Documenting the American South Logo
Colonial and State Records of North Carolina
Letter from John Seymour to the Board of Trade of Great Britain
Seymour, John, 1649-1709
August 16, 1707
Volume 01, Pages 665-667

[B. P. R. O. B. T. Maryland. Vol: 5. H. 45.]
COLL: SEYMOUR TO THE LORDS OF TRADE.


August 16th 1707.

May it please your Lordships

My last to your honble Board was of the 10th of June last by Capt Edward Ratchbald in the Elizabeth of Liverpoole which I hope ere this has had the good fortune to Kiss your handes, and having therein acquainted

-------------------- page 666 --------------------
your Lordships, that the Proprietary Government of North Carolina had made an Act of Assembly which seemed to be of pernicious consequence to this her Matys more usefull Plantation of Maryland, I have since taken care to procure a Copy of it, which herewith I presume to inclose to your Lordsps and cannot doubt but you will be of opinion, the Encouragement & Protection therein given to the people of this Province (the generality whereof are much indebted to ye Merchts in England & others, & can have no such Expectation of protection here) is an extraordinary inducement to them to desert their Plantations and Cropps here and withdraw themselves where they may live so many years undisturbed which will not a little conduce to the lessening her Majtys Revenue of Tobaccos, if not tymely prevented by your Lordships wisdome, for I assure your Lordships many persons from this Province with their whole familys are of late years removed thither, and purely on that Score.

My Lords at the same time when I lay this, I can but think, necessary as well as true Representation before your honoble Board, I must not omitt doing the Government of Carolina the Justice to informe your Lordsps that upon my application and sending a Sloope in Quest of Richard Clarke and his accomplices, those notorious disturbers of this her Majties Government here, the Deputy Govr and the whole country exprest their utmost Resentment against those Villains as well in words as actions by endeavouring to take Clarke and actually surrendering to the person I sent on this occasion, two of his associates Daniel Wells & Charles Harrison who accompanied him thither and are now both in safe custody in this Province.

Upon Richard Clarkes first going to Carolina he called himself by the name of Robert Garratt; saying he was Sr Nathaniel Johnson's nephew, & pretended to be a Quaker, since which upon his return to this Province where he now is concealed and harboured by many of his Friends he has wrote severall Letters to me under a Quaker stile, sticking them up in the night at outhouses & dropping them in the Roads. In some he sues for pardon offering to discover the ill practices of many of his confederates, and in others he threatens to bring thirty thousand of the French Indians upon the country by Land and to direct the French to bring a Naval Force by water to invade the Province, if he is not pardoned within some small tyme which he is pleased to affix; yet notwithstanding his most equisite villany and the ill principles of many loose, idle persons among us besides the general calamity of Debts and mortgaged Estates for much more than their worth, I doubt not but to preserve

-------------------- page 667 --------------------
what her Majty has been graciously pleased to comitt to my care and conduct (the Peace and Tranquility of this our Province) from any homebred villany or other Forreign attempts and have put the country in the best posture of Defence it is at present capable of, having appointed the Officers of the Militia of the most loyall and ablest of the Inhabitants, and the public stores of arms and ammunition being now (God be thanked) pritty well supplyed and fixed. But I have some satisfaction to heare her Majesty has thought fit to send so good an officer to be my neighbour in Virginia.

The Chiefe of the Quakers here understanding Clarkes practice and that he wrote his letters in their stile, presented me the inclosed address to which I could not in justice do less than make the returne endorsed on the Back thereof.

I dare not presume by this uncertain conveyance to send your Lordsps the Laws and Journalls of Assembly but will not omitt to transmitt them by the first Man of Warr which this Country has long uneasily expected and am with the highest Reguard and duty imaginable My Lords

Your most obedient humble servant
JO: SEYMOUR.

(Endorsed)

Recd 8th Novber 1707.
Read 10th do 1707.