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 the Duke Of Newcastle, July 25, 1726

     Robert Carter writes to the Duke Of Newcastle, July 25, 1726, to report the death of the colony's lieutenant governor, Hugh Drysdale, and that the governing of the colony has devolved on him because Drysdale had, before his death, suspended the incapacitated president of the Council, Edmund Jenings.



Letter from Robert Carter to the Duke Of Newcastle, July 25, 1726


-1 -

Virginia   
July the 25th 1726


My Lord

     The much lamented death of Colo Drysdale his
Majestys Lieutenant Governor of this Colony, which happen'd
on the 22d instant, gives occasion to my troubling Yor Grace with
the notification of this Event, whereby His Majesty has lost a
faithful and Zealous Servant, and this Country a good and Just
Ruler.

     He had some time before his death, [been] upon the View of returning to
England for the recovery of his health, [He] Suspended Mr. Jenings the
                                                                                            first


-2 -


first of the Council, because of his incapacity to act as President
or to administer the Government during his absence: a full account of
which Suspension Yor Grace has had transmitted by Colo Drysdale
himself in the Council Journal of the 24th and 25th of last month
to wch I beg leave to refer. By this means the Office of --
President and Commander in Chief of this Dominion in course devolves
on me, untill His Majesty shal be pleased to dispose of the Government
into other hands.

     But as all the publick Acts of Government have been
so lately sent to Yor Grace, I shal add no more to Your present troubles
than the assurance of my constant endevour to promote his Maties
Service, and the profession of that duty & respect with wch I am


My Lord
Yor Grace's
Most dutiful
Most obliged
most obed humble Servant
ROBERT CARTER

NOTES



Source copy consulted: CO5/1337, ff 90, Public Record Office, London, found in the microfilms of the Virginia Colonial Records Project, Albert and Shirley Small Special Collections Library, University of Virginia. This is the recipient's copy, signed by Carter with his usual large and prominent signature.

[1] Thomas Pelham-Holles, the 1st Duke of Newcastle, was Secretary of State in the Walpole government; Richard L. Morton wrote that the duke carried on a policy of "`saluatory neglect' of the colonies which lasted until the Seven Years' War." (Morton. Colonial Virginia. p. 506. )


This text, originally posted in 2003, was revised September 22, 2011, to strengthen the modern language version text.