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 Richard Hickman, August 7, 1727

     Robert Carter writes to Richard Hickman, August 7, 1727, to have the assistant clerk to the Council add the official seal to 6 military commissions that he sends (not present) and then to forward them by express to Colonel Nathaniel Harrison.



Letter from Robert Carter to Richard Hickman, August 7, 1727


-1 -

Mr. Richd Hickman     [Corotoman, Lancaster County, Virginia]     
Augt the 7th. 1727


Sir --

     Here with I send you Six Military
Commissions Signed ordering you forth with to put the Seal
to them and to Dispatch them away by Express to Colonel --
Harrison
Mr. Robertsons deplorable Condition put me under
the necessity of giving you this trouble in which you must
not fail to be as Expeditious as possible let my Express to Colonel
Harrison go with your Messenger I am


              Sir
                      Yor: most humble Servant

NOTES



Source copy consulted: Robert Carter letter book, 1727 May-1728 July, Robert Carter Papers (acc. no. 3807), Albert and Shirley Small Special Collections Library, University of Virginia.

The name of Carter's home, the county, and colony have been added for clarity to this unheaded draft.

[1] Richard Hickman (d. 1732) had been deputy clerk of Middlesex County in 1709. After Governor Hugh Drysdale's death, the Council appointed him to manage the Governor's house and its gardens. His name appears a number of times in the Council minutes as he was the doorkeeper, and as he took out land patents. From Carter's letter to William Robertson July 15, 1727, in which he complains that "Mr. Hickman is very dilatory with his probatted Administrations," it seems that Hickman must have done other work for the colonial government. (Edward W. James. "Libraries in Colonial Virginia." William and Mary Quarterly. 3[1,#4, Apr. 1895]:248-51 for Hickman's inventory recorded 1732 May 15 listing many books; "Notes from the Journal of the House of Burgesses, 1712-1726." William and Mary Quarterly. 21[1,#4, April 1913]:257 mentions his being Council doorkeeper; "Notes from the Journal of the House of Burgesses, 1727-1734, William and Mary Quarterly. 22[1, #1, July 1913]:54,56-58, mentions his being clerk of the Committee of Propositions and Grievances; and McIlwaine. Executive Journals of the Council. . . . , 4[1721-1739]:114. )

[2] William Robertson, clerk of the Council, had broken his leg and his life had been in jeopardy.


This text, originally posted in 2003, was revised October 25, 2013, to strengthen the footnotes and modern language version text.