The Amity Papers, 1690

The Amity Papers, 1690 reproduces 74 documents seized from the Irish vessel Amity trading with France at the height of the Williamite War (1689-1691). Mostly letters written by merchants (with a smaller number penned by Jacobite soldiers), the ship's papers illustrate particularly the plight of civilians during the 1690 siege of Limerick, which ended just weeks before the Amity sailed. The writers and their correspondents–mostly living in France–were part of two mercantile networks, one Catholic and the other Quaker. The collaboration between the two enabled Franco-Irish trade to continue despite wartime challenges. The letters also illuminate the economic consequences of wartime conditions in Ireland: requisitioning, the forced circulation of rapidly depreciating brass money, and the risks of buying or selling goods in this context.