ABSTRACT
This chapter explores the private, largely unofficial banking system of the late seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries, mostly but not exclusively led by merchants, through the prism of pension payments to French military officers on the Irish establishment. These payments offer a window into an elaborate Huguenot financial network, whose international reach ensured that monies were paid to active and disbanded French officers throughout the reigns of William III, Queen Anne and George I. These complex early banking ventures are examined through a case study of Cornet Philippe La Basoge, an officer in the earl of Galway's Huguenot regiment of cavalry, who settled in Holland. A combination of hitherto underutilised sources are examined in order to follow Cornet La Basoge from his first appearance on a list of French pensioners paid by the British crown in 1692 to the last occurrence of his name on the civil list of the Irish establishment under George I in 1717.
