A Collection Transcribed
and Digitized
by Edmund Berkeley, Jr.
List of Letters
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Summary
Letter from Robert Carter to John Falconar, July 14, 1729
Robert Carter writes to London merchant John Falconar, July 14, 1729, to order medicines and to increase the quantity of German spa water he had ordered. He reports a violent story that has caused extensive damage to crops.
Letter from Robert Carter to John Falconar,
July 14, 1729
-1
-
Rappa[hannock, Lancaster County, Virginia]
July 14. 1729
Mr John Falconar.
Sir
In my invoice sent you by the Amity
I omitted Some Medicins that I shall want therefore now
inclose a small invoice for them desiring they may Come with the
rest I am grown so In love with the German spaw [water] that instead
of 3 doze bottles of it I desire you to let me have Six doze Capt Wills
Could not get ready to sail with the Fleet I hear he is gone since
pray god send him safe
Last night we had a Violent rain that has
laid all our low grounds Under water and hath done abundance of
Damage to all the Crops hereabouts you will hear more of it hereafter
I am Yr Friend & humble Servt. &ca
NOTES
Source copy consulted:
Robert Carter Letter Book, 1727 April 13-1728 July 23, Carter Family Papers, Virginia Historical Society, Richmond.
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] John Falconar (d. ca.
1729) was a London merchant with whom Carter dealt. In 1728, Falconar and Henry Darnell formed an association of 29 London tobacco merchants to deal with the French tobacco purchasing agent as a group in order to keep the price as high as possible. The association lasted only lasted a year or two before dissolving because some of its members were dealing directly with the French agent and selling below the agreed-upon price. (See Carter's letter to Falconar
of July 24 and August 22, 1727, for details about the payment of £200 to him. See Carter to William Dawkins,
for Falconar's death date. Arthur Pierce Middleton. Tobacco Coast: A Maritime History of the Chesapeake Bay in the Colonial Era.
Newport News, VA: Mariners' Museum, 1953. p. 129
)
[2] Captain Peter Wills commanded the Booth
in 1723-1724, a ship belonging to merchant Thomas Colmore of London (see Carter's letter
to Colmore of January 20 and February 15, 1724), and the Amity,
a vessel of 500 tons and 21 men, in 1727-1729. He is mentioned in Carter's diary in 1723. ( Survey Report 6800 summarizing Adm. 68/194, and Survey Report 6801 summarizing Adm. 68/195, Virginia Colonial Records Project, Albert and Shirley Small Special Collections Library, University of Virginia.
)
This text, originally posted in 2005, was revised April 24, 2015, to strengthen the footnotes and the modern language version text.