John Holt

(1718-1783)

John Holt, the oldest son of Joseph Holt and Margaret (née Skelton) was baptized in Whitby Parish Church on 20 April 1718. His siblings were: Ann, Edward, Elizabeth, Thomas and Jane.

We know nothing of John's early upbringing, but he certainly would not have been sent to a grammar school. The grammar schools were usually bound by statute to an out of date classical curriculum that found few takers among the new merchant and business classes.

John was perhaps taught many of the skills of business and navigation by his father Joseph, and he was possibly apprenticed as an indentured servant (perhaps from the age of twelve) either to his father, or to one of his father's master mariner colleagues. He may have been apprenticed to a carpenter. In the winter, or in the evenings when in port, he may have attended classes at a school which offered a "modern" business curriculum including useful subjects such as arithmetic, accounts, French, navigation, shorthand and commercial methods.  Schools of this kind were both cheap and fairly common, and offered boys of the middling order a more down-to-earth and applicable education than in any previous century.

At home, he possibly also was brought up on fairly strict and formal lines, following the precepts set out in such books as The School of Manners (1701) which tells the young to Reverence thy Parents and to Submit to thy Superiors. He may have spent some of his education copying stern but improving sentiments into his handwriting book, as Elizabeth Dent, who was a daughter of a Yorkshire shopkeeper and a rough contemporary of John Holt's, recalled writing out such phrases as Labour improves wealth and Youth is the best time for learning.

 Although life would have been hard for the young John, and few allowances would have been made for his youth, I suspect it wasn't all work, and that he also engaged in the usual boyish games and pastimes. Football was a popular street game at the time, which is described thus by M. Misson[1]: it is a Leather Ball about as big as one's Head, fill'd with Wind: This is kick'd about from one to t'other in the Streets, by him that can get at it, and this is all the Art of it. The dangers of the game are explained by Cesar de Saussure (1727): In cold weather you sometimes see a score of rascals in the streets kicking a ball, and they will break panes of glass and smash the windows of coaches, and also knock you down without the slightest compunction; on the contrary they will roar with laughter. Perhaps it is more likely that Joseph would not have approved of John playing in the streets with the rough sons of common sailors.

 John was certainly trained for the sea, and would have served as servant, sailor and mate, before becoming a master. Because his father was a master and owner, John’s progress would have been swift through these ranks; but until he became a mate he would, I suspect, have come in for a fair amount of teasing and horseplay from the sailors he had to work with, and who did not have such advantages.

 We know that on 22 February 1737/8[2], when he would be be only 19, John was master of The Olive Branch, loading 106 chaldrons of coal at Newcastle, presumably bound for London.

 It is possible that when he was 21, or on his marriage, his father gave him a ship of his own. Possibly his mother gave it him. Certainly he was master and owner of the Prince of Wales at least by the time he was 30[3] in 1748.

John married Martha Storm at Fylingdales (Robin Hoods Bay) on 28 April 1740, when he was 22, and she was about 27. Martha was the daughter of Matthew Storm, master-mariner.

 Fylingdales Church

John was perhaps a bit on the young side to get married, as the pattern was usually for men to marry in their mid to late twenties, with members of the professions often waiting until their thirties[4]; however people were marrying sooner than had been the case in the 17^th Century[5].

The early date of his marriage suggests that he had already attained a degree of financial security. However the difference in their ages was not so unusual: many men married women older than themselves (often as a hedge against having too many children). However John and Martha had nine children.

Matthew Boulton advised: Don't marry for money, but marry where money is. This advice was possibly followed by John; Matthew Storm was a man of some wealth, and John does refer in his will to the fact that Martha inherited Real estate on her father's death in (in 1758).

Martha is mentioned more fully elsewhere

Contrary to popular mythology about cosy extended families, it was exceptional for a married couple to live under the same roof as their parents. The normal pattern was for a man and wife to set up house together when they were married, which meant that a man did not marry until he could afford to support a wife and set up a home. Sons had often left home much earlier, when they entered business on their own account.

In the 1742 Poor Rate Assessment[6] John Holt, Master, is listed as living in Scate Lane, and it was presumably at Scate Lane that their elder children were born and brought up.

