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 William Camp, October 14, 1727

     Robert Carter writes to William Camp, manager of the affairs of Carter's deceased son-in-law, Nathaniel Burwell, October 14, 1727, advising him that illness will prevent him from coming to Williamsburg as soon as he had planned for the opening of the general court, and giving instructions about the readying of his carriage to meet him when he does come.



Letter from Robert Carter to William Camp, October 14, 1727


-1 -

Corotomn. [Lancaster County, Virginia]

Oct. 14 1727

Wm: Camp

     I am now under a severe distemper with the
gripes & Tormenting pains in My left side which renders me
incapable of going to the first of the general court as I intended
have therefore sent a Messanger to Order Peter back again how

long this Malady may continue upon me god only knows as soo[n]
as I shall be able with safety to leave my home I intend to come to
town but will have Peter meet me at Mrs: Wormeleys to a-
void the plague of getting Over Pyankitanck I will send you
word when I would have the Calash meet me there therefore pr[ay]
have him always in readyness these grievous pains have followd
me all this week especially in the nights allowing me very broken
& little sleep & the last night as bad as any you must be sure
to dispatch away these two packets for the governour & the
Secretary As soon as you can give my respects to Coll: Pages
family I should be glad to hear he is well enough to Get to the first
of the Court


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 county and colony have been added for clarity to the name of his home, "Corotoman."

[1] William Camp (Kemp) was described by Carter as "the General Overseer of Mr Burwell's Affairs" and he wrote that Camp earned a salary "£50 . . . for the year 1731." Carter and his son-in-law, Mann Page, were the trustees of Nathaniel Burwell's children after Burwell's death in 1721. Camp was a resident of Gloucester County where most of the Burwell estates lay, and he must also have supervised "Rippon Hall" in nearby York County. ( Carter to George Braxton, November 20, 1729 , and Carter to William Dawkins, July 11, 1732, and Virginia Tax Records. [Baltimore: Genealogical Publishing Company, Inc., 1983.] p. 539. )

[2] The gripes are "An intermittent spasmodic pain in the bowels. Usually pl., colic pains." ( Oxford English Dictionary online. )

[3] "The governor's Council, also known as the Council of State or simply the Council, consisted of about a dozen of colonial Virginia's wealthiest and most prominent men. Beginning in the 1630s the Crown appointed Council members. . . . Crown appointments were lifetime appointments. From 1625, when Virginia became a royal colony, until the outbreak of the American Revolution (1775-1783), the Council members advised the royal governor or his deputy, the lieutenant governor, on all executive matters. The Council and the governor together constituted the highest court in the colony, known initially as the Quarter Court and later as the General Court. The Council members also served as members of the General Assembly; from the first meeting of the assembly in 1619 until 1643 the governor, Council members, and burgesses all met in unicameral session. After 1643 the Council members met separately as the upper House of the General Assembly." ("The Governor's Council" in Encyclopedia Virginia )

[4] Williamsburg

[5] The Piankatank River lies between the Rappahannock and York rivers and was the boundary in Carter's time between Middlesex and Gloucester counties (as it is today except that Mathews County has been cut off from Gloucester).

[6] A calash was "a kind of light carriage with low wheels, having a removable folding hood or top." ( Oxford English Dictionary online. ).


This text, originally posted in 2004, was revised May 13, 2014, to add footnotes and strengthen the modern language version text.