The alternative to buying provisions by public tender and contract was to employ an agent to buy on commission. Theoretically this was simple, and because agents were paid on a ‘costs plus commission’ basis it should also have helped to keep prices down. Devolving buying to an agent with detailed knowledge of the markets should also have cut information costs by relieving the Board of the need to acquire such knowledge themselves. The reality was rather more problematic, however. Commission buying was, and is, vulnerable to the principal-agent problem, whereby an agent has opportunity and incentive to defraud his principal, who has limited means of checking up on his activities. The Board's first experiment with commission buying during the War of American Independence foundered on that particular rock. Nevertheless, the Board did learn from the debacle and employed commission agents throughout the wars of 1793 to 1815, without a repeat of the scandal in the early 1780s that had called the reputation of the entire Board into question.

The uses of commission agents

Commission Agents were used to buy goods that were required in very large quantities, and distributed through concentrated markets in which large-scale buying offered the potential for economies of scale. This limited them largely to the London markets and the commodities that passed through them. Commission agencies also, however, formed a part of the Victualling Board's response to difficulties in finding suitable contractors, especially in times when food prices were very high. This was the case in the late 1790s, and for a while the activities of commission agents were expanded into Ireland.

The London corn market was by far the largest in the country, and its major players were wealthy and influential men. Among this group were the Dunkin family, various members of which supplied pease and grain to the navy, both on commission and by contract, between 1793 and 1815. Like many major grain merchants, they were based south of the Thames in Borough, near Shad Thames. Christopher Dunkin, a major supplier of grain and pease on supply contracts and at times on a commission basis, was sufficiently well connected to write to the Prime Minister in November 1804, stating that ‘having spent the whole of my life on the Corn Exchange,’ he felt qualified to offer the government advice on how to handle harvest failures and grain shortages.