The children of John and Martha were:

Joseph. He was baptized at Flowergate Presbyterian Chapel at Whitby 8 March 1740; he died young, being buried at Whitby on 11 July 1742.

John.  He was born 28 August, 1742, and baptized at Flowergate Presbyterian Chapel on 27 September. 

Martha. She was born 27 October 1745, and baptized at Flowergate Chapel on 27 November. She married Robert Boulby, master mariner, by license, at Whitby Parish Church on 22 December 1765, with the consent of her father John Holt (as she was only 20). The witnesses were John Holt, presumably her father, and Elizabeth Holt, presumably her sister Elizabeth (who would have been 16). They had a son Michael, who died aged 5 in 1771), a daughter Jane, a son John (born 3 May 1771) and a daughter Martha who was buried on 22 September 1777 aged two days old – her mother was buried 4 days afterwards, so presumably she died of perinatal complications. She was 33.

Jane. She was born 21 September 1747 and baptized at Flowergate Chapel 19 October 1747; she died when she was 13, and was buried on 4 May 1761.

Elizabeth. She was baptized at Flowergate Chapel on 18 May 1749. She married Joseph Atty, master mariner, on 3 January 1773.

Thomas. He was born 11 July 1751, and baptized at Flowergate Chapel on the 28th.

William. He was born 15 November 1752, and baptized at Flowergate Chapel on 2 January 1753.

The Presbyterian Chapel, Flowergate

 
Flowergate Chapel was the one that both John's father Joseph and Martha's father Matthew Storm (d 1757) had been associated with. The children may have been christened there out of respect for their parents, rather than out of conviction. Conversely both John and Martha may have been stalwart Presbyterians, but have regarded church-going as part of the social duty of their new-found status.

 Whatever the truth of the matter, if John continued in his father's Presbyterianism, he practised it simultaneously with having a pew in the Parish Church, which is in the gallery on the east side of the south transept. It is marked I Holt 1750.

 There was a common saying that the Dissenter’s second horse carries him to church, meaning that when dissenters became rich it served them better to become Anglicans.

  John Holt’s Pew, St Mary’s Parish Church, Whitby

Purchasing a pew was another sign of having arrived socially. Possibly John's family was guilty of the accusations levelled in The Connoisseur (1756): The newest fashions are brought down weekly by the stage-coach and all the wives and daughters of the most topping tradesmen vie with each other every Sunday in the elegance of their apparel.

 John's father Joseph died in 1744, and his mother Margaret in 1751. On Margaret’s death John came into considerable property that had (presumably) been accumulated by his father. This included the house in Baxtergate where Margaret had been living and other houses adjoining it on the south. John also shared with his brother Thomas as tenants in comon and not as joint tenants a fourth share in three ship docks, two shipyards and a blacksmith's shop. This fourth share presumably refers to the Dock Company which George Young[7] mentions as being comprised of John Holt, John Reynolds (the father of William Reynolds who married Joseph's granddaughter Elizabeth Skinner), John Watson and William Barker. The Dock Company, in about 1734, built the dry docks on the East side of the Esk, near Spittle Bridge. These docks are referred to in a sad entry in the Parish register for 1739 which records the burial of the body of a man unknown, thrown up by the tide near the dry dock. It seems that Young has made a mistake and that it was Joseph not John who was one of the founding fathers of the Dock Company, and that John (and Thomas) jointly inherited his share; after all John was only 16 in 1734.

John and Martha presumably moved into the house in Baxtergate in 1751, if they had not done so before.

It is possible that the existing building (now much altered as The George Hotel/Rosie O’Grady’s), was (re)built at about this time, certainly the style of the Georgian frontage on Baxtergate looks as if must be of about this period. 

However, the house is essentially two houses joined together with differing levels for their respective floors. This would suggest that the house was built in two stages, presumably with the frontage onto Baxtergate being the first stage. His mother’s will (1749) mentions that the Baxtergate messuage has houses adjoining it on the south side. An indenture dated 1^st January 1763[8] between Nathaniel Cholmley Esq and John Holt, Master Mariner, is a lease of land in Baxtergate by the former to the latter for 900 years at a yearly rent of 8 shillings. The land is described as a piece of Waste Ground Situate on the South side of Baxtergate in Whitby, and measuring 35 feet in breadth by about 15 in width. It is bounded on the north by the lands of John Holt, on the south by Bagdale Beck, on the east by the lands of Richard Jackson, and on the west by the lands of Christopher Richardson.

