In October 1772, the Wooldridges had been married a little over a year. Susanna, Thomas’s second wife, was a daughter of the merchant William Kelly, then living in the newly fashionable London neighborhood of Crutched Friars. Kelly did a lot of business back in New York as a landowner and mercantile partner of Abraham Lott, treasurer of the colony. In his will, Kelly promised his new son-in-law “£3,000 in lands in the Provinces of New York and New Jersey” while setting aside £2,000 for his daughter “free from the debts and control of her husband.”
Thomas Wooldridge was rising through British government ranks by attaching himself to men of influence, particularly the Earl of Dartmouth. At the time of his marriage he held multiple posts in the colonial administration—“Provost Marshal General, and Receiver General of his Majesty’s province of East-Florida, also Fort Adjutant and Barrack-master of Fort St. Marks”—and was involved in multiple disputes with his colleagues. Those appointments gave him the prestige to win a London heiress’s hand and fortune. After that wedding Wooldridge returned to America, currying further favor with Lord Dartmouth by sending back letters on what he saw in various ports.
Wooldridge’s efforts paid off in August 1772 when Dartmouth became secretary of state for North America. The merchant continued to send reports to the earl, adding such fawning phrases as “your precious time may be very ill bestowed in reading my scrawls.” As part of that campaign for favor, Wooldridge sought out the celebrated Phillis Wheatley at the house of “her mistress” in Boston and challenged her to compose a poem about his patron, which he “promised to convey or deliver.” The merchant probably also arranged for the letter and poem Wheatley then wrote to be printed in the New-York Journal, calculating that publication would both promote and please the secretary of state.
“Ode to Neptune” was thus not Phillis Wheatley’s private plea for smooth sailing for her beloved mistress or for an artistic colleague. She wrote it while contributing to Thomas Wooldridge’s effort to impress the Earl of Dartmouth, who she knew had become one of the highest-ranking officials in the British Empire. Providing this visitor with an extra poem for his wife was a way to win Wooldridge’s favor, just as he was angling for Dartmouth’s favor. “Ode to Neptune” also demonstrated Wheatley’s range, as it was a Horatian ode with four metrical feet in most lines rather than her usual rhymed pentameter.