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 Dawkins, October 12, 1728

     Robert Carter writes to London merchant William Dawkins, October 12, 1728, to order rugs, blankets, cloth for bedding, and sieves. He suggests to the merchant that he will be willing to own an eighth share in a new ship to be named for himself, and captained by Tom Dove as he is assuming that the Carter will be sold.



Letter from Robert Carter to William Dawkins, October 12, 1728


-1 -

Rappahannock, [Lancaster County, Virginia]     
Octobr. the 12th: 1728

Mr. Wm: Dawkins

Sir --

     The above went Via Bristol this I hope will get
to you time Enough to Send me in the following goods to wit. Twenty
Rugs and Twenty pairs of Blankets more then I have already written
for likewise a hundred Yards of Strong Barras for Bedding & for Clean
ing of Wheat. Twenty rine sieves and Twenty Riddles.

     I believe you'll think it for your Interest to have a Small
Ship here in this river Early for this Crop I Expect the Carter will be Sold I have
bin so indifferently used in her that I have often taken up resolutions
never to be Concerned in any other however taking Tom Dove to be a very
honest fellow and being willing to be a Contributor towards another ship
for him if you will build a new Ship of about 5 or 600 hogsheads and call her after


-2 -


my name to be a Standing Ship for this river I will hold an Eighth in her
this Ship I cant Expect can be got ready for this Crop but may very well
be made an Early Ship against the next to Continue Tom Dove in business
in the mean time if you will think it proper to Send him in a Small Ship
[illegible] Indifferently Early I Should think he cant miss of getting full I will
do him the best Service I can I am


              Your very humble Servt:

per Naylor


NOTES



Source copy consulted: Letter book, 1728 August-1731 July, Robert Carter Papers (acc. no. 3807), Albert and Shirley Small Special Collections Library, University of 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] According to the Oxford English Dictionary, which cites the Draper's Dictionary, barras is "a coarse linen fabric originally imported from Holland."

[2] Probably the clerk meant to write "fine" rather than "rine."

[3] A riddle is "a coarse-meshed sieve, used to separate sand from gravel, ashes from cinders, etc., generally consisting of a circular rim with a base formed of strong wires crossing each other at right angles." ( Oxford English Dictionary Online . Oxford University Press. )

[4] The Rappahannock

[5] Carter sent letters by Captain Naylor of a Liverpool ship in the fall of 1728, but apparently the ship was lost because Carter noted to William Dawkins June 29, 1729 , the ship "hath never been heard of."


This text, originally posted in 2004, was revised January 9, 2015, to strengthen the modern language version text and footnotes.