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 & Company, August 13, 1731

     Robert Carter writes to London merchants William Dawkins & Company, August 13, 1731, to enclose a bill of lading (not present) for a small shipment of tobacco, and to order several books.



Letter from Robert Carter to William Dawkins & Company, August 13, 1731


-1 -

Rappahannock, [Lancaster County, Virginia]

August 13, 1731

Mr. William Dawkins & Com:

Gentlemen

     This by Captain Waff in the Mary incloses a
bill of lading for 6 hogsheads of tobacco 3 of them stemmed of my
crop one of them tobacco I fetched from abroad and stemmed at home
the other two leaf tobacco from abroad I have already dispatched
all my business to you

     At the house of a Friend of mine I had the
sight of some books that I would Willingly have the perusal of vizt
the independent Whig , the Spirit of the Ecclesiasticks of all
Sects and Ages,
by Monsieur Barbeyrac


-2 -


translated from the French with a preface by the Author of the
independent Whigg. The late Earl of Shaftsburys letters to the late
Lord Molsworth concerning the love of ones Country &c. An historical
& Critical Accot of the life and Writings of Mr. William Chillingsworth
Chancellor of Sarum -- . I am far from liking the liberties these free thin.
kers take in their Writings however I have some inclination to read
them & I desire you will send them to me I am


Gentlemen
Your most humble Servt

NOTES



Source copy consulted: Letter book, 1731 July 9-1732 July 13 , 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] Vizt. is the abbreviation for the Latin word "videlicet"; it means "that is to say; namely; to wit: used to introduce an amplification, or more precise or explicit explanation, of a previous statement or word." ( Oxford English Dictionary online. )

[3] The Independent Whig was a "a weekly political sheet" first published in January 1720 and continued for a year by Thomas Gordon and John Trenchard. This material was later gathered together with other writings and published by Gordon as a book, and it may be that book that Carter wanted. ("Significant Scots Thomas Gordon ).

[4] Thomas Gordon. ed. Jean Barbeyrac. The Spirit of the Ecclesiasticks of all Sects and Ages, as to the Doctrines of Morality, and More Particularly the Spirit of the Ancient Fathers of the Church [London: J. Peele, 1722]. (Library of Congress Online Catalog, 5/12/2006.)

[5] Anthony Ashley Cooper, Earl of Shaftesbury. Letters from the Right Honourable the late Earl of Shaftesbury, to Robert Molesworth, Esq. This book was first published in London in 1721.

[6] This probably is Francis Cheynell's Chillingworthi Novissima; or, The Sickness, Heresy, Death and Burial of William Chillingworth (1644) See Wright. "The Literary Interests of the First Carters." p. 53.


This text, originally posted in 2006, was revised February 23, 2016, to add footnotes and strengthen the modern language version text.