296b; CSP Dom. 1653-4, p. 79. On 10 August he also reported that the council had received intelligence of a royalist plot and suggested that a high court of justice should be established to protect the commonwealth.82CJ vii. 297b; CSP Dom. 1653-4, p. 84. Although many saints feared this was an instrument that might be aimed against them, Moyer does not seem to have shared their qualms.83Farnell, ‘Politics of London’, 264. Parliament left the drafting of the bill to the council and Moyer was one of those appointed to deal with it.84CSP Dom. 1653-4, pp. 83-4. Three days later he reported on the cost of the navy until the end of the year.85CJ vii. 300a; CSP Dom. 1653-4, p. 86.

In mid-August Moyer returned to more humdrum concerns. On 16 August he was named to the parliamentary committee to amend the marriage bill.86CJ vii. 301b. It was also rumoured that Moyer was to be a judge in the new court to replace chancery.87HMC Var. Coll. ii. 268. Although nothing came of this, his legal experience was called upon when on 19 August he was named to the committee for drawing up a new body of the law – a committee packed with radicals keen to implement the reform programme of the defunct Hale commission.88CJ vii. 304b; Woolrych, Commonwealth to Protectorate, 264, 270. Thereafter Moyer was busy with financial matters. On 29 August he was appointed to the committee on a bill the excise; on 13 September he was added to the committee for raising money to consider new, punitive powers for the sale of sequestered lands; on 23 September he was named to a committee for preventing abuses in the customs; and on 7 October he was deputed by the council to require the House to set up a committee to ensure the more efficient collection of the excise and other public revenues.89CJ vii. 309b, 317b, 323b, 332b. Moyer was not invariably an enemy of royalists. On 1 August he and the Lancashire MP, William West, were ordered to draft a bill allowing the 8th earl of Derby to succeed to his estate, and on 27 September he acted as teller in favour of admitting the dowager countess of Derby’s composition – a motion defeated by the Speaker’s casting vote.90CJ vii. 293b, 325a. He was ordered by the council to move the House to examine the state of the public revenues on 7 October and he was named to the committee to prepare a declaration in favour of religious liberty on 10 October.91CSP Dom. 1653-4, p. 191; CJ vii. 332b. On 29 October he acted as teller with Thomas St Nicholas against engrossing the bill to revive the act for redress of delays by writs of error.92CJ vii. 342a. On the same day Moyer brought in a bill to continue the powers of the commissioners for compounding, advancing money and indemnity and his place on the former commission was confirmed.93CJ vii. 342a.

Although Moyer was not appointed to the new council of state, on 1 November he and St Nicholas were chosen to draft a bill authorizing the council to sit for six months.94CJ vii. 344b. On 14 November Moyer reported from the customs committee recommending that all powers of managing and collecting the revenue should be settled on the customs commissioners and the committee.95CJ vii. 350b. Although he held the advowson of Pitsea, on 17 November Moyer joined Robert Bennett as teller in favour of bringing in a bill to remove the power of patrons to present to benefices.96CJ vii. 352a. In the remainder of the session Moyer acted as teller three times, on motions concerning the alum trade, the citizens of Leicester and the sequestration of the master of St John’s College, Cambridge, and on 29 November he and Andrew Broughton were ordered to prepare a bill for excise on tobacco produced in England.97CJ vii. 357a, 358b, 359a-b. There is some confusion over Moyer’s activities at the dissolution of the Assembly. As a radical, he was unlikely to support dissolution and, according to one report, when the moderates had withdrawn, together with the Speaker and the mace, Moyer was voted into the chair by the remaining MPs. From this exalted position he led the Members in prayer until the arrival of the musketeers who finally ejected them.98Farnell, ‘Politics of London’, 267; Abbott, Writings and Speeches iii. 132; Woolrych, Commonwealth to Protectorate, 345-6. But according to Sir James Hope’s* account Moyer, accompanied by John Anlaby*, withdrew shortly after the moderates’ departure ‘pretending we were not a House’ because they were no longer quorate.99Misc. Scot. Hist. Soc. (ser. 2), xix. 166-7.