 It seems probable that this is land at the back of the Baxtergate House next to the two houses mentioned in the will. It looks as though John pulled down the two houses, and used the leased waste land to build the southern part of the house, and to add the garden to the east of the house which is shown on one map.

All this leaves unanswered the date of the original part of the house. It is even possible it was built by Joseph Holt in his later years, but I suspect that the most likely is that John Holt (re)built it in the 1750s, adding the other half a decade later as his family, wealth and social position increased.

Andrew White[9] does not give a date for the house; but describes it as a once-fine building, remarking that The Georgian part is now sadly mutilated.

The Holt House, Baxtergate (Now The George Hotel)

It was unusual for in-laws or members of the wider family to be living in, except temporarily. By contrast it was normal for domestic servants, apprentices and paying lodgers to live with the family. John and Martha will have had some servants; even quite poor tradesmen and smallholders would employ young household servants for they were plentiful and cheap, and working households ate up labour.

It is quite possible that there was also one or more indentured servants (apprentices) living in. The boys who, between 1748-1752[10], sailed as servants with John on the Prince of Wales were Jonathan Appleton, William Dickinson, Nicholas Hodgson, John Mordon, Cuthbert Ridley, Joseph Robinson, Richard Rowntree  and George Willas. It is possible that some or all of these lived in John Holt’s house when not at sea, and that in the winter months he taught them the theory of navigation and seamanship.

In addition to being a master mariner, John Holt was also a ship-owner. We know that he was both owner and master of  Prince of Wales from 1748 until 1754 (or possibly 1755) after which he gave up going to sea. He remained the (apparently sole) owner of the vessel until its loss in 1779.

 Weatherill[11] gives scant details of  Prince of Wales. Lloyds Register, with a customary inaccuracy in these early years, gives its tonnage as 600, and says it was built in Whitby in 1753. The tonnage is surprisingly large, and the date is clearly too late, as  Prince of Wales is mentioned in both the records of the Receivers Of Sixpences[12] for 1750 (which records that the ship carried 16 men[13] and made a voyage from London to Petersburg) and the Whitby ship muster rolls from 1748.  Prince of Wales is mentioned a note book of 1773[14] as being of 420 tons, 560 tons burthen[15], and being able to carry 25 keels of coal. A keel was a boat used for loading colliers, and the word was also used as a measure for coal - usually reckoned as being 21 tons and 4 hundredweights (though measures of coal were notoriously variable, Newcastle having a system of coal measures that seems to have been entirely its own).

John Holt was also a part-owner of the vessel John by 1747[16].  John survived long enough to be officially registered. On 20 March 1787 it was registered as being a 157-ton brigantine[17], built at Whitby in 1745. It was 84’ 3” long, 21’ 7” wide and a height between decks of 3’ 7”. She had two masts, and two decks[18].

A brigantine

 
As it is apparently named after himself, and in joint ownership, it is possible this was a financial enterprise of his own. He probably commissioned the building of the vessel, and collected together a number of other part-owners (ie acted as a ship’s husband). In 1748 A Chapman is given as the owner[19], in 1751 Moorsom and Holt are named as the owners, this formula being fairly constant until 1764. After that it is mainly John Holt or John Holt & Co. Abil [ie Abel] Chapman is mentioned as the owner in 1772. In 1787 the nine owners included the executors not only of John Holt, but also of Matthew Storm (his father-in-law), John Reynolds and William Barker (these last two were partners in the Dock Company).  John appears in the Lloyds Register as 220 tons, a brig, and being built in 1750 (it is likely that all these are incorrect). The vessel is mentioned in the above-mentioned notebook of 1773 as being of 120 tons, 160 tons burthen, and being able to carry 9 keels of coal. It seems likely that John was mainly involved in the coal trade between Shields and London. John Holt was never captain of John, which was apparently purely a financial investment.

