Robert King Carter's Correspondence and Diary

   A Collection Transcribed
        and Digitized
   by Edmund Berkeley, Jr.

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Electronic Text Center , University of Virginia Library

Summary

ADS
October 24, 1707
Address from Robert Carter and the other members of the Council of Virginia to Queen Anne, 1707 October 24

     Robert Carter and the other members of the Council of Virginia address Queen Anne, October 24, 1707, to congratulate her on the successful passage of the Act of Union that combined England and Scotland into one country.


Address from Robert Carter and the other members of the Council of Virginia to Queen Anne, 1707 October 24

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Council Chamber, [Williamsburg, Virginia]
October the 24th
1707
To the Queen's most Excellent Majesty

     We Your Majesty's most dutiful and Loyal Subjects The President and Council of Your
Majesty's Colony and Dominion of Virginia, being deeply Sensible of the great blessings attending
the Long desired Union of England and Scotland, now by Your Majties wise Counsels and Royal endeavors
brought to a happy Conclusion, the Religion, Peace, Trade and safety of Your Subjects of both Kingdoms
being thereby not only secured at present, but likewise the apparent dangers of which History and experience
presented us with a dismal prospect (if those Kingdoms should have fallen again under separate Soveraigns
and interests) being most effectually prevented for the future: Humbly beg Leave upon occasion of this so
universal Joy to offer up our most hearty Congratulations, and withal to assure Your Sacred Majesty that
as we are particularly sensible of Your Majesty's favour and Goodness to Your Plantation Subjects in
enlarging their Trade and Navigation to all the Ports of Great Brittain, we shal reckon it our interest
as well as our Duty, forgetting all National Differences and Divisions heartily to unite in Love to one
another, and in gratitude to Your Sacred Majesty, the Cheif Author under God of this and the other
Signal Blessings all Your Subjects partake of, under Your Majties most prosperous Reign, for the long
continuance whereof we heartily pray.


W [ILLIA] M BASSETT


HEN [RY] DUKE


JOHN SMITH


JOHN LEWIS


W [ILLIAM] CHURCHILL


E [DMUND] JENINGS, Presidt:


DUDLEY DIGGES


BENJA [MIN] HARRISON


ROBERT CARTER


JNO. CUSTIS


JAMES BLAIR


PHIL [IP] LUDWELL

NOTES



Source copy consulted: Carter Family Papers, Virginia Historical Society, Richmond; MSS4V8193a1. This is the recipient's copy bearing original signatures. It was enclosed in a letter, November 6, 1707, from E[dmund] Jenings, the president of the Council, to "My Lord" [the Earl of Sunderland] which is also at the Society.

"On 1 May 1707 England and Scotland (since 1603 a union of crowns) became the 'United Kingdom of GREAT BRITAIN'. The new united kingdom was to be represented by a 'union' flag and governed by a British parliament at Westminster and a shared head of state (with the contentious issue of monarchical succession now settled in favour of the protestant house of Hanover)." ( Alexander Murdoch, "England, Scotland, and the Acts of Union (1707)." Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, http://www.oxforddnb.com/public/themes/96/96282.html, 2008 August 5. )


This text revised August 5, 2008.