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 Micajah Perry, January 29, 1724

     Robert Carter writes to London merchant Micajah Perry, January 29, 1724, concerning his repayment of the £1,500 that the merchant had advanced and used to purchase the post of Secretary of the colony for Carter's son John.


Letter from Robert Carter to Micajah Perry, January 29, 1724

-1 -

                                      per Fowler          Rappahannock, [Lancaster County, Virginia]
                                      Copy Woodward

Janr. 29th. 1723/4 --

Mr. Micajh. Perry

Sir.

     In yours of the 2d of August You tell me the Method I had
proposed to repay You the fiveteen hundred Pound which You
Advancd for my Son's place, You were contented with. In the
last fleet, I ordered You half the money & in the Next that is by the
Summer Ships, I shall order You the Remainder, & will like=
wise bear the burden of the Charge of his patent , so that I reckon
no Interest will be due to You, although he tells me, he became
obliged to You in two Bonds for the payment of this money, which
in Justice You will think proper to return to him canclled,
The Four hundred pound which I ordered for his Equipage
in the half whereof You have charged me with & the other half
Mr. Dawkins paid to You, I believed was sufficient for those
Expences, & therefore reckon there remains behind no Incum=
=brances upon him, I have endeavored to get into these secrets
but he has always Avoided giving me satisfaction, He
now lives In James river & has not been at my house these
six months past.

     I need not tell You, You want not money of mine in Your
hands from which I reap no benefit to make You amends for the
Money You Advancd for my Sons place, So that my Expectation
as well as my precaution & former resolution, of paying no Inter
=est for this money was Grounded upon a very reasonable founda
=tion,

the other Book





NOTES



Source copy consulted: Robert Carter Letter Book, 1723 July 4-1724 June 11, Carter Family Papers, Virginia Historical Society, Richmond. 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 to the heading on the draft.

[1] Carter had arranged with Perry for the merchant to purchase for £1,500 the post of Secretary of the colony for Carter's son John.


This text, originally posted in 2002, was revised February 14 2011, to strengthen the modern language version text.