Letter from Robert Carter to Thomas Evans, February 23, 1721

   A Collection Transcribed
        and Digitized
   by Edmund Berkeley, Jr.

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Summary

Letter from Robert Carter to Thomas Evans, February 23, 1721

Robert Carter writes to London merchant Thomas Evans, February 23, 1721, asking him to take over management of his three young sons, Robert, Landon, and Charles, then in England for their education, from William Dawkins with whom he has quarrelled.

Letter from Robert Carter to Thomas Evans, February 23, 1721

-1 -
Rappahannock, [Lancaster County, Virginia]

Feb. 23. 1720/21

Mr. Thos. Evans

I have already answered Yors. that accompanied
the shoes You sent me, The occasion of this is about my Children
under Mr. Dawkins's Care. he and I have had severe quarrels
about them, he's of Such a testy Waspish nature & so over
=grown with the Conceit of his greatness that I cannot bear it
In so much that I have ordered my Son to remove them
from him and to place them under Your care, not in the least
Doubting You'l be so far from counting It a trouble
that you will look upon It as a mark of my respects, the master
they are with is a good man & i am told has improved them
considerably in their Learning I would by no means have
them taken from that School, he's a dissenter indeed
but I have ordered them to be brought up in the Church of England
way, And so I know they are, I have already Your opinion
about their being sent to the Manchester School but I am
quite off of that Design now and resolve to Struggle the
best I can with the charge they will put me to in the keeping them
So near London, You must be as good a husband for me as you
may with Decency. the rest I shall leave to Your prudence
& am

Sir
Your very humble Servant

NOTES

Source copy consulted: Robert Carter Letter Book, 1720 July-1721 July, BR 227, Huntington Library, Art Collections, and Botanical Gardens, San Marino, California. Printed: Wright. Letters of Robert Carter. . . . pp. 83-84.

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, especially to merchants abroad. The county and colony have been added for clarity.

This letter was sent "open" in a letter to Carter's son John so that John could deliver it to Evans if the quarrel with William Dawkins could not be rectified (see Carter to John Carter, February 23, 1721) and probably was never delivered. See also a later letter to John, March 3, 1721, in which Carter writes that he has reconsidered the matter.

[1] Carter undoubtedly knew of the Manchester Grammar School, in 1721 already over 200 years old.

This text revised March 26, 2009.