Robert King Carter's Correspondence and Diary

   A Collection Transcribed
        and Digitized
   by Edmund Berkeley, Jr.


List of Letters | About This Collection

Electronic Text Center , University of Virginia Library


Summary


1720 July 13
Letter from Robert Carter to John King, 1720 July 13

     Robert Carter writes to Bristol merchant John King, July 13,1720, chiefly concerning 120 hogsheads of tobacco that a ship'scaptain had planned to deliver to his owners rather than to themechant to whom Carter had directed them; that merchant had died.Carter plans to take action in Virginia against the captain. He addsthat he hopes to ship some tobacco to King on Captain Stratton'sship, and that he has drawn a bill of exchange on King to JosephBelfield.



Letter from Robert Carter to John King, July 13, 1720


-1 -

Rappahannock, [LancasterCounty, Virginia]

July 13. 1720.

Mr. John King

Sir --

     I heard Yesterday Darracott was got safehome I
hope erethis Captain Sweet's Ship is at herPort also & that You
havelaid hold of my 10 hogsheads of Tobacco in her according to a former
order I Sent You, If The owners does refusd [sic] to Deliver It [to] You
pray advise me of It by the first opportunity that Imay take
proper Measures with Sweet here, Captain Stratton athis
coming in wrote to me about Some Freight he lies so far
Above me I cannot tell whether IShall get any to
him Altho [sic] I Shall have Tobacco left behind,Yesterday I
Drew on you for £10 to Doctr. Belfield which I desire You
topay which Shall be all at present from


Sir Your humble Servant

NOTES



Source copy consulted: Robert CarterLetter Book, 1720 July-1721 July, BR 227, Huntington Library, ArtCollections, and Botanical Gardens, San Marino, California. Printed:Wright. Letters of Robert Carter. . .. pp. 18-19.

Robert Carter generally used a return address of"Rappahannock" for the river on which he lived rather than"Corotoman," the name of his home, on his correspondence, especiallyto merchants abroad. The county and colony have been added forclarity.

[1] Carter mentions a Captain Darracott in letters of1720 and 1721 to Bristol mechant John King, and a Captain JohnDarracott's wife, Cecilia, died in 1737 and was buried at the home ofher father, William Massie Massey), of New Kent County.( "Personal Notices From the Virginia Gazette," William and Mary Quarterly , 1st. ser., 5(April 1897):242; "John Darracott of Hanover Co., Va.& his wives." Darracott Family Genealogy Forum on Genealogy.comat http://genforum.genealogy.com/darracott/messages/38.html examined5/12/2010; and "Massie Family," ibid. , 1st. ser., 13(January 1905): 202-3. )

[2] Joseph Stetton, captain of the Bristol ship, Prince Eugene, was accused in August 1721 ofhaving traded with pirates in Madagascar. Money that he was accusedof receiving from the pirates was seized in Virginia and held untilMarch 1722 when word was received that he had been acquitted in atrial in England. (McIlwaine. ExecutiveJournals of the Council. . . . , 3[1705-1721]: p. 550; and4[1721-1739], p. 10. )


This text revised November 25,2008, and again May 12, 2010.