Ship-owning was not considered to be a full-time occupation until late in the century (none are mentioned in the 18th century directories of Bristol, Liverpool or Newcastle, for example). For John it would have been one form of investment among many: we know from his will, for example, that he lent Money out at Interest (a forerunner of the family's banking interests). Ship-owning would have been a supporting activity to his businesses as (definitely) master-mariner, (likely) ship's husband, (probably) ship-repairer, (possibly) merchant, and (perhaps) ship-builder.

 There was an end to conflict for a few years in 1748 with the signing of the Treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle. The previous decade had seen the War of Jenkins’ Ear in 1739, followed by the War of the Austrian Succession (1740-1748). 1745 had seen the Second Jacobite Rebellion, when the Young Pretender (Bonnie Prince Charlie) invaded England, reaching as far as Derby before he had to turn back. His decisive defeat at Culloden in 1746 was the end of the Stuart cause in Britain.

In time of war the Navy was in need of merchant ships as transports, and also in desperate need of men. However, the provision of coal for the capital was so important that it carried on in wartime as in peace; the only difference was that the coal ships would often travel in convoy (as Celia Fiennes had seen them off Scarborough at the end of the previous century). Usually sailors on colliers were given protection from impressments into the Navy, but we learn that Stephen Raven, who had joined the crew of  John at Shields on 29 September 1747, was seized from the ship by the press gang on the 17 February in the following year.

 The years of peace seem to have been a time of increasing prosperity for Britain, Whitby and John Holt. The Holts prospered, as did the town. Young[20] mentions the various improvements at Whitby: the west pier was lengthened 100 yards in 1734; in 1749 230 yards of the old part of the same pier was rebuilt, there were repairs to the east pier, and much was done to deepen the channel for shipping. By 1750 the population of the town had risen to some 5000.

It was in September 1752 that the calendar changed: the years now started in January, and September lost 11 days.

However the peace was somewhat nominal. The real cause of tension was trade rivalry between France and Britain, both of whom were increasingly dependent upon the economic support of world-wide trade. The peace of 1748 had not solved this, and there were skirmishes at sea and incidents in North America and India.  When the news reached Britain that the French were building a chain of forts in North America in order to restrict British westward colonial expansion, General Braddock was sent to make a pre-emptive strike. Indian scouts reported his movements to the French who ambushed him in July 1755, defeating him, and leaving over 500 British dead, including Braddock himself. It was reported that those who were captured by the Indians were tortured to death, including eight women, one of whom was Braddock’s mistress who was allegedly stripped, used as a target for arrows and finally killed and eaten. This was the effective start of what was to be known as the Seven Years War, though hostilities were not officially declared until the following year.

This conflict has been called the first world war, with fighting that involved the British, French, Prussians, Austrians, Russians, Swedes and the Spanish; and which was fought in America, Canada, Central Europe, Cuba, the Philippines and India. The dominant politician of the War was William Pitt (the Elder) who, while King George was mainly interested in the fate of Hanover, had a vision of Britain controlling a world-wide trading empire.

 In 1757 the British launched a major three-pronged attack against the French in North America; one force under Admiral Boscawen was to launch an amphibious landing against Louisbourg on Cape Breton Island, which guarded the entrance to the St Lawrence, and then move on to capture Quebec. Louisbourg had been captured before by the British in 1745, but had been returned as part of the Peace Treaty of 1748. Among the fleet that Admiral Boscawen assembled was a number of transports, including  Prince of Wales. John Holt was still the owner, but the master was George Potts – John Holt had last been master of the ship in 1754[21].

 The fleet sailed on 19 February; but the voyage across the Atlantic was extraordinary, Wolfe recording: The continual opposition of contrary winds, calms or currents, baffled all our skill and wore out all our patience.[22] A journey that should have lasted one month took nearly three. On 9 May Boscawen anchored off Halifax. On 2 June, with a fleet of 157 ships and 12,000 troops, he arrived off Cape Breton; but the amphibious attack had to wait until 7 June until the stormy weather had (somewhat) subsided.

