A Collection Transcribed
and Digitized
by Edmund Berkeley, Jr.
List of Letters
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, University of Virginia Library
Summary
Letter from Robert Carter to Alderman [Micajah] Perry & Company, June 28, 1731
Robert Carter writes to London merchants Alderman [Micajah] Perry & Company, June 28, 1731, to report the details of tobacco shipped on board the Burwell.
Letter from Robert Carter to Alderman [Micajah] Perry
& Company, June 28, 1731
-1
-
Rappahannock, [Lancaster County, Virginia]
June 28. 1731
Alderman Perry & Compa
Sirs,
This is only to enclose some Bills of Lading
to you for
the Tobaco I have shipped on Captain Cant
(to wit) for twenty one
hogsheads of my own Crops, & for ten hogsheads of Mr Burwell's;
four hogsheads of the
NBs are gone in the Micajah & Philip;
they are my own Tobacco
& Doctor Nicholas's
part of that Crop; eight hogsheads of the same
Crop belong to Mr Burwell's Estate & are in the same Ship; there is
thirteen hogsheads more of the Merchant's hundred
Crop in that Ship also.
Bills of Lading are sent away in the Ship. I desire to have separate
Accounts According to the Bills of Lading; they are all stemmed Tobacco
I give you no further Trouble here.
Gentlemen,
Your most humble Servant
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] A bill of lading is "an official detailed receipt given by the master of a merchant vessel to the person consigning the goods, by which he makes himself responsible for their safe delivery to the consignee. This document, being the legal proof of ownership of the goods, is often deposited with a creditor as security for money advanced." ( Oxford English Dictionary Online
. Oxford University Press.
)
[2]The Burwell
was commanded by Captain Constantine Cant and may have been owned by William Dawkins and Micajah Perry as Carter reported her December 1723 arrival to each of them. ( Adm. 68/194-195, found in the microfilms of the Virginia Colonial Records Project, Albert and Shirley Small Special Collections Library, University of Virginia.
)
[3] The Micajah & Philip was a large vessel of some 400 tons carrying a crew of 27. The captain's name varies from record to record as James Bradley or James Bradby. Thomas Jones wrote to his wife, then in England, concerning this ship in 1728, "The Micajah & Philip that comes to James River is as good as the best Ships that Comes hither, but Bradby the master seems to be a little conceited and prodigal." ( Adm. 68/194-196, found in the microfilms of the Virginia Colonial Records Project, Albert and Shirley Small Special Collections Library, University of Virginia
; and Virginia Magazine of History and Biography.
26[1918]: 172, abstracting the Jones Papers at the Library of Congress.
)
[4] Parliament had passed an act forbidding the importation of stemmed tobacco in 1722. John Randolph was sent to England in 1728 as agent for Virginia to try to have the act overturned; his mission was successful, and he was home in the colony by June 2, 1729
, when Carter wrote to welcome him home. ( Arthur Pierce Middleton. Tobacco Coast: A Maritime History of the Chesapeake Bay in the Colonial Era.
[Newport News, VA: Mariners' Museum, 1953], 116.
)
This text, originally posted in 2006, was revised October 9, 2015, to add footnotes and strengthen the modern language version text.