Moyer was a less militant opponent of the protectorate than some of his colleagues in the Nominated Assembly, and he was initially confirmed as a compounding commissioner by ordinance of 31 December.100Woolrych, Commonwealth to Protectorate, 386-7; A. and O.; CSP Dom. 1653-4, p. 318. In early in 1654 he fell under suspicion, although the exact nature of the charges against him is unclear, and after examination by the council of state on 25 January he was discharged from the post of check inwards of the customs office, which he had held during the commonwealth.101CSP Dom. 1653-4, pp. 363, 366, 368; Aylmer, State’s Servants, 214-15. He did not regain political influence until the fall of the protectorate five years later. Although he was nominated as a candidate for London in the first protectorate Parliament in August 1654, he was not elected.102Harl. 6810, ff. 164-5. In September of that year Moyer, Thomson and Samuel Vassall* were among those advising the East India Company on reforms to its trading practices.103Ct. Mins. E.I. Co. 1650-4, p. 340. In August 1655 Moyer became master of the organisation for ship-owners and mariners, Trinity House.104CSP Dom. 1655, p. 289. His connections with the Independents were still strong, and in February 1656 he presented John Davis to the rectory of Pitsea.105LPL, COMM/2/540. During the elections to the second protectorate Parliament in August 1656, Moyer was reported to be associating with disaffected Londoners anxious to ensure the return of their candidates.106TSP v. 304. He supported the London citizens’ petition which precipitated the dissolution of Parliament in February 1658 and he gradually began to re-emerge as one of the City’s radical leaders. Thereafter he became a leading sponsor of republican petitions. In February 1659, soon after the assembly of Richard Cromwell’s* Parliament, Moyer revived the London citizens’ petition, redrafting it to attract all opponents of the protectorate except royalists, and collected between 20 and 40,000 signatures in the City. He tried to present it to the House on 9 February with Berners* and the Baptist leader, William Kiffen*, but the Commons were busy debating the recognition bill and, despite the efforts of the republicans in Parliament, they were turned away.107TSP vi. 609; Henry Cromwell Corresp., 448; CJ vii. 601b. Returning six days later with ‘a great many citizens’ he subjected the House to ‘a great deal of cant and language’ for almost an hour, but republican sympathisers failed to secure him a vote of thanks.108Henry Cromwell Corresp., 458, 460; Clarke Pprs. iii. 182; CJ vii. 604a; TSP vii. 615; L.F. Brown, Baptists and Fifth Monarchy Men (1912), 173-4.

On 12 May 1659 Moyer presented a similar petition to the restored Rump and on this occasion he was attended by ‘commonwealthsmen, Levellers and Fifth Monarchists’. Speaking at length on behalf of ‘many inhabitants’ in and about the City of London, he claimed

It is the very joy of our hearts that once more we can see this honourable Assembly sitting here whom God hath owned and honoured and made instrumental for so much good to this poor nation and his people in it.

Now that the ‘dark administrations of late years’ had gone he called on the Rump to ‘reassert the main substance of the good old cause’. The restored Parliament appreciated more than its predecessor the importance of conciliating the sectaries and this time Moyer and his associates were thanked for ‘their good and constant affections’.109Public Intelligencer no. 176 (9-16 May 1659), 423-6 (E.762.12); CJ vii. 649a-50a. Brown, Baptists and Fifth Monarchy Men, 182. As a further act of conciliation Moyer was reappointed a probate judge on 19 May and later in the month there were rumours that he was to be appointed a commissioner for the great seal.110A. and O.; CJ vii. 657a; Bodl. Clarendon 61, f. 60. In June Moyer was still active as an indemnity commissioner, and in July a bill was introduced in the Commons to empower Moyer and others to continue the work of the commissioners at Haberdashers’ Hall.111HMC 7th Rep., 95; CJ vii. 739b. In the same month he was included in the militia commissions for London and Surrey, and in August he was appointed to the sequestrations commission set up to confiscate the estates of those involved in the recent rebellion led by Sir George Boothe*.112A. and O.; CSP Dom. 1659-60, p. 66. Moyer was busy in this capacity during the autumn and he was re-appointed to the commission on 7 February 1660, but apparently withdrew from public life after George Monck’s* arrival in London a fortnight later.113CSP Dom. 1659-60, pp. 154, 191; A. and O.

Moyer obtained a pardon from the king on 19 May 1660.114CSP Dom. 1659-60, p. 441. Nevertheless, he was briefly imprisoned in July, possibly as a result of a series of petitions to the House of Lords complaining about his ‘treachery’ as a compounding commissioner and member of the high court of justice.115Diurnal of Thomas Rugg, ed. Sachse (Camden Soc. ser. 3, xci), 101. But despite royalist demands for compensation, he appears to have weathered the early months of the Restoration. He continued his mercantile activities, being re-elected to the committee of the East India Company in July 1660 and named in the new letters patent issued by the king in April 1661.116Cal. Ct. Mins. E.I. Co. 1660-3, pp. 23, 105. Moyer’s luck did not last. In November 1661 he was accused of complicity in the Yarranton Plot, and although the case against him was not proved, he was imprisoned in the Tower where he remained until January 1664 when he was transferred to Tynemouth Castle.117Ludlow, Voyce, 291; HMC 11th Rep. vii. 3; Eg. 3349, f. 68; Pepys’s Diary ii. 225; CSP Dom. 1663-4, p. 461. While in prison ‘for the sake of Christ’, he compiled seven sermons or ‘meditations’ for the comfort of his family and friends. These were prefaced by a Jeremiad, warning that ‘trying times are already upon the people of God, and greater evils I fear are coming, the sins and iniquities not only of profane people but also of God’s own servants have so far provoked the Lord that it is to be feared he will not be entreated any longer to bear with us’, and reminding his readers that ‘all that will live godly in Christ Jesus must suffer persecution in one way or another.118S. Moyer, Prison Meditations (1666), Sig. A2v, A3v. He petitioned twice for release in 1666 denying that he had done anything since the Restoration ‘to disturb the government or justly to merit any punishment’.119CSP Dom. 1666-7, pp. 403-4; SP18/186/81-2. During his imprisonment, Moyer continued to be involved in financial transactions, assigning East Indies stock of £750 to his friend, John Langley*, and the same sum to his brother, Captain Lawrence Moyer.120Cal. Ct. Mins. E.I. Co. 1664-7, pp. 190, 429. It was probably this money that allowed his brother to pay a £500 bribe for his release, and Moyer was eventually freed by the privy council in May 1667 on condition that he gave security for his future loyalty.121Pepys’s Diary viii. 219-20, 325; PC2/59, p. 416; CSP Dom. 1667, p. 139. He quickly resumed his commercial activities, investing in the East India Company from 1668, and re-joining its committee in April 1672.122Cal. Ct. Mins. E.I. Co. 1668-70, pp. 398, 402; 1671-3, pp. 122, 306, 309. He also represented the Mercers’ Company on the Gresham College committee in 1673.123J. Ward, Lives of the Professors of Gresham Coll. (1740), p. xv.

Moyer was already ‘somewhat indisposed in body’, when he drew up his will in April 1682, 18 months before his death. In his will, Moyer left a £3,200 investment in the East India Company, £400 in the Royal African Company, shares in four ships, the manor of Pitsea and other lands in Essex, all to be divided between his two surviving sons and his grandchildren. He left minor bequests to the poor of London and Essex, to the Mercers’ Company and to his ‘dear pastor’ of the congregation in Lime Street, John Collins. Collins and another leading Independent, Dr John Owen*, were instructed to distribute sums to poor ministers.124PROB11/373/443. Moyer died in July 1683. His eldest son Samuel, also an opulent merchant, was created a baronet in 1701.125CB.