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



Letter from Robert Carter to John Pemberton, September 30, 1723

     Robert Carter writes to Liverpool merchant John Pemberton, September 30, 1723, to order 12 dozen "Mens Irish Stockings" to be added to those he has already ordered. He notes that he will send 20 or 30 hogsheads by Captain Eaton if he can get it ready quickly, and will send "at least 30 more" in the Content, hoping that the new act of Parliament will drive up prices for stemmed tobacco that reaches market before it goes into effect.



Letter from Robert Carter to John Pemberton, September 30, 1723


-1 -

Rappahannock, [Lancaster County, Virginia]
Septr. the 30th: 1723
Mr. Jno: Pemberton

     The only business of this is to Desire you to send
me in Twelve Dozen of Mens Irish Stockings. I am afraid I
shall want them I mean so many more besides what I have
Already written to you for, Captain Eaton lies in Potomac to fill
up with new tobacco he hath promised to take me in 20 or


-2 -


30 hhds: if I can get it ready for him in time an [ . . . ]
to send at least 30 more in the Content in hopes [that the?]
new Act of Parliament will give A rise to all the St [emd]
tobacco that can be got home before the Law Commences
[I] have already advised you there is but a poor Crop made
this Year I am Sr


Your very humble Servt:

NOTES



Source copy consulted: Robert Carter letter book, 1723 June 16-1724 April 23, Robert Carter Papers (acc. no. 3807), Albert and Shirley Small Special Collections Library, University of Virginia. There is a nineteenth-century transcript of this letter in the Minor-Blackford Papers, James Monroe Law Office and Museum, Fredericksburg, Virginia.

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.

[1] Parliament had passed an act forbidding the importation of stemmed tobacco in 1722. John Randolph was sent to England in 1729 as agent for Virginia to try to have the act overturned; his mission would be successful. ( Arthur Pierce Middleton. Tobacco Coast: A Maritime History of the Chesapeake Bay in the Colonial Era. [Newport News, VA: Mariners' Museum, 1953], 116. )


This text revised November 16, 2010.