 We know Prince of Wales was in New York on 5 June[23], so she was possibly a supply ship rather than a troopship and had been sent for more provisions, though maybe she was fetching reinforcements. On 26 July Louisbourg capitulated. The Prince of Wales was in Louisbourg on 9 September, when two of the crew William Strother and John Ramsey were prest by Admiral Boscawen; by the 16 November she was back in Deptford[24]. Possibly she had been helping to ship back the 5,600 French soldiers and sailors who were captured at Louisbourg and who were taken back to England as prisoners of war.

The following year Prince of Wales, master George Potts, sailed from Portsmouth at the beginning of March to take part in the attack on Quebec. On 5 June she was at New York, where four sailors jumped ship: William Burn, John Stork, Hans Olsen (from Norway) and James Pearson[25]. 

Prince of Wales presumably then sailed north to join the invasion fleet of 22 sail of the line; a dozen frigates, sloops, bomb-ketches and fireships; and an army of 9,200 men under Major-General James Wolfe, embarked in 119 transports. These all sailed up the St Lawrence River to Quebec arriving on 27 June.  We know that one of the seamen of  Prince of Wales, William Hick, died at Quebec on 10 July[26]; possibly the Prince of Wales was involved in the landing of Townshend’s brigade on the north shore of the river downstream of the Montmorency river on the previous day, and William had received a wound then of which he died the next day – but this is supposition, it could just as well have been accident or disease.

The siege dragged on until, in an inspired strategy, Wolfe landed nearly 5000 troops under cover of darkness in the early hours of 13 September who climbed up the Heights of Abraham. From there they marched to the city, the French advancing to attack them. Wolfe, leading his men in a steady disciplined line insisted they held their fire until within 40 yards of the enemy, and then they fired a devastating volley. A second destroyed the French lines. Four days later the city surrendered officially.

In addition to Quebec, the British were also victorious in the same year at Minden, Cape St Vincent, Quiberon Bay, Ticonderoga, Guadeloupe and in the Indian Ocean. 1759 was called the year of victories, Horace Walpole writing that our bells are worn threadbare with ringing for victories. Prince of Wales arrived back in England in December 1759, no doubt amid much patriotic jubilation. Unfortunately one of the crew, William Cooper, who had survived much danger in Canada, was drowned at Deptford on 22 December.[27]

 There is a mention of John Holt at this time in the diary of Ralph Jackson for Saturday 25^th August, relating to the funeral of Mr John Jefferson of Staithes: The Corps was put out of the window and came to Hinderwell Church – bearers being Mr Pease, Mr Sanderson, Mr Jno Holt, Mr Wm. Skinner (both of Whitby), Mr Wardell, Mr Francis Fox, Mr Jno Robinson & myself.[28]

Whitby ships were very suitable as transports. They were big and square, not unlike shoeboxes in shape, with flattish bottoms, which meant they could sail in comparatively shallow water, and be landed on shore with few difficulties. They were very sturdy.  It was these qualities that made James Cook (who had done fine work charting the St Lawrence in 1759) glad to have Whitby ships for his voyages. Endeavour, which Cook used on his first voyage in 1768, was originally the Earl of Pembroke, a 370-ton ship built at Whitby by Thomas Fishburn and owned by Thomas Milner. Thomas Milner’s daughter, Mary, married John Holt’s eldest son John on 4 Dec 1765.

The “Endeavour” Replica on the Thames at London

 
The actual Prince of Wales, Prince Frederick Lewis, after whom John Holt had named his ship, had died in 1751. Prince Frederick had in effect led the opposition to Robert Walpole’s administration that his father supported, so naming a ship after the Prince was probably a political statement. When George II died in 1760, it was his grandson, as George III, who succeeded him.

The Seven Years War ended with the Treaty of Paris in 1763, in the same year that Wilkes was arrested for his publication of No 45 of the North Briton, which contained an attack on the king. The war had stimulated inflation, but the peace was followed by a short but painful period of price deflation and economic depression. The peace had thrown numerous soldiers and sailors back into the labour market. The price of wheat rose, but wages did not keep pace. The war had also been very expensive, the national debt reaching the previously unimaginable sum of £100 million.

The Government thought it reasonable that, because the war, in part, was to defend the British colonials of America from French aggression and restriction, they should contribute to the cost of it.  Pitt had resigned over his war policy in 1761, and there followed a number of short-lived but not very inspired administrations that introduced a number of ill-conceived tax measures aimed at raising more revenue from the American colonies, the first being the Stamp Act of 1765. The colonists believed that there should be No taxation without representation, so there was massive tax avoidance – throwing a heavier burden on the British people (many of whom were not represented in any real way).

 In the 1760s John Holt’s eldest children were growing up and leaving home. Margaret married Nathaniel Campion in (?) 1763, and in 1765 John’s eldest son John married Mary Milner, followed 18 days later by the marriage of Martha to Robert Boulby. In 1764 John’s first grandson, Jane Campion was born, and two years later Martha (named for her grandmother) was born. John and Martha lived to see many grandchildren in an age when few people lived to see any; Martha lived to see great-grandchildren.

In 1766 Whitby bridge was dismantled, and it was completely rebuilt the following year at a cost of about £3000

In peacetime  Prince of Wales seems to have returned mainly to the coal trade between Shields and London. In 1764 (if not before) George Bell became her master. In 1769-70 Thomas Holt, presumably John’s son, was second mate, and in 1771 he was first mate. The second mate in 1771 was Thomas Spence, who unfortunately broke his leg at Riga on 27 August[29], so clearly the Prince of Wales was in the Baltic trade that year. In the same year she underwent (presumably in the spring) major repairs: her hull was doubled, and she was lengthened.

John continued to grow wealthy. He owned Ships Shipping and Parts and Shares of Ships[30]. It is difficult to know exactly what ships these were as information about owners is scant before 1786. He was a part owner of the Dock Company, and Weatherill lists some of the ships owned by that company:  Albion (lost at sea in 1768),  Charlotte,  Swallow (in the possession of the Company between 1751 and 1756), the sloop Fly (in 1756),  Garland,  Good Agreement (which the Company apparently bought from Harland Wild after 1757), and  Union (between 1758 and 1761). With other ships it is difficult to know which John Holt owned what (in that the John Holt who is described here did not die until his son of the same name was 41), but we can safely say[31] that he was a part-owner in Achilles (180-ton ship built in 1764), Elizabeth (300-ton barque, built 1769. This vessel was also part-owned by John’s brother Thomas, and may have been named for his wife. Elizabeth was also a transport in the American War), Martha (315-ton barque, built 1774 possibly for his son William) and Peggy (393-ton barque, built 1782).

John Holt, c1775. Etching by Harvey Taylor 
based on a miniature in the Whitby Lit & Phil

John Holt acquired property, particularly three farms at North Ottrington which he bought. Together they were valued at £9,700[32], a considerable sum in those days. John later acquired the property called Harrigate [ie Harrogate] Farm in the parish of Northallerton. This farm was valued (in his son's will) at £2,300; and was in the occupation of Nathaniel Russell. [This Nathaniel Russell is the ancestor of Thomas Russell who married the sister of Albert Baines, a descendant of John Holt].

John also leant Money out at Interest taking Securities for Money[33]. The implication is that he acted in an informal way as a banker, a practice that was not uncommon. This, no doubt, was a precursor to the establishment of the official banking house of Holt and Richardson in later years.

But not all John's new wealth was invested. He seems to have developed quite a taste for luxury, as no doubt he thought befitted his new status. In his house in Baxtergate, he lived in a grander style than his parents had done. There is mention in his will of a number of items that are not in the wills of either of his parents, namely: household furniture and implements of household plate linnen china beds and bedding and a silver tankard.  Possibly among the articles of china were some examples of the new Wedgewood ware. As George Robertson[34] recalls: Perhaps, among all the improvements made in the household furniture and utensilry, the greatest about this time was the introduction of a new species of dishes from England, instead of the old, clumsy, Dutch delft-ware, and the more ancient pewter plates. This was the elegant cream-coloured stoneware, invented in 1763, by Josiah Wedgewood, in Staffordshire, from whence it took its name. In the course of a very few years it spread over the whole country.

The literature of the time is full of references to, and criticisms of, the social aspirations of the newly prosperous. The World of 1755 remarks: Thanks to the foolish vanity that prompts us to imitate our superiors...every tradesman is a merchant, every merchant is a gentleman, and every gentleman is one of the nobles. We are a nation of gentry. John Holt certainly lived like a gentleman.

The peace this time lasted about a dozen years before the great powers went to war again in a still larger world conflict that started at Lexington. Discontent rumbled into war. Many in both America and Britain did not want this war, but intransigence on both sides made it inevitable. The war itself helped to make the colonists more determined to seek total independence. Although Washington nearly lost the war, and the British both before and after Saratoga won nearly all the battles, the war was in practice unwinnable for Britain. In the short term the intervention of France decided it (and the expense of this intervention produced the financial instability in France that led to their own revolution); and in the longer term it is simply impossible to repress a country as vast and as distant as America, if sufficient of its inhabitants want independence.

In the medium term was the extreme difficulty of fighting a war 3,000 miles from home with the 18^th Century framework of inefficient bureaucracy, corruption, patronage and limited centralized powers - particularly as the British never controlled sufficient land in America during the war to provide the food they needed for the troops. The organization of the transport shipping was an administrative nightmare.  
The decision was made to send a massive reinforcement to the armies in North America, to arrive in the Spring of 1776. The Navy Board, which was in charge of transports, was given the task of providing the shipping required to transport at least 27,000 infantry, a regiment of cavalry, and approximately 950 horses to North America. The Board took every advisable method to invite [ships] to come to Deptford from the Ports of Bristol, Liverpool, Whitehaven, Hull, Whitby, and other places.[35] This involved raising the peacetime freight rate of 9s (shillings) a ton per month to 11s, and sending agents to the Out-Ports. Even so this was not sufficient[36], and in June 1776 the rate had to be raised to 12s 6d. By July 1776 the Navy Board had amassed 416 ships amounting to 128,427 tons in the transport service. One official remarking that The country [is] drained of ships for transport purposes.[37]

It is not known exactly how many Whitby ships were part of this muster. Certainly from various sources we can list over 80 Whitby ships that were transports at some stage of the war; however this includes a number of Whitby-built vessels, such as Golden Grove and Fishburn (both part of the First Fleet that would sail to Australia in 1788), that were owned elsewhere.  

The 1776 (ie 1775-76) Lloyds Register shows  Prince of Wales as trading between Hull and St Petersburg. The 1775 & 1777 Registers no longer exist. In the 1778 Register  Prince of Wales is listed as a transport ship, as she is for the following two years. By contrast John was a transport ship neither in the Seven Years’ War or in the American Revolution, perhaps because she was too small. She seems to have continued in both wars, as in peacetime, to be continuing mainly in the coal trade between Shields and London. On April 1776 she arrived in Whitby with, among other things, 1 Main Mast, 1 fore Mast bowsprit [and] 2 topgallant masts (perhaps salvage from a shipwreck). Between 1775 and 1780 she made several voyages to Holland taking coal, and returning with a variety of goods including Wainscott Boardes, Rough Flax, Hollands Duck, bullrushes, and a great deal of Brandy. 

At the time of the John’s voyage from Dutch port of Delfshaven on April 25 1780, things may have been getting a little tense between the two countries. In August The Netherlands joined the Armed Neutrality (with Russia, Sweden, Denmark, Prussia, Austria, Portugal and the Kingdom of the two Sicilies) to resist the seizure by British ships of enemy goods in neutral ships. On 20 December of that year Britain declared war on Holland.

In 1777 and 1778 ships of the transport service were employed primarily in amphibious operations in America, and were not deeply involved in the support of British troops overseas. This presumably included  Prince of Wales, but the muster rolls give no clue as to her whereabouts.[38] After 1778 the operating costs of ships in the transport service rose precipitously, as the cost of supplies and seamen’s wartime wages rose. The French and Spanish entry into the war meant that ships and supplies had to be transported not just to America but to other widely scattered British possessions; and the French and Spanish challenge to British sea power was met by a total mobilization of the Royal Navy which resulted in a three-cornered contest for the limited supply of seamen and naval stores among ships engaged in trade, the transport service, and the Royal Navy. As profits decreased for ships in the transport service, owners of ships under charter to the Navy Board became less co-operative, and Board found it impossible to increase the number of transport ships as the country’s shipping resources were stretched to breaking point.

Some time during 1779  Prince of Wales was lost. We do not have a date, so we cannot even suggest what action she was engaged upon at the time. John Holt must have grieved her passing as she had given good service for well over 30 years – a good age for a ship at that time.

The War ended in September 1783 with the Treaty of Versailles. From the terms of the Treaty France got very little; Britain achieved what Wells called a decent withdrawal, adding In 1781 she could have lost her empire; in 1783 she was allowed to keep her supremacy in all areas, save the United States[40].

John Holt also owned a 30th part of the New Chapel with a seat stall or pew therein.

This New Chapel was a parochial chapel built, by subscription, near the middle of Baxtergate, and opened for worship in October 1778. Young describes it as a handsome brick building, having a short spire over the front, containing a bell. The inside is well finished, with an elegant pulpit at the north end. Presumably the Holt family from this time on worshipped here rather than at the Parish Church, except perhaps at the major festivals; it was more convenient, and avoided the climb up all those stairs. Possibly they (or some of them) also went to the Presbyterian Chapel in Flowergate.

In the Poor Rate Assessment for 1778, John Holt Senior is listed as living in Flowergate, as is his son William. At this time his two eldest sons John and Thomas were married and had left home, and his daughters Margaret, Elizabeth, and Martha were all married. Mary was to be married in the February of the following year. It seems probable that John and Martha had moved out of the Baxtergate house to make way for their son John and his wife Mary, who by 1778 had six children of their own.

John made his will in 1782, in which he is described as John Holt the Elder of Whitby Esquire. He leaves his wife All that my Messuage in Whitby aforesaid with it’s appurtenances wherein I now dwell (presumably the house in Flowergate; though it is possible the Baxtergate house is meant) together with the use of all my household furniture and implements of household plate linnen china beds and bedding. She also receives a lump sum of £100 and an annuity of £200 pa (contributed to equally by his six surviving children).

The house goes to his son John after his wife's death, as does his silver tankard, all the chairs tables and other furniture (china excepted) which shall belong to my dining room, and also the chairs bedstead and hangings which shall belong to my best lodging room over the dining room at the time of my decease. The rest of the silver plate is to be divided equally between Thomas and William. Apart from these bequests, Martha is able to dispose of all the rest of my household furniture and implements of household china linen beds and bedding as she thinks proper. John makes it clear that the provision hereby made for my said wife shall be accepted and taken by her in full satisfaction of all such dower or thirds as she might claim or be intitled to forth or out of my real estates. 

John also gets All that my farm and all those lands and hereditaments situate at North Ottrington in the County of York which I purchased of Marmaduke Calvert and which premises I value at two thousand seven hundred pounds. Thomas gets the second farm at North Ottrington which his father purchased from Reed Wade, and which I value at two thousand three hundred pounds. William gets the third farm at North Ottrington which I purchased of John Wade, who bought the same of the Duke of Northumberland (and which was valued at £4,700). In return John has to contribute £900, Thomas £1,100 and William £3,500 back into the estate. To his three surviving daughters, Margaret Campion, Elizabeth Atty and Mary Richardson he gives £1,200 each; and to his grandchildren Jane and John Boulby  £700 each.

In addition John bequeaths to his six surviving children All the rest residue and remainder of my messuages Lands tenements, Hereditaments and Real Estate whatsoever and wheresoever. And also all my Ships Shipping and Parts and Shares of Ships, Money out at Interest and Securities for Money; And also the Residue and Remainder of my Personal Estate and Effects whatsoever, wheresoever, and of what Nature of kind soever; including therein the several sums of Nine hundred pounds, Eleven hundred pounds and three thousand five hundred pounds, hereinbefore directed to be paid into my personal Estate by my said three sons and charged upon the said several farms and hereditaments at North Ottrington to be divided among them share and share alike. John is clearly concerned to be fair by his children, he even states that if my wife's share of her late Father's Real estate shall descend or come to my Eldest Son John, then John must pay an equivalent sum to be divided among his five siblings; and we know from his son's will that the latter did indeed inherit various properties that had originally belonged to Matthew Storm. The will is signed on 30 March 1782 with a clear literate signature. It was witnessed by Ann Wardale, Fra: Wardale and John Fenster